Patent Use in the UK

Room 00-13, Ground Floor Chambers Building, OU, Milton Keynes

International Development seminar presented by Suma Athreye, Professor of International Strategy (Brunel Business School, Brunel University), who will explore the issues surrounding the use of patents.

Lunch (provided) from 12.00, presentation & discussion 12.30 - 14.00. To reserve your free place, please email Claire Emburey.

Abstract
Patents as an institution combine incentives for the production of technological knowledge (by granting temporary monopolies) with incentives for diffusion of that knowledge (usually through licensing). Several developments suggest that the use of technology vested in patents has grown through the late 80s and 90s (Arora, Fosfuri and Gambardella, 2001; Gambardella et al 2007). However, we know little about how patents are actually used by UK firms. Public discourse on intellectual property often focuses very narrowly, sometimes primed only by anecdotal accounts of how patents are being used (or abused). Concerns about our lack of knowledge of what happens to patents once they are issued have been expressed in the Hargreaves review (2011) of UK Intellectual Property which notes the weakness of the evidentiary base on the impact of patents and how they were used in the UK. These concerns have also been noted in the government’s response to the Hargreaves Committee report.