Issues

Intellectual Property

Intellectual property (IP) rights help creators limit who uses their work without giving value in return. This protection encourages innovation in thought and expression. Academics featured on this site research topics such as open source licensing, digital rights management, patent reform, IP and technical standards, trademarks, and trade secrets.

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TAP Academics

Josh Lerner
Harvard University
Innovation and Economic Growth, Interoperability, Intellectual Property, Competition Policy and Antitrust, Open Source, Standards

Lawrence Lessig
Harvard University
Intellectual Property, Copyright and Trademark, Networks, the Internet, and Cloud Computing, Internet, Net Neutrality

Jonathan Levin
Stanford University
Innovation and Economic Growth, Intellectual Property, Competition Policy and Antitrust

Saul Levmore
University of Chicago
Intellectual Property, Privacy and Security, Copyright and Trademark

Stan Liebowitz
University of Texas at Dallas
Intellectual Property, Copyright and Trademark

Michael Mattioli
Indiana University, Bloomington
Intellectual Property, Patents

Jason Mazzone
University of Illinois
Intellectual Property, Copyright and Trademark, Patents

J. Thomas McCarthy
University of San Francisco
Intellectual Property, Privacy and Security, Copyright and Trademark

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TAP Blog

What Are the Most Effective Policies for Stimulating Technological Innovation?

In “A Toolkit of Policies to Promote Innovation,” Professors Nicholas Bloom, John Van Reenen, and Heidi Williams present a number of the main innovation policy levers to energize technological innovation.

TAP Staff Blogger

September 29, 2019

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Upcoming Events

Improving digital ecosystem: how can lawyers and economists help?

June 3, 2020, Toulouse, France

Thirteenth Annual Conference on Innovation Economics

June 11, 2020, Chicago, IL

The Right to Repair Under Siege?

August 28, 2020, Berkeley, CA

View all upcoming events for Intellectual Property

Fact Sheets

Patent Reform

A patent is an exclusive legal right to own and market an invention or improvement for a limited period of time, in exchange for public disclosure of the invention.

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Quote

Louis C.K. Is Trying to Outlaw Leaks. Can He Do That?

"It’s overreaching in terms of copyright law. The law grants certain rights, but it withholds certain others." — Jeanne Fromer, Professor of Law, New York University

Jeanne Fromer
The New York Times
May 9, 2019

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Innovation Network

A survey of the citation patterns of United States patents from 1975 to 2004 shows that innovation levels in one decade strongly predict innovation levels in the next decade. When there is more past innovation in a technology class, more innovation in related technology classes follows.

By: Daron Acemoglu, Ufuk Akcigit, William R. Kerr

October 11, 2016

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