Damages and Injunctions in the Protection of Proprietary Research Tools
Abstract
Profit on proprietary research tools is determined partly by the remedies for infringement, such as damages and injunctions. We investigate how damages under a liability rule and the opportunity for injunctions under a property rule can affect the incentives to develop research tools. We show that the prevailing legal doctrine of damages under liability rule, called lost profit or reasonable royalty, suffers from a logical circularity which leads to an indeterminacy in permissible damages. This can create insufficient incentives to develop research tools. Incentives can be improved either by a property rule with injunctions or by a liability rule under the doctrine of unjust enrichment.Download Info
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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 7086.Length:
Date of creation: Apr 1999
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:7086
Note: PR LE
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Keywords:Find related papers by JEL classification:
- K0 - Law and Economics - - General
This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:
- NEP-ALL-1999-05-03 (All new papers)
- NEP-LAW-1999-05-03 (Law & Economics)
References
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- Green, J.R. & Scotchmer, S., 1993.
"On the Division of Profit in Sequential Innovation,"
Harvard Institute of Economic Research Working Papers
1638, Harvard - Institute of Economic Research.
- Jerry R. Green & Suzanne Scotchmer, 1995. "On the Division of Profit in Sequential Innovation," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 26(1), pages 20-33, Spring.
- Suzanne Scotchmer, 1996. "Protecting Early Innovators: Should Second-Generation Products Be Patentable?," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 27(2), pages 322-331, Summer.
- Jean O. Lanjouw & Josh Lerner, 1996. "Preliminary Injunctive Relief: Theory and Evidence from Patent Litigation," NBER Working Papers 5689, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
- Suzanne Scotchmer, 1991. "Standing on the Shoulders of Giants: Cumulative Research and the Patent Law," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 5(1), pages 29-41, Winter.
Citations
Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.Cited by:
- Adam B. Jaffe, 1999.
"The U.S. Patent System in Transition: Policy Innovation and the Innovation Process,"
NBER Working Papers
7280, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
- Jaffe, Adam B., 2000. "The U.S. patent system in transition: policy innovation and the innovation process," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 29(4-5), pages 531-557, April.
- Nagaoka, Sadao, 2005.
"Determinants of high-royalty contracts and the impact of stronger protection of intellectual property rights in Japan,"
Journal of the Japanese and International Economies,
Elsevier, vol. 19(2), pages 233-254, June.
- Sadao Nagaoka, 2004. "Determinants of high-royalty contracts and the impact of stronger protection of intellectual property rights in Japan," Hi-Stat Discussion Paper Series d04-60, Institute of Economic Research, Hitotsubashi University.
- Alexandre Almeida & Aurora A.C. Teixeira, 2007. "Does Patenting negatively impact on R&D investment?An international panel data assessment," FEP Working Papers 255, Universidade do Porto, Faculdade de Economia do Porto.
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