Patent Fact Check

A page dedicated to assessing the myths which surround the alleged economic harm caused by patents.

A patent is a grant of the exclusive right for a novel, non-obvious invention. The value of patents to society lies in the incentives they provide to research and develop useful inventions.

Today many are prepared to argue that patents retard research and development and so hold back economic progress. Many myths circulate about the alleged social and economic harm done by patents. Policy and opinion makers have no quick means to check these myths against the relevent patent facts. The result is that they may doubt that patents provide economic development incentives. This is not in the public interest.

Patent Myths and Patent Facts

In the posts below, we seek to find the facts behind some of the most prevalent patent myths.

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About our Fact Checkers

These posts have been prepared by Dr John Howells, Associate Professor at Aarhus University, Denmark (currently an Affiliate Academic at UCL Faculty of Laws) and Dr Ron D Katznelson, President of Bi-Level Technologies, a California signal processing technology company.

Dr Howells researches and teaches in the economics and management of intellectual property and technology development. The project was devised while John was a visiting scholar at UCL IBIL in 2016.

During his visit, he was invited to speak at IBIL's Annual Innovation Lecture, entitled "Do Patents have a 'Chilling Effect' on the Incentives for Research" which is available to watch here.