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Do Patents Invent Innovation?

They’re a common index of technological creativity, but research finds they can impede rather than encourage it

Paris hosted a world’s fair in 1900: the Exposition Universelle. Image: Library of Congress

Eryn Brown
Knowable Magazine
Wed, 06/20/2018 - 12:02
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In ancient times, the story goes, cooks in the city of Sybaris were granted yearlong monopolies for the sale of unique dishes they created. Since then, generations of inventors have relied on patents to discourage copycats from stealing their best ideas. Economists, in turn, have tallied up patents to try to measure innovation (an otherwise squishy concept to define and assess), which has long been tied to economic growth. Certainly, the thinking went, protecting inventors’ work must encourage new ideas in the marketplace.

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But counting patents can lead researchers astray, argues New York University economist Petra Moser. In the 2016 article, “Patents and Innovation in Economic History,” Moser explained why, writing that in some cases patents actually squelch innovation rather than stoking it.

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Comments

Submitted by Alan Metzel on Wed, 06/20/2018 - 11:27

Patent history has been made

Oddly enough, yesterday, June 19th, 2018, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office issued the 10 millionth U.S. patent to Joe Marron of Raytheon for “Coherent Ladar Using Intra-Pixel Quadrature Detection.”  In recognition of that milestone, the patent office has redesigned the patent cover.

It took 75 years to issue the first million patents, about 3 years for the last million.

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