TY  - JOUR
AU  - Shavell,Steven
AU  - Ypersele,Tanguy van
TI  - Rewards versus Intellectual Property Rights
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 6956
PY  - 1999
Y2  - February 1999
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w6956
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w6956.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Steven Shavell
Harvard Law School
1575 Massachusetts Avenue
Hauser Hall 508
Cambridge, MA  02138
Tel: 617/495-3668
Fax: 617/496-2256
E-Mail: shavell@law.harvard.edu

tanguy van ypersele
E-Mail: tanguy.vy@univmed.fr
AB  - This paper compares reward systems to intellectual property rights (patents and copyrights).  Under a reward system, innovators are paid for innovations directly by government (possibly on the basis of sales), and innovations pass immediately into the public domain.  Thus, reward systems engender incentives to innovate without creating the monopoly power of intellectual property rights, but a principal difficulty with rewards is the information required for their determination. We conclude in our model that intellectual property rights do not possess a fundamental social advantage over reward systems, and that an optional reward system   under which innovators choose between rewards and intellectual property rights    is superior to intellectual property rights.
ER  -