| List of Illustrations | viii |
| Preface | ix |
| 1 | Introduction | 1 |
| Pivotal Cases for Software IP Protection | 1 |
| Turning Points for Biotech IP Policy | 4 |
| The Policy Debate | 5 |
| Notes | 8 |
| 2 | An Overview of the Economics of Intellectual Property Protection | 11 |
| A Review of IPR Theory | 13 |
| Some Classical Theory: Information Property Rights Increase Innovation | 13 |
| Some Recent Theory: Strong Patents Can Erect Barriers | 17 |
| The Empirical IPR Literature | 20 |
| Do Strong Patents Spur Innovation? | 20 |
| Do Patents Increase Information Disclosure? | 24 |
| Do Patents Increase Technology Transfer? | 26 |
| Do Patents Increase Commercial Development? | 29 |
| Do Patents Increase Economic Development? | 31 |
| The Crucial Role of Data and Measurement | 35 |
| Conclusions | 37 |
| Notes | 39 |
| 3 | Software Patents: Good News or Bad News? | 45 |
| Patents and Innovation | 46 |
| The Historical Development of the Computer Software Industry | 49 |
| The Evolution of Intellectual Property Rights Policy and Practice in the U.S. Software Industry | 52 |
| Copyright | 52 |
| Patent | 53 |
| Patenting Trends in the U.S. Software Industry, 1987-2003 | 56 |
| Software-Related Patenting by Packaged Software and Electronic Systems Firms, 1987-2003 | 62 |
| Changes in the "Patent Propensity" of Packaged-Software Firms, 1987-2003 | 65 |
| Patent Quality Issues | 69 |
| Conclusion | 73 |
| Notes | 76 |
| 4 | Designing Optimal Software Patents | 81 |
| Software Patents | 82 |
| Disclosure | 82 |
| Obviousness | 84 |
| Patent Scope | 86 |
| Software Innovation | 89 |
| Optimal Patent Design | 91 |
| Institutional Competence | 95 |
| Legislative Competence | 96 |
| Judicial Competence | 98 |
| Agency Competence | 99 |
| Conclusion | 100 |
| Notes | 101 |
| 5 | State Street Meets the Human Genome Project: Intellectual Property and Bioinformatics | 109 |
| Patenting Activity in Bioinformatics | 111 |
| Gene Patent Issues Revisited? | 112 |
| Implications of State Street | 114 |
| Challenges Posed by a Frontier Technology | 115 |
| Assessing the Impact | 117 |
| Economic Context | 119 |
| Open Source Biology | 121 |
| Conclusion | 124 |
| Notes | 126 |
| 6 | "Open and Collaborative" Research: A New Model for Biomedicine | 131 |
| The Open and Collaborative Model in Context | 134 |
| Innovation in Biopharmaceuticals | 134 |
| Vertical "Dis-Integration" and Calls for Access | 135 |
| Beyond Access: Open and Collaborative Research | 136 |
| The Open Source Model | 137 |
| Open and Collaborative Biomedical Research | 140 |
| Open and Collaborative Biomedical Research: A Critical Evaluation | 145 |
| Open Source Bioinformatics Software | 145 |
| Open and Collaborative Databases | 147 |
| Wet-Lab Biology | 148 |
| Conclusion | 151 |
| Notes | 153 |
| 7 | Does Open Source Have Legs? | 159 |
| Background | 159 |
| Open Source and the Tradeoffs Associated with R & D Information Flows | 162 |
| Why Else in Software? | 164 |
| Can Open Source Methods Be Applied to Biomedical Research? | 166 |
| Should Open Source Methods Be Applied to Biomedicine? | 168 |
| Alternatives | 170 |
| Discussion | 171 |
| Notes | 173 |
| Index | 177 |
| About the Authors | 185 |
