Science Policy Research Report: The Effects of Patents on Innovation, Diffusion and Access

基于证据的专利政策可以帮助确保专利制度实现其宪法规定的目标：促进科学进步和有用的艺术。在担心基因专利阻碍科学进步、担心专利巨魔对IT和软件创新构成威胁、声称药物专利导致药品价格高企以及反对专利对创新至关重要的观点之间，专利政策已成为科技政策中最具争议的方面之一。专利政策的设计是困难的：它需要在创新激励和广泛获取新技术带来的好处之间取得平衡，这两个目标往往相互矛盾。在过去的十年里，对美国可能没有这种平衡权的担忧导致了许多关于专利制度改革的建议。关于专利的影响，现在有相当多的经验证据。这份研究报告对专利政策的实证工作进行了系统的调查，总结了专利政策制定的五个主要问题的证据：(1)专利对创新有多重要？(2)专利是否为披露原本保密的信息创造了激励机制？(3)与限制产量和更高的价格相关的成本有多大？(4)在创新是累积的背景下，专利是否阻碍了后续研究？(5)专利制度支持技术市场吗？该报告讨论了不同方法的优点和局限性，提炼了我们对专利的影响和对政策的影响的了解，指出了关键的不确定性，并指出了需要更多研究的地方。最后，总结了过去50年专利政策重大变化的证据，包括专利合格标的的扩大，公共资助研究专利的增长，药品专利法的特殊程序，以及专利保护的全球化。

Evidence-based patent policy can help ensure the patent system achieves its constitutionally mandated goal: To Promote the Progress of Science and the Useful Arts. Between fears that gene patents hinder scientific progress, concerns that patent trolls are a threat to innovation in IT and software, claims that drug patents contribute to high prices of pharmaceuticals, and the counter-arguments that patents are essential for innovation, patent policy has emerged as one of the most controversial aspects of science and technology policy. Patent policy design is difficult: it requires balancing incentives for innovation with benefits from broad access to new technology, two goals that are often at tension with one another. Concerns that the U.S. may not have this balance right have lead to numerous proposals for patent system reform over the past decade. There is now a considerable body of empirical evidence on the effects of patents. This research report provides a systematic survey of empirical work on patent policy, summarizing the evidence on five main questions central to patent policy-making: (1) How important are patents for innovation? (2) Do patents create incentives for disclosure of information that would otherwise be kept secret? (3) How large are the costs associated with restricted output and higher prices? (4) Do patents hinder follow-on research in contexts where innovation is cumulative? (5) Does the patent system support markets for technology? The report discusses the strengths and limits of different approaches, distills what we have learned about the effects of patents and implications for policy, notes key uncertainties, and indicates where more research is needed. Finally, it summarizes evidence on the effects of major patent policy changes over the past fifty years, including the expansion of patent eligible subject matter, the growth of patenting on publicly funded research, special patent law procedures for pharmaceuticals, and the globalization of patent protection.