Seeking the Patent Truth: Patents Can Provide Justice and Funding for Inventors

Invention and innovation are key components of creative destruction, and for many decades most economists who studied patents believed that patents encouraged invention and innovation. More recently, however, many distinguished and thoughtful scholars and policy analysts have doubted that patents encourage invention and innovation. The great fact is not just a historical curiosity because most people would like to see it continue and accelerate, so it is important to seek out the patent truth. To answer several patent questions, the author begins by examining arguments from ethics and economics, evaluated in the light of historical and contemporary evidence. Next he provides historical narratives of how patent systems have worked well in the past and have stopped working well in the US in recent decades. Finally, he discusses possible government policy reforms and private entrepreneurial institutional innovations that may create a better patent system in the future.