Against Intellectual Monopoly

http://www.patentlysilly.com (all accessed February 24,
2008) should keep you amused if not frightened.

    19. Quillen, Webster, and Eichmann (2002).
    20. Ibid., pp. 50-51.
    21. Gallini and Scotchmer (2001).
    22. Kingston (2001) p. 32.
    23. Patent renewal schemes are discussed in Cornelli and Schankerman (1999) and
Scotchmer (1999).
    24. See http://www.supremecourtus.gov/opinions/02pdf/01-618.pdf (accessed February 24, 2008).
    25. Lessig (2004). See especially the chapter "Registration and Renewal" in the public
domain version at http://www.authorama.com (accessed February 24, 2008).
    26. Landes and Posner (2003).
    27. Mildly good legal news seem also to be coming from the European courts, which
have started to rule against some of the most preposterous requests to treat any form
of music downloading as theft, even when intended only for personal use and with
no commercial purposes. For the Spanish and Italian court rulings see, for example,
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/ 11 /03/spanish_judge_says_downloadinglegal/
(accessed February24, 2008), and http://www.repubblica.it/2006/10/sezioni/cronaca/
cassazione-3/lecito-scaricare-file/lecito-scaricare-file.html (accessed February 24,
2008).
    28. The debate between economists and others over slavery is discussed at some length
in Levy and Peart (2001). In addition to defending slavery, Dickens was a strong
proponent of copyright law and was extremely incensed that his works could be
legally distributed in the United States without his permission. Ironically, a limited
form of slavery is still allowed in the music and sports industries, where longterm contracts binding the artist or the athlete to a particular studio or team are
commonplace.
    29. Gallini and Scotchmer (2001).
    30. Condon and Sinha (2004), among others, have studied criteria for suspension of
patents in developing countries.
    31. Schankerman and Pakes (1986) have studied patent returns in various European
countries. Using their data, Kingston (2001, p. 18) estimates the subsidies that would
be required to replace the current patent system:
    Schankerman and Pakes reported that for patents in Britain, France and Germany,
the returns appear to be only a small fraction of the domestic R&D expenditure of
the business enterprises. The means of the discounted sum of rewards from patent
age 5 were about $7,000 in Britain and France and $19,000 in Germany. The value of
patents as a proportion of total national R&D expenditure was 0.057 in France, 0.068
in Britain and 0.056 in Germany (1986, pp. 1068, 1074). Schankerman subsequently
estimated that a subsidy to R&D of 15%-35% would be enough to provide an
equivalent incentive to patents (1988, p. 95).
    32. Schankerman (1998). Notice that this is the same paper referred to by Kingston in
the quotation reported in the previous note; 1988 is clearly a typo in Kingston's
working paper.
    33. See, respectively, Romer (1996), Hellwig and Irmen (2001), Kremer (2001a, 2001b)
and Glennerster, Kremer, and Williams (2006), and Gallini and Scotchmer (2001).
    34. Rasmusen (2005), p. 6.
    35. Rasmusen (2005), p. 21.

    36. To start learning about Cheng Ho, see, for example, http://famousmuslims.
muslimonline.org/zheng-he-cheng-ho.html (accessed February 24, 2008).
    37. Apart for two small entries on Wikipedia and a few other small sites, there is little
on the Web about either John Lambert or the Duryea brothers. Still, by searching
wisely and reading carefully, their stories and their achievements come out slowly
but surely. Neither of them took out a patent, but their innovative actions started
the American automobile industry nevertheless. See Scharchburg (1993).

     

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