https://mason.gmu.edu/~rhanson/negliab.html

I topi di Harvard

I topi sono strumenti scientifici fondamentale per la ricerca poiché condividono il 95% del loro genoma con l'uomo.

Jackson laboratory nel Maine è un deposito titoli di cui si servono da tutti i centri di ricerca del mondo

Ci sono topi di tutti i tipi, Topi ciechi, topi sordi, topi al cancro e anche topi con deficit di attenzione. Si può ordinare di tutto.

Nel 1988 Harvard e la DuPont brevettano un nuovo tipo di topo l' onco topo. Il primo animale brevettato.

La ricerca sul cancro dipendeva molto dal oncotopo Ma qualsiasi ricercatore doveva pagare Harvard per poter mettersi all'Opera e rendere la sua ricerca disponibile alla dupont.

Dopo che il brevetto di Harvard aumentato la ricerca nel settore aumento del 50%.

Morale. Il prefetto non è uno strumento adeguato quando lo si applica agli strumenti di ricerca. E nemmeno quando lo si applica i settori dove l'innovazione cumulativa ovvero avviene perlopiù su innovazione precedenti.

La abolizione di un brevetto porta ad una perdita per l'azienda brevettante che però guadagna la possibilità di accedere ad altri brevetti ora disponibili

Isaac Newton ha detto di poter guardare lontano perché era sulle spalle di giganti, e se avesse dovuto pagare per stare lì ci sarebbe salito ugualmente?

La fabbrica delle idee

L’argomento che affronta Michael Kremer nel suo saggio “Patent Buyouts” è centrale:

… Economic growth ultimately depends on the production of new ideas, but competitive markets do not provide appropriate incentives for the production of ideas…

Ci si è provato in tutti i modi:

… Historically, societies have used a wide variety of mechanisms to encourage production of ideas. Some, such as patents and copyrights, provide inventors with monopolies over goods produced using their ideas. Others, such as the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the synthetic fuels program, directly subsidize research…

Il sistema dei brevetti e dei diritti d’autore è altamente distorsivo:

… Patents and copyrights create insufficient incentives for original research because inventors cannot fully capture consumer surplus or spillovers of their ideas to other researchers. Patents and copyrights also create static distortions from monopoly pricing and encourage socially wasteful expenditures on reverse engineering to invent around patents…

Anche la ricerca sussidiata dallo stato non funziona:

… before research is conducted, the government may not know the costs and expected benefits of research, and it may not even be able to conceive of some inventions. Allowing government officials wide discretion to set payments to inventors ex post may lead to rent seeking and to expropriation of investors after their research costs are sunk…

Un suggerimento puo’ venirci dalla storia. Avete presente la sorte del dagherrotipo?

… In 1839, the government of France combined elements of the patent system and of direct government support of research by purchasing the patent for daguerreotype photography and placing the technique in the public domain. After the patent was bought out, daguerreotype photography was rapidly adopted worldwide and was subject to myriad technical improvements….

Purtroppo, l’acquisto governativo dei brevetti ha un inconveniente: quanto pagare. E qui viene avanzata una proposta:

… government would offer to buy out patents at this private value times a fixed markup that would roughly cover the difference between the social and private values of inventions. Inventors could decide whether to sell or retain their patents… However, in order to provide auction participants with an incentive to truthfully reveal their valuations, the government would randomly select a few patents that would be sold to the highest bidder. Encouraging innovation through such a mechanism would require more discretion by government officials than the current patent system but substantially less discretion than that exercised by, say, the National Institutes of Health…

Ci sono dei precedenti su cui poter lavorare per una messa a punto del meccanismo al fine di eliminare l’aspetto confiscatorio:

… Macfie (1869), a member of the British Parliament in the nineteenth century, proposed replacing the patent system with a reward system. In this century, Polanyi (1943) suggested replacing patents with rewards based on ex-post estimates of the value of inventions. Guell and Fischbaum (1995) suggest that the government use its power of eminent domain to purchase pharmaceutical patents. They propose that judges determine the buyout price. One problem with allowing broad administrative discretion over the patent buyout price is that this may lead to purchases at confiscatory prices and thus reduce incentives for innovation. Allowing broad discretion may also lead to wasteful expenditures on rent seeking… Patent buyouts would thus supplement, rather than replace, the existing patent system. Inventors would receive a markup over the private value of the patents to bring incentives for invention closer to the social value…

Problemi:

… One problem with a fixed reward is that people could claim rewards for trivial inventions… but perhaps the chief problem with patent buyouts is that they are potentially vulnerable to collusion, because inventors could bribe auction participants to submit high bids…

Come porre rimedio alle collusioni? Ci sono alcuni modi un po’ scontati:

… The government could make collusion more difficult using standard procedures such as requiring bids to be sealed, punishing companies and individuals found guilty of collusion, and rewarding whistle-blowers…

Poi ci sono alcuni modi più legati alla struttura dell’asta. Per esempio quello di considerare solo la terza offerta più alta:

… The government would base the price it offers the inventor on the third highest bid. The original patent holder would therefore have to bribe three companies instead of one to ensure a substantial increase in the buyout price…

Oppure di trasformare il governo in un broker speculativo quando ha sentore di collusione:

… suppose that, based on the other bids and any knowledge of the industry, the government's best estimate of the patent's value was it. If a bidder offered it + x and the agency suspected collusion," the government could offer to buy out the patent at it + $1 and then require the suspected colluding bidder to purchase the patent at its bid of it + x. The government would make a profit of x - 1 from the attempted collusion…

Ci sono poi metodi legati alla trasparenza delle società partecipanti:

… The government could develop lists of suspect bidders by checking whether winning bidders made money… bidders would have to provide information on any ties they had with the inventor…

Si possono istituire dei costi fissi:

… Bidders could be required to pay a licensing fee or deposit allowing them to participate in a number of auctions. This would make it unprofitable for patent holders to set up dummy companies…

Naturalmente sarebbe proibito il riacquisto a cura dell’inventore:

…  inventors would be prohibited from buying back the patent from the winning bidder or making other payments to bidders…

Ci sono poi delle modalità per stabilire un tetto alle offerte governative.

Si consideri comunque che esistono molte istituzioni minacciate dalla collusione e invece immuni dal fenomeno, si pensi alla peer-review:

… it is also important to remember that many institutions that are theoretically vulnerable to collusion operate relatively well. For example, peer review is highly vulnerable to collusion, yet the NSF and NIH seem relatively effective…

E poi il livello ottimale di collusione oltre il quale la soluzione proposta perderebbe di efficienza non è pari a zero.

… Even if collusion raises patent prices above their social value, the social value of inventions may be approximated better by the collusive price than by the existing patent system…

La soluzione dell’asta comunque non è universale, bisognerà studiare i vari casi specifici per valutare l’esistenza di mercati sufficientemente “densi” da rendere anonima l’emersione di un prezzo:

… The auction mechanism described in this chapter may be appropriate for many pharmaceuticals, but it would not be appropriate in industries where markets are too thin for auctions or patents are not an effective means of protecting inventions. In such industries, the government could simply offer to buy out patents for an amount equal to postbuyout sales times an administratively determined estimate of the average consumer surplus per unit of the good consumed…

13 Patent buyouts di Michael Kremer

13 Read more at location 3505

Note: 13@@@@@@@@@@@@ Edit

Economic growth ultimately depends on the production of new ideas, but competitive markets do not provide appropriate incentives for the production of ideas.Read more at location 3506

Note: IMPORTANZA Edit

Historically, societies have used a wide variety of mechanisms to encourage production of ideas. Some, such as patents and copyrights, provide inventors with monopolies over goods produced using their ideas. Others, such as the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the synthetic fuels program, directly subsidize research.Read more at location 3507

Note: STRUMENTI Edit

Patents and copyrights create insufficient incentives for original research because inventors cannot fully capture consumer surplus or spillovers of their ideas to other researchers. Patents and copyrights also create static distortions from monopoly pricing and encourage socially wasteful expenditures on reverse engineering to invent around patents. Read more at location 3510

Note: DISTORSIONI Edit

before research is conducted, the government may not know the costs and expected benefits of research, and it may not even be able to conceive of some inventions. Allowing government officials wide discretion to set payments to inventors ex post may lead to rent seeking and to expropriation of investors after their research costs are sunk. Read more at location 3513

Note: DISTORSIONI RICERCA PUBBLIVA Edit

In 1839, the government of France combined elements of the patent system and of direct government support of research by purchasing the patent for daguerreotype photography and placing the technique in the public domain. After the patent was bought out, daguerreotype photography was rapidly adopted worldwide and was subject to myriad technical improvements.Read more at location 3515

Note: ALYERNATIVA. DAGHERROTIPO Edit

A major challenge for any system of patent buyouts is determining the price.Read more at location 3517

Note: L INCONVENIENTE Edit

government would offer to buy out patents at this private value times a fixed markup that would roughly cover the difference between the social and private values of inventions. Inventors could decide whether to sell or retain their patents.Read more at location 3518

Note: OFFERTA Edit

However, in order to provide auction participants with an incentive to truthfully reveal their valuations, the government would randomly select a few patents that would be sold to the highest bidder. Encouraging innovation through such a mechanism would require more discretion by government officials than the current patent system but substantially less discretion than that exercised by, say, the National Institutes of Health.Read more at location 3520

Note: ASTA Edit

Macfie (1869), a member of the British Parliament in the nineteenth century, proposed replacing the patent system with a reward system. In this century, Polanyi (1943) suggested replacing patents with rewards based on ex-post estimates of the value of inventions. Guell and Fischbaum (1995) suggest that the government use its power of eminent domain to purchase pharmaceutical patents. They propose that judges determine the buyout price. One problem with allowing broad administrative discretion over the patent buyout price is that this may lead to purchases at confiscatory prices and thus reduce incentives for innovation. Allowing broad discretion may also lead to wasteful expenditures on rent seeking,Read more at location 3523

Note: PRECEDENTI Edit

Note: CONFISCHE Edit

This chapter describes how a market mechanism could be used to determine the value of patents.Read more at location 3528

Add a note

Patent buyouts would thus supplement, rather than replace, the existing patent system. Inventors would receive a markup over the private value of the patents to bring incentives for invention closer to the social value.Read more at location 3529

Note: REPLACE Edit

One problem with a fixed reward is that people could claim rewards for trivial inventions.Read more at location 3532

Note: TRIVIAL Edit

Perhaps the chief problem with patent buyouts is that they are potentially vulnerable to collusion, because inventors could bribe auction participants to submit high bids.Read more at location 3538

Note: COLLUSION Edit

VII. Preventing Collusion Read more at location 3751

Note: T Edit

patent holders would have an incentive to bribe auction participants to bid high.Read more at location 3751

Note: BRIBE Edit

It is impossible to eliminate collusion, but, as subsection VILA explains, a variety of mechanisms could be used to minimize collusion.Read more at location 3752

Note: MINIMIZZARE Edit

The government could make collusion more difficult using standard procedures such as requiring bids to be sealed, punishing companies and individuals found guilty of collusion, and rewarding whistle-blowers.Read more at location 3754

Note: 3 MODI Edit

The government would base the price it offers the inventor on the third highest bid. The original patent holder would therefore have to bribe three companies instead of one to ensure a substantial increase in the buyout price.Read more at location 3756

Note: TERZA OFFERTA PIÙ ALTA Edit

suppose that, based on the other bids and any knowledge of the industry, the government's best estimate of the patent's value was it. If a bidder offered it + x and the agency suspected collusion," the government could offer to buy out the patent at it + $1 and then require the suspected colluding bidder to purchase the patent at its bid of it + x. The government would make a profit of x - 1 from the attempted collusion.Read more at location 3759

Note: MARK UP Edit

The government could develop lists of suspect bidders by checking whether winning bidders made money,Read more at location 3762

Note: MESSA A FRUTTO Edit

bidders would have to provide information on any ties they had with the inventor.Read more at location 3763

Note: TRASPARENZA Edit

Bidders could be required to pay a licensing fee or deposit allowing them to participate in a number of auctions. This would make it unprofitable for patent holders to set up dummy companiesRead more at location 3764

Note: COSTI FISSI Edit

inventors would be prohibited from buying back the patent from the winning bidder or making other payments to bidders.Read more at location 3768

Note: BUY BACK Edit

VII.B. Ceiling Prices Read more at location 3773

Note: T Edit

there are several ways that governments could establish ceiling prices and thus reduce the risk of paying vastly inflated sums for patents.Read more at location 3774

Note: LIMITE VERSO L ALTO Edit

it is also important to remember that many institutions that are theoretically vulnerable to collusion operate relatively well. For example, peer review is highly vulnerable to collusion, yet the NSF and NIH seem relatively effective.Read more at location 3794

Note: PEER REVIEW Edit

Even if collusion raises patent prices above their social value, the social value of inventions may be approximated better by the collusive price than by the existing patent system,Read more at location 3798

Note: SPRECO INFERIORE Edit

The auction mechanism described in this chapter may be appropriate for many pharmaceuticals, but it would not be appropriate in industries where markets are too thin for auctions or patents are not an effective means of protecting inventions. In such industries, the government could simply offer to buy out patents for an amount equal to postbuyout sales times an administratively determined estimate of the average consumer surplus per unit of the good consumed. Read more at location 3802

Note: THIN Edit