About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline
LOG IN
LOG IN

30 Fed. L. Rev. 97 (2002)
Patenting Genes and Gene Sequences and Competition: Patenting at the Expense of Competition

handle is hein.journals/fedlr30 and id is 107 raw text is: PATENTING GENES AND GENE SEQUENCES AND COMPETITION: PATENTING AT THE EXPENSE OF COMPETITION Charles Lawson* I INTRODUCTION The competition principles set out in the Trade Practices Act 1974 (Cth) are based on an economic model of perfectly competitive markets responding to the market and producing only the goods and services required in the market.1 However, effective competition together with good market information may create a disincentive to markets innovating (market failure) because new developments may be rapidly copied without the recovery of the innovation's development costs (a free ride).2 According to this model, a patent under the Patents Act 1990 (Cth) compensates for the disincentive to innovate3 and justifies a limited period of exclusive rights during which the innovator may exclude others in order to recover the development costs (confounding the free riders) and contribute to beneficial innovation by investing in new developments (with the added benefit of disclosure of the innovation).4 Patents are therefore generally assumed to produce overall economic benefit while at the same Genomic Interactions Group, Research School of Biological Sciences, Australian National University. The assistance of Dr Catherine Pickering, Dr Barbara Hocking, Lisa Baird and the anonymous referees is appreciated and acknowledged. 1 Trade Practices Commission, Application of the Trade Practices Act to Intellectual Property (1991) 8. 2 Ibid. 3 Such as, 'the uncertainty of pay off from R&D and innovation activity' and 'the limited ability of the inventor/innovator to appropriate profits arising from the use of the new knowledge generated': see Industrial Property Advisory Committee, Patents, Innovation and Competition in Australia (1984) 12; Bureau of Industry Economics, The Economics of Patents, Occasional Paper No 18 (1994) 13. 4 Trade Practices Commission, above n 1, 8; for a review of the policy objectives of patenting see Thomas McCarthy, 'Intellectual Property and Trade Practices Policy: Coexistence or Conflict? The American Experience' (1985) 13 Australian Business Law Review 198, 200-203.

What Is HeinOnline?

HeinOnline is a subscription-based resource containing thousands of academic and legal journals from inception; complete coverage of government documents such as U.S. Statutes at Large, U.S. Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, U.S. Reports, and much more. Documents are image-based, fully searchable PDFs with the authority of print combined with the accessibility of a user-friendly and powerful database. For more information, request a quote or trial for your organization below.



Short-term subscription options include 24 hours, 48 hours, or 1 week to HeinOnline.

Purchase Access

Contact us for annual subscription options:

Contact Us

Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?

Log In

profiles profiles most