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：促进科学和实用艺术的进步。有人担心基因专利会阻碍科学进步，有人担心专利流氓会威胁到IT和软件的创新，有人声称药品专利会导致药品价格上涨，还有人认为专利对创新至关重要，这些都使得专利政策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：它需要平衡创新的激励与广泛获取新技术的好处，这两个目标往往相互矛盾。由于担心美国可能没有这种平衡的权利，在过去的十年里，许多人提出了专利制度改革的建议。现在有相当多的经验证据表明专利的影响。本研究报告对专利政策的实证工作进行了系统的综述，总结了关于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)专利是否能激励人们公开原本保密的信息？(3)与限制产量和高价格相关的成本有多大？(4)在创新是累积的情况下，专利是否会阻碍后续研究？(5)专利制度是否支持技术市场？该报告讨论了不同方法的优势和局限性，总结了我们了解到的专利的影响和对政策的影响，指出了关键的不确定性，并指出了需要进行更多研究的地方。最后，本文总结了过去50年主要专利政策变化的影响，包括专利资格主题的扩大、公共资助研究的专利行为的增长、药品的特殊专利法程序和专利保护的全球化。

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.