(Research on Innovation and Visiting Scholar, MIT Sloan)
Monday, November 10, 2003
12:30 – 1:30 p.m.
Room 80 (Moot Courtroom)
Free and Open to all!
Lunch Served
Legal changes have allowed software to be patented and there are now over 100,000 U.S. software patents in force. Bessen takes a non-technical look at how firms have used these patents, based on a comprehensive empirical analysis. Large manufacturing firms have acquired most of these patents, building strategic patent portfolios. At the same time, these firms have reduced their R&D investment relative to sales. This evidence appears contrary to the theory used to support software patents and other recent changes in patenting standards. The evidence suggests that software patents have not increased incentives to innovate and they have tilted the playing field in favor of large firms outside the software industry.James Bessen is an expert on the economics of innovation and patents and is also a former software innovator and CEO. Mr. Bessen wrote the first WYSIWYG (what-you-see-is-what-you-get) PC publishing software in 1983, founded and managed a successful software company, and is credited with several other innovations in the electronic publishing industry. After his software company was acquired, he established Research on Innovation, a non-profit that conducts studies on the economics of innovation. Bessen is currently a Visiting Scholar at MIT Sloan School of Management and he edits the Technological Innovation and Intellectual Property newsletter.