Chapter Thirteen. Intellectual Property, Information Technology, Biomedical Research, and Marketing of Patented Products

Intellectual property rights are viewed as essential to medical innovation, but very often involve social costs due to patent monopolies and other inefficiencies. We review the positive theory of innovation in health care, as it relates to the determination of innovation demand and supply. The positive theory is related to a host of competing normative models of intellectual property, including patent races, cumulative or sequential innovation, and the implications of health insurance. We also discuss how intellectual property can be used to solve a variety of production externalities that afflict health care, including network externalities, underprovision of marketing, and inefficient provision of diagnostic information. Finally, we discuss novel approaches to protecting intellectual property, including rewards, innovation subsidies, and publicly provided health insurance.