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

以证据为基础的专利政策有助于确保专利制度实现宪法规定的目标：促进科学和实用艺术的进步。人们担心基因专利会阻碍科学进步，担心专利流氓会威胁IT和软件创新，声称药物专利会导致药品价格上涨，以及反驳专利对创新至关重要，专利政策已成为科学和技术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措施和广泛获得新技术的好处，这两个目标往往相互矛盾。对美国可能没有这种平衡权的担忧导致了过去十年中许多专利制度改革的建议。关于专利的影响，现在有大量的经验证据。本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5个核心问题的证据：（1）专利对创新的重要性有多大？(2)专利是否会激励人们披露本来会保密的信息？(3)与限制产量和提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，提炼了我们所了解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，它总结了过去50年来专利政策重大变化的影响，包括专利合格主题的扩大，公共资助研究的专利申请的增长，药品的特殊专利法程序，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.