Joseph Farrell, "Standardization and Intellectual Property," _Jurimetrics_Journal_ 30
(1989): 35, 36-38, 45-46 (discussing network effects).

[11-69] See, e.g., Josh Lerner, "150 Years of Patent Protection" (NBER Working Paper
No. 7477, January 2000) (examines 177 policy changes in the strength of protection
across sixty countries, over a 150-year period, and concludes that strengthening patent
protection had few positive effects on patent applications in the country making
the policy change); Mariko Sakakibara and Lee Branstetter, "Do Stronger Patents In-
duce More Innovation? Evidence from the 1988 Japanese Patent Law Reforms," _Rand_
_Journal_of_Economics_ 32 (2001): 77 (authors find no evidence of an increase in R&D
spending or innovative output). For a long-standing source of skepticism about the effect
of strong patents on innovation, see Robert P. Merges and Richard R. Nelson, "On the
Complex Economics of Patent Scope," _Columbia_Law_Review_ 90 (1990): 839 (strong
patent assertions in electrical lighting, automobiles, airplanes, radio slowed down inno-
vation).

[11-70] See, e.g., Jean O. Lanjouw, "The Introduction of Pharmaceutical Product Patents
in India: 'Heartless Exploitation of the Poor and Suffering'?" (NBER Working Paper No.
6366, 1998); F. Scott Kieff, "Property Rights and Property Rules for Commercializing
Inventions," _Minnesota_Law_Review_ 67 (2001): 727-728. For an excellent and compre-
hensive account of the actual patenting practice, see John R. Allison and Mark A. Lem-
ley, "Who's Patenting What? An Empirical Exploration of Patent Prosecution,"
_Vanderbilt_Law_Review_ 53 (2000): 2099, 2146; John R. Allison and Mark A. Lemley,
"How Federal Circuit Judges Vote in Patent Validity Cases," _Florida_State_University_Law_
_Review_ 27 (2000): 745, 765 (concluding no systematic bias in judges' votes).

[11-71] Jaffe, 46.

[11-72] Ibid., 47. Jaffe's argument here is narrower than the point I am making in this sec-
tion. His concern is the social costs from too much effort being devoted to the pursuit of
patented innovation. My concern is the cost of patents on the innovation process gener-
ally.

[11-73] "Patently Absurd?" _The_Economist_ (June 21, 2001). As the article goes on to report,
interviewees from patenting firms indicated that "rather than patenting to win exclusive
rights to a valuable new technology, patents were filed more for strategic purposes."

[11-74] Benjamin Franklin, "having no desire of profiting by patents myself," cited "a prin-
ciple which has ever weighed with me... [t]hat, as we enjoy great advantages from the
inventions of others, we should be glad of an opportunity to serve others by any inven-
tion of ours; and this we should do freely and generously." Benjamin Franklin, _The_Au-_
_tobiography_of_Benjamin_Franklin,_ Frank Woodworth Pine, ed. (Garden City, N.Y.:
Garden City Publishing Co., 1916 ed.; originally published 1793), 215-216.

[11-75] George Washington Carver, for example, observed about his inventions that "God
gave them to me, how can I sell them to someone else?" "Inventors," _Atlanta_Journal_&_
_Constitution,_ February 12, 1999, A17.

[11-76] Robert K. Merton, "A Note on Science and Democracy," _Journal_of_Law_&_Political_
_Sociology_ 1 (1942): 115, 123. ("Patents proclaim exclusive rights of use and, often,
nonuse. The suppression of invention denies the rationale of scientific production and
diffusion.") As Professor Arti Rai describes it, "[T]raditional scientific norms promote a
public domain of freely available scientific information, independent choice in the se-
lection of research topics, and (perhaps above all) respect for uninhibited scientific in-
vention." Arti Kaur Rai, "Regulating Scientific Research: Intellectual Property Rights
and the Norms of Science," _Northwestern_University_Law_Review_ 94 (1999): 77, 89-90.

More famously, Merton is known for characterizing "science" as "communistic":

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