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An economic analysis of unilateral refusals to license intellectual property
- Source :
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 93(23)
- Publication Year :
- 1996
-
Abstract
- The intellectual property laws in the United States provide the owners of intellectual property with discretion to license the right to use that property or to make or sell products that embody the intellectual property. However, the antitrust laws constrain the use of property, including intellectual property, by a firm with market power and may place limitations on the licensing of intellectual property. This paper focuses on one aspect of antitrust law, the so-called “essential facilities doctrine,” which may impose a duty upon firms controlling an “essential facility” to make that facility available to their rivals. In the intellectual property context, an obligation to make property available is equivalent to a requirement for compulsory licensing. Compulsory licensing may embrace the requirement that the owner of software permit access to the underlying code so that others can develop compatible application programs. Compulsory licensing may undermine incentives for research and development by reducing the value of an innovation to the inventor. This paper shows that compulsory licensing also may reduce economic efficiency in the short run by facilitating the entry of inefficient producers and by promoting licensing arrangements that result in higher prices.
- Subjects :
- Motivation
Multidisciplinary
Property (philosophy)
Research
Context (language use)
ComputingMilieux_LEGALASPECTSOFCOMPUTING
Intellectual property
Intangible property
Intellectual Property
United States
Colloquium Paper
Public property
Costs and Cost Analysis
Humans
Business
Market power
Essential facilities doctrine
License
Licensure
Law and economics
Subjects
Details
- ISSN :
- 00278424
- Volume :
- 93
- Issue :
- 23
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....aaf7eda75ca201adb206390a93e8434c