Economic theory views patents as policy instruments aimed at fostering innovation and diffusion. Three major implications are drawn regarding current policy debates. First, patents may not be the most effective means of protection for inventors to recover R&D investments when imitation is costly...

La teoría económica, al considerar que las patentes son instrumentos de política pública para fomentar la innovación y la difusión de la tecnología, conduce principalmente a tres conclusiones. En primer lugar, las patentes no tienen por qué ser siempre el medio de protección más eficaz...

Cet article propose une réflexion générale sur le système des brevets. Trois questions sont d'abord examinées : 1. Le brevet favorise-t-il l'innovation ? 2. La propriété intellectuelle est-elle comparable aux autres formes de propriété ? 3. La protection par le brevet est-elle...

The paper investigates the choice of a licensing mechanism by the holder of a patent whose validity may be challenged. Focusing fi…rst on weak patents, i.e. patents that have a high probability of being invalidated by a court if challenged, we show that the patent holder fi…nds it optimal to...

Book's Review:Louis Kaplow, Competition Policy and Price Fixing, Princeton University Press, Princeton and Oxford, 2013

The contemporary tensions between patents and competition no longer reside in the traditional trade-off between the exclusionary right given to an inventor to encourage innovation, and the welfare loss induced by the market power associated to this right. They rather result from three important...

In this paper the authors argue that the contemporary tensions between patents and competition no longer reside in the traditional trade-off between the exclusionary right given to an inventor to encourage innovation, and the welfare loss induced by the market power associated to this right....

The Relations Between Science and Technology: what Implications for Public Policy? This article proposes an analysis of the science-technology interactions. The first part is historical and focuses on the transformations that resulted from the passage of a prescriptive knowledge (techniques) to...

This paper explores a licensor's choice between charging a per-unit royalty or a …fixed fee when her innovation is covered by a weak patent, i.e. a patent that is likely to be invali- dated by a court if challenged. Using a general model where the nature of competition is not speci…ed, we show...

Ce chapitre est consacré aux aspects microéconomiques de l'innovation. La première partie détaille les mécanismes élémentaires qui poussent les entreprises à innover et les freins à leur effort quand l'appropriation des résultats n'est pas parfaite. La deuxième partie présente la...