Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2012
DOI
10.1515/1555-5879.1546
Publication Title
Review of Law & Economics
Volume
8
Issue
1
Pages
91-100
Abstract
Beginning in the early 1980s, the U.S. Government reformed the patent law in ways that made patents easier to acquire and defend, but further efforts to expand the rights of patent owners had stalled by the mid-1990s. I use a political economy model to explain these changes in terms of the shifting constituency interests represented by members of the U.S. Congress. As the distribution of patenting became less skewed in the 1980s, more members represented constituencies likely to benefit from inefficient patent policy. But as the distribution of patent holding became more skewed once again in the later 1990s, support for expansions of patent rights decreased.
Original Publication Citation
Richman, J. T. (2012). The political economy of congressional patent policymaking in the late 20th century. Review of Law & Economics, 8(1), 91-100. doi: 10.1515/1555-5879.1546
Repository Citation
Richman, Jesse T., "The Political Economy of Congressional Patent Policymaking in the Late 20th Century" (2012). Political Science & Geography Faculty Publications. 4.
https://digitalcommons.odu.edu/politicalscience_geography_pubs/4