 BUSINESS AND FINANCIAL METHOD PATENTS, INNOVATION, AND POLICYScottish Journal of Political Economy, 2009, vol. 56, issue 4, 443-473 Abstract: Court decisions in the 1990s are widely viewed as having opened the door to a flood of business method and financial patents at the US Patent and Trademark Office, and to have also impacted other patent offices around the world. A number of scholars, both legal and economic, have critiqued both the quality of these patents and the decisions themselves. This paper reviews the history of business method and financial patents briefly and then explores what economists know about the relationship between the patent system and innovation, in order to draw some tentative conclusions about their likely impact. It concludes by finding some consensus in the literature about the problems associated with this particular expansion of patentable subject matter, highlighting the remaining areas of disagreement, and reviewing the various policy recommendations. Date: 2009 Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:scotjp:v:56:y:2009:i:4:p:443-473 Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from Access Statistics for this article Scottish Journal of Political Economy is currently edited by Tim Barmby, Andrew Hughes-Hallett and Campbell Leith More articles in Scottish Journal of Political Economy from Scottish Economic Society Contact information at EDIRC. |
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