Report of an inquiry concerned with two broad issues: the patenting of genetic materials and technologies, and the exploitation of these patents and the distinction that can and possibly should be made between discoveries and inventions when referring to claims over genetic sequences.

The U.S. patent system is in an accelerating race with human ingenuity and investments in innovation. In many respects the system has responded with admirable flexibility, but the strain of continual technological change and the greater importance ascribed to patents in a knowledge economy are exposing weaknesses including questionable patent quality, rising transaction costs, impediments to the dissemination of information through patents, and international inconsistencies. A panel including a mix of legal expertise, economists, technologists, and university and corporate officials recommends significant changes in the way the patent system operates. A Patent System for the 21st Century urges creation of a mechanism for post-grant challenges to newly issued patents, reinvigoration of the non-obviousness standard to quality for a patent, strengthening of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, simplified and less costly litigation, harmonization of the U.S., European, and Japanese examination process, and protection of some research from patent infringement liability.

At head of title: 85th Cong., 2d sess. Committee print. Bibliography: p. 81-86.

Introduction -- Defining the public interest in the US and European patent systems -- Confronting the questions of life-form patentability -- Commodification, animal dignity, and patent-system publics -- Forging new patent politics through the human embryonic stem cell debates -- Human genes, plants, and the distributive implications of patents -- Conclusion

A study of how patents and citation data can serve empirical research on innovation and technological change.

Based on economic knowledge and logical reasoning, this book proposes a solution to economic recessions and offers a route for societal change to end capitalism. The author starts with a brief review of the history of economics, and then questions and rejects the trend of recent decades that has seen econometrics replace economic theory. By reviewing the different schools of economic thought and by examining the limitations of existing theories to business cycles and economic growth, the author forms a new theory to explain cyclic economic growth. According to this theory, economic recessions result from innovation scarcity, which in turn results from the flawed design of the patent system. The author suggests a new design for the patent system and envisions that the new design would bring about large economic and societal changes. Under this new patent system, the synergy of the patent and capital markets would ensure that economic recessions could be avoided and that the economy would grow at the highest speed.