Improvements and alternatives to intellectual property: a survey

Uma parcela importante do crescimento econômico é devida a inovações. Esta dissertação revisa a literatura recente em propriedade intelectual. Esta revisão discute os seguintes artigos: Kremer (1998), Boldrin e Levine (2001), Kremer (2001), Shavell e Ypersele (2001), Lerner (2002) e DiMasi, Hansen e Grabowski (2003). Estes contém tanto artigos empíricos quanto teóricos. Na primeira categoria está um artigo sobre efeitos na inovação de mudanças na força das patentes e outro sobre custo de desenvolver novos medicamentos. Os estudos teóricos propõem melhorias e alternativas ao sistema de patentes, por exemplo, recompensas opcionais, compras de patentes, eliminação de patentes em alguns setores e compromisso de compra prévio.

Intellectual property and competition as complementary policies: a test using an ordered probit model

Este Artigo Testa a Proposição da Teoria Econômica de que Propriedade Intelectual e Defesa da Concorrência são Políticas Complementares. um Modelo Probit Ordenado é Utilizado para Estimar os Efeitos Marginais do Uso e Qualidade do Enforcement dos Direitos de Propriedade Intelectual em uma Medida da Gravidade dos Problemas Relacionados À Concorrência. os Resultados Obtidos Reforçam a Noção de que as Políticas de Concorrência e Propriedade Intelectual não são Contraditórias.

Access to knoledge in Brazil: new research on intellectual property, innovation and development

The present volume is the fruit of a research initiative on Access to Knowledge begun in 2004 by Yochai Benkler, Eddan Katz, and myself. Access to Knowledge is both a social movement and an approach to international and domestic policy. In the present era of globalization, intellectual property and information and communications technology are major determinants of wealth and power. The principle of access to knowledge argues that we best serve both human rights and economic development through policies that make knowledge, knowledge-creating tools, and nowledgeembedded goods as widely available as possible for decentralized innovation and use. Open technological standards, a balanced approach to intellectual property rights, and expansion of an open telecommunications infrastructure enable ordinary people around the world to benefit from the technological advances of the information age and allow them to generate a vibrant, participatory and democratic culture. Law plays a crucial role in securing access to knowledge, determining whether knowledge and knowledge goods are shared widely for the benefit of all, or controlled and monopolized for the benefit of a few.

Understanding e-government technology transfer: evidence from the transfer of a patent management system from EPO to INPI

Drawing upon Brazilian experience, this research explores some of the key issues to be addressed in using e-government technical cooperation designed to enhance service provision of Patent Offices in developing countries. While the development of software applications is often seen merely as a technical engineering exercise, localization and adaptation are context bounded matters that are characterized by many entanglements of human and non-humans. In this work, technical, legal and policy implications of technical cooperation are also discussed in a complex and dynamic implementation environment characterized by the influence of powerful hidden agendas associated with the arena of intellectual property (IP), which are shaped by recent technological, economic and social developments in our current knowledge-based economy. This research employs two different theoretical lenses to examine the same case, which consists of transfer of a Patent Management System (PMS) from the European Patent Office (EPO) to the Brazilian Patent Office that is locally named ‘Instituto Nacional da Propriedade Industrial’ (INPI). Fundamentally, we have opted for a multi-paper thesis comprising an introduction, three scientific articles and a concluding chapter that discusses and compares the insights obtained from each article. The first article is dedicated to present an extensive literature review on e-government and technology transfer. This review allowed the proposition on an integrative meta-model of e-government technology transfer, which is named E-government Transfer Model (ETM). Subsequently, in the second article, we present Actor-Network Theory (ANT) as a framework for understanding the processes of transferring e-government technologies from Patent Offices in developed countries to Patent Offices in developing countries. Overall, ANT is seen as having a potentially wide area of application and being a promising theoretical vehicle in IS research to carry out a social analysis of messy and heterogeneous processes that drive technical change. Drawing particularly on the works of Bruno Latour, Michel Callon and John Law, this work applies this theory to a longitudinal study of the management information systems supporting the Brazilian Patent Office restructuration plan that involved the implementation of a European Patent Management System in Brazil. Based upon the ANT elements, we follow the actors to identify and understand patterns of group formation associated with the technical cooperation between the Brazilian Patent Office (INPI) and the European Patent Office (EPO). Therefore, this research explores the intricate relationships and interactions between human and non-human actors in their attempts to construct various network alliances, thereby demonstrating that technologies embodies compromise. Finally, the third article applies ETM model as a heuristic frame to examine the same case previously studied from an ANT perspective. We have found evidence that ETM has strong heuristic qualities that can guide practitioners who are engaged in the transfer of e-government systems from developed to developing countries. The successful implementation of e-government projects in developing countries is important to stimulate economic growth and, as a result, we need to understand the processes through which such projects are being implemented and succeed. Here, we attempt to improve understanding on the development and stabilization of a complex social-technical system in the arena of intellectual property. Our preliminary findings suggest that e-government technology transfer is an inherently political process and that successful outcomes require continuous incremental actions and improvisations to address the ongoing issues as they emerge.