The Economics of Open Innovation

Adam Jaffe presented this talk to the Open Access and Research Conference at Queensland University of Technoloyg in 2013. In it he discussed:

• Copyright protects expression, Patent protects functionality
• Hence open access will not, cannot, allow “use” in functional sense, to the extent that the underlying research results are patented
• Most countries permit universities to patent inventions from public research, and to license those patents on exclusive basis to private parties
• So what might “open innovation” mean in a world in which inventions are protected by patents?