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  • Article
  • RAND Journal of Economics

Novelty and Disclosure in Patent Law

By: Suzanne Scotchmer and Jerry R. Green
  • Format:Print
  • | Pages:16
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Abstract

The stringency of the novelty requirement in patent law affects the pace of innovation because it affects the amount of technical information that is disclosed among firms. It also affects ex ante profitability of research. We compare weak and strong novelty requirements from the standpoint of social efficiency. We ask how our answer depends on the rule that determines which firm gets a patent when two firms have patents pending on the same technology. The possible rules are "first-to-invent," which applies in the U.S., and "first-to-file," which applies everywhere else.

Keywords

Patents; Law

Citation

Scotchmer, Suzanne, and Jerry R. Green. "Novelty and Disclosure in Patent Law." RAND Journal of Economics 21, no. 1 (Spring 1990): 131–146.
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About The Author

Jerry R. Green

Negotiation, Organizations & Markets
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More from the Authors
  • Two Representations of Information Structures and Their Comparisons By: Jerry R. Green and Nancy L. Stokey
  • Assent-maximizing Social Choice By: Katherine A. Baldiga and Jerry R. Green
  • Let the Right One In: A Microeconomic Approach to Partner Choice in Mutualisms By: Marco Archetti, Francisco Ubeda, Drew Fudenberg, Jerry R. Green, Naomi E. Pierce and Douglas W. Yu
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