Thus, he refused to patent such inventions as the circulating stove, the bifocal lens, and the lightning rod.īut the founders also understood that patent monopolies could serve an important public purpose by encouraging inventors. Ben Franklin, perhaps the greatest American inventor, wrote that ideas should be shared “freely and generously” in the public square. Today the results of these changes are bigger and more dominant industrial corporations, fewer pathways for inventors and upstart companies, and a sharp decline in innovation in many sectors of the economy.įederal patent policy stretches back to the earliest days of the Republic. They also lengthened the duration of patents, making it easier for corporations to use patents to grow larger and more powerful. These changes radically altered antitrust law, permitting ever-larger companies and abuses of market power that for decades had been illegal. Policies put into place during the New Deal refined the balancing act by limiting the patent rights of large corporations and forcing many to license their technologies to all comers, for free.īut beginning in the 1980s, thinkers and politicians from both parties joined together to rewrite the nation’s patent and anti-monopoly policies along more libertarian lines. Regulators used patent law to reward independent inventors for their new ideas while also using antitrust law to prevent large corporations from using patents to monopolize markets. The link between innovation and monopoly involves a tension between two different regulatory regimes: antitrust law, which is designed to fight monopolies, and patent law, which grants and enforces monopolies.įor much of the 20th century, Americans did a good job of reconciling this tension.
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