Recent scholarship has begun to assess the role of intellectual property rights in the theory of the Coasean firm. Some of this scholarship has looked at the effects of intellectual property on decisions to "make or buy" inputs to production. Other scholarship has looked at the effects of...

Recent years have seen a remarkable increase in patents in the field of information, communication and entertainment (ICE) technology and biotechnology. The growth of patents in those areas has triggered serious concern about access to ICE and genome related inventions, as the rise of patents...

In the delicate interaction between intellectual property and public interest, two antinomian questions come to the fore. The first question is to what extent patent law guarantees public interest, contributes to public interest or, on the contrary, limits public interest. The second question is...

A variety of commentators have called for the increased application of liability rules, including compulsory licenses, to intellectual property. Such arguments are well taken, but unfortunately stop short of advocating the full range of potential intellectual property entitlement allocations....

The traditional view of innovation, which implies that companies innovate on their own, has been recently challenged by the 'open' innovation concept promoting the use of external knowledge. Collaboration between firms has always existed in one way or another, however, large-scale open...

Concerns have been raised that the upsurge of 3D printing technology would disrupt the patent system. The central question the present paper aims to address is whether and to what extent the emergence of 3D printing technology indeed urges us to rethink patent law. The paper splits up this...

Concerns have been expressed that gene patents might result in restricted access to research and health care. The exponential growth of patents claiming human DNA sequences might result in patent thickets, royalty stacking and, ultimately, a ‘tragedy of the anti-commons’ in genetics. The...

Upon request of the Netherlands Minister of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality a study has been conducted into the future of plant breeding in the light of developments around plant breeder’s rights and patent rights. The following questions were formulated: Present a review of the trends in...

The present paper explores the multi-layered relationship between plant patents, the right to food and competition law. The present contribution takes the view that the growing tendency to appropriate agricultural crops through intellectual property (IP) – thereby making a pivotal shift from...

Setting up a new business may be really tough. Let's assume you want to produce and market DVD-players. You can not ignore the fact that the DVD technology is protected with patents. More than 850 patents owned by some 10 patent holders around the world, such as Philips, Sony, Toshiba, Hitachi,...