Scott A. Baker
Professor of Economics (by courtesy)
Professor of Law
Department: School of Law
Colleges / Universities: Washington University in St. Louis
Contact
Anheuser-Busch Hall, Room 571
One Brookings Drive
Saint Louis, MO 63130
Email: sbaker@wulaw.wustl.edu
Website: Washington University faculty page
Scott Baker is a professor of law and a professor of economics (by courtesy) at Washington University in St. Louis, where he teaches law and economics, corporate finance, contracts, torts, property, and intellectual property. His research interests lie at the intersection of law, economics, and game theory.
Professor Baker’s co-authored works appear in the Journal of Political Economy, Journal of Legal Studies, Journal of Law and Economics, Journal of Law, Economics and Organization, and the Journal of Legal Analysis, as well as numerous law reviews. He is the recipient of a Tilburg University grant for studies in the law and economics of innovation, and in the fall of 2012, he served as a Becker-Friedman fellow at the University of Chicago.
Prior to joining the faculty of Washington University in 2009, Professor Baker was a professor of law and economics at the University of North Carolina, where he served as associate dean for faculty affairs and received the McCall Award for Law School Teacher of the Year. After law school and graduate school, Professor Baker clerked for the Hon. E. Grady Jolly, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.
Degrees
Ph.D. University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, 2001
J.D. University of Chicago, 2000
B.A. Miami University, 1994
Recent Academic Article Summaries
Does the Market Care About Changes in Patent Law?
This study asks if the stock of firms involved in key patent cases gains or loses value when the cases are decided.
Firms that lose (and firms that side with the losers as amici in) key patent cases lose little or no significant stock value when the decision is made. Firms that win important cases make slight gains in stock value. The market does not seem to care very much about patent decisions.
Optimal Patent Jurisprudence
The authors model patent law and come to several conclusions about judicial learning in reaching optimal decisions.
Patent law has been described as difficult to decipher, to predict, and to find consistent. However, modeling patent law, assuming that judges and courts make decisions with policy leanings in mind, results in finding that the courts control their own learning. So, a model of decision-making can be produced.
Intellectual Property Disclosure as “Threat”
This article analyzes the threat of disclosing protected information as a means of enforcing contracts and agreements.
The mutual transfer of protected information between companies, and the threat of disclosing that information, can act as a strong incentive for cooperating businesses to comply with their agreements. This could help keep disputes out of the court system.
Discouraging Patent Holdouts through Reciprocal Commitment
This paper explains how firms could use contracts to avoid complicated patent disputes.
Patent law tends to encourage patent owners to try to use their patents to extort “ransom” from technology firms, but firms can cooperate to solve this problem.
Related Scholars
Carl Shapiro
Colleges / Universities: University of California, Berkeley
F. Scott Kieff
Colleges / Universities: George Washington University
James Anton
Colleges / Universities: Duke University
