Introduction to A Modern Guide to Patents

Nikolaus Thumm and Knut Blind

A chapter in A Modern Guide to Patents, 2025, pp 1-18 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: Innovation and technical progress owe a lot to the patent system. The patent system enables innovation by encouraging, protecting, and rewarding inventors and, later, through disclosure, enabling other inventors to build on the foundations already established. Patents are a regulatory instrument that incentivizes and rewards those who take risks to invest in research and development. A properly functioning patent regime is a resilient and flexible system able to cope with present and future challenges. The success of the patent system depends on its specific regulatory features and how it is applied in practice. This book's analysis draws on the expertise of well-known international experts in the field of patenting, both from academia and business practice in various industries. It is unique and complementary in its feature of combining academic and policy perspectives with practitioners’ expertise. The different topics, samples, and use cases provided throughout the chapters of this book intend to illustrate the continuous change in the use, its application, and the changing regulatory environment of the patent system. The patent system is an established intellectual property rights system that, despite its long-lasting trajectory, does not necessarily require an overall reorganization to suit the environment of the 21st century. Instead, the system should be subject to a continued process of regulatory reform and fine-tuning to cope with the challenges of the 21st century. The samples provided throughout the chapters of this book intend to illustrate this process.

Keywords: Patent system; Patents as a regulatory instrument; Changing regulatory environment; Chain of knowledge creation and distribution (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
ISBN: 9781035308590
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