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57 records from EconBiz based on author Name
1. Procuring Knowledge
abstractThere is growing public interest in alternatives to intellectual property including, but not limited to, prizes and government grants. We argue that there is no single best mechanism for supporting research. Rather, mechanisms can only be compared within specific creative environments. We collect various historical and contemporary examples of alternative incentives, and relate them to models of the creative process. We give an explanation for why federally funded R&D has moved from an intramural activity to largely a grant process. Finally, we observe that much research is supported by a hybrid system of public and private sponsorship, and explain why this makes sense in some circumstances
Maurer, Stephen M.; Scotchmer, Suzanne;2021
Availability: Link
2. Open Source Software : The New Intellectual Property Paradigm
abstractOpen source methods for creating software rely on developers who voluntarily reveal code in the expectation that other developers will reciprocate. Open source incentives are distinct from earlier uses of intellectual property, leading to different types of inefficiencies and different biases in R&D investment. Open source style of software development remedies a defect of intellectual property protection, namely, that it does not generally require or encourage disclosure of source code. We review a considerable body of survey evidence and theory that seeks to explain why developers participate in open source collaborations instead of keeping their code proprietary, and evaluates the extent to which open source may improve welfare compared to proprietary development
Maurer, Stephen M.; Scotchmer, Suzanne;2021
Availability: Link
3. Profit Neutrality in Licensing : The Boundary between Antitrust Law and Patent Law
abstractFor over a century, courts and commentators have struggled to find principles that reconcile patent and antitrust law, especially as to patent licensing. We interpret case law and commentary to arrive at three unifying principles for acceptable terms of license. Profit neutrality' holds that patent rewards should not depend on the rightholder's ability to work the patent himself. Derived reward' holds that the patent holder's profits should be earned, if at all, from the social value created by the invention. Minimalism' holds that licensing contracts should not contain more restrictions than are necessary to achieve neutrality. We argue that these principles largely rationalize important decisions of the twentieth century. They also justify the Supreme Court's controversial General Electric decision, which holds that patentholders can set prices charged by their licensees
Maurer, Stephen M.; Scotchmer, Suzanne;2021
Availability: Link
4. Industry self-governance and national security : on the private control of dual use technologies
abstractPrivate sector firms frequently sell dual use products that can be used to develop either civilian goods or weapons of mass destruction. The global character of these markets makes traditional regulation and treaty solutions difficult. Some existing initiatives by manufacturers have established private regulations that are stronger than official US policy. This paper explores the economic conditions that make such strong, industry-wide agreements stable. We assume two risks due to the dual use nature. First, upstream firms face legal liability if their products lead to a disaster. Second, a disaster may produce regulatory backlash, i.e. excessive government regulation that make downstream production prohibitive costly. We find that regulatory backlash is never an adequate substitute for perfect (i.e. full) liability and even makes the situation worse. Second, industry regulation enforced by downstream firms and optimal regulation converge when the downstream firms have strong market power. Next, we analyze when and why large downstream firms are able to force their preference for high levels of regulation on upstream suppliers. Finally we show that upstream incumbents may be able to deter entry in adopting a high regulatory standard.
Engelhardt, Sebastian von; Maurer, Stephen M.;2012
Availability: Link
5. Digital Publishing : Three Futures (and How to Get There)
abstractThe usual assumption that copyright rewards creativity is a fiction. In practice, most authors earn very little compared to their publishers. This article asks what services, if any, publishers supply to justify these payments. We argue that the only reasonable candidate is search, i.e. finding worthwhile titles among the million or so books written each year. For most of the 20th Century, there was just one search technology: Human judgment. This led to a complex ecosystem of editors, bookstore owners, reviewers and other middlemen. The difference in the 21st Century is the emergence of a second technology – “Big Data” – that could make traditional methods obsolete. But in that case what new institutions will implement it? Depending on how Big Data evolves, we can anticipate three futures. In the first, the technology never advances much beyond its existing capabilities so that current institutions continue in something like their present form. We argue that is already an improvement over mid-20th Century publishing. At the same time, the advent of e-readers allows new forms of price discrimination that could significantly improve economic efficiency. Judges should reform the Second Circuit's Apple decision to make this happen.More powerful “Big Data” technologies will force deeper changes. These will almost certainly start with massive vertical integration. Our second future analyzes the case where today's dominant on-line retailers continue expanding up- and downstream. Despite obvious concerns, we argue that clearing away costly middlemen will almost certainly improve social welfare on net. We also consider an alternate future in which today's dominant publishers preempt retailers by creating an open search platform. Taking search outside traditional proprietary models can radically improve consumer welfare, but only if legislators are prepared to make correspondingly large adjustments to copyright law. Finally, we ask which of our three futures is most likely. We argue that Big Data algorithms are inherently voracious, so that the future belongs to whichever institutions collect the biggest and most useful datasets. We identify the conditions under which proprietary solutions can outperform open source and vice versa. The article concludes by asking what judges and policymakers should do to create a level playing field so that the most efficient institutions really do emerge if and when technology makes them possible
Maurer, Stephen M.;2017
Availability: Link Link
6. On the shoulders of giants : colleagues remember Suzanne Scotchmer's contributions to economics
abstractThis book presents eleven classic papers by the late Professor Suzanne Scotchmer with introductions by leading economists and legal scholars. This book introduces Scotchmer's life and work; analyses her pioneering contributions to the economics of patents and innovation incentives, with a special focus on the modern theory of cumulative innovation; and describes her pioneering work on law and economics, evolutionary game theory, and general equilibrium/club theory. This book also provides a self-contained introduction to students who want to learn more about the various fields that Professor Scotchmer worked in, with a particular focus on patent incentives and cumulative innovation
Scotchmer, Suzanne; Maurer, Stephen M.;2017
Availability: Link
7. Self-governance in science : community-based strategies for managing dangerous knowledge
abstractCommercial and academic communities use private rules to regulate everything from labor conditions to biological weapons. This self-governance is vital in the twenty-first century, where private science and technology networks cross so many borders that traditional regulation and treaty solutions are often impractical. Self-Governance in Science analyzes the history of private regulation, identifies the specific market factors that make private standards stable and enforceable, explains what governments can do to encourage responsible self-regulation, and asks when private power might be legitimate. Unlike previous books which stress sociology or political science perspectives, Maurer emphasizes the economic roots of private power to deliver a coherent and comprehensive account of recent scholarship. Individual chapters present a detailed history of past self-government initiatives, describe the economics and politics of private power, and extract detailed lessons for law, legitimacy theory, and public policy
Maurer, Stephen M.;2017
Availability: Link
Citations: 23 (based on OpenCitations)
8. The new self-governance : a theoretical framework
Maurer, Stephen M.;2017
Type: Aufsatz in Zeitschrift; Article in journal;
Availability: Link
Citations: 3 (based on OpenCitations)
9. On the shoulders of giants : colleagues remember Suzanne Scotchmer's contributions to economics
abstract"This book presents eleven classic papers by the late Professor Suzanne Scotchmer with introductions by leading economists and legal scholars. This book introduces Scotchmer's life and work; analyses her pioneering contributions to the economics of patents and innovation incentives, with a special focus on the modern theory of cumulative innovation; and describes her pioneering work on law and economics, evolutionary game theory, and general equilibrium/club theory. This book also provides a self-contained introduction to students who want to learn more about the various fields that Professor Scotchmer worked in, with a particular focus on patent incentives and cumulative innovation"--
Maurer, Stephen M.; Scotchmer, Suzanne;2017
Type: Festschrift; Gedächtnisschrift
Availability: Link
10. Intellectual Property Incentives : Economics and Policy Implications
abstractClassical proofs for the efficiency of markets do not extend to information goods. Economists have worked since the 1960s to construct sophisticated microeconomic framework for analyzing when intellectual property (“IP”) rights benefit to society. This chapter reviews IP theory's main findings and asks how well they have been implemented in US law. Section III begins by reviewing how IP mediates the benefits of faster innovation against the burden of monopoly. It then shows why IP is generally less efficient when multiple firms compete and how shrewd reforms could improve the tradeoff. Finally, it explores extended models in which ideas for R&D investments are scarce so that IP incentives must coordinate contributions by firms that may not know of each others' existence. Section III asks how well legislators and judges have incorporated these insights into everyday patent, antitrust, and copyright law. Section IV presents a brief conclusion
Maurer, Stephen M.;2016
Availability: Link