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Patents, Paradigm Shifts, and Progress in Biomedical Science |
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Peter Lee [View as PDF]
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114 Yale L.J. 661 (2004)
This Note applies the concept of paradigm shifts from the history and philosophy of science to describe how patents on biomedical research tools--inputs to basic research--can help advance scientific theory. Patents on research tools frustrate scientific norms of sharing and can produce a tragedy of the anticommons that inhibits downstream experimentation. This provides an incentive for scientists to fundamentally reconceptualize natural phenomena in ways that do not depend on patented inputs for their exploration, thereby encouraging the alternative theory generation that drives profound scientific progress. The Note argues for a new patent system for biomedical research tools that better promotes both normal scientific processes of theory validation and the generation of alternative hypotheses that spark paradigm shifts.
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