A system of intellectual property (IP) rights
can encourage inventions by scientists and
help promote the transformation of research
achievements into marketed products. But
associated restrictions on access can reduce utilization
of inventions by other scientists. How is
this trade-off working out in practice?
This question has been of particular concern
for the biological sciences, where production
and exchange of biological ‘research tools’ are
important for ongoing scientific progress.
Recent studies addressing this issue in the United
States1,2, Germany3, Australia4 and Japan5 find
that “patent thickets”6 or an “anticommons”7
rarely affect the research of academic scientists.
It is well known that biological scientists report
increasing difficulties associated with access to
research tools but only if the tools are embodied
in physical property controlled by others
and not easily duplicated. Fear of infringing a
prior patent on this material, or the high cost
of licensing, is rarely a factor.
Reviewing this evidence, Caulfield et al. infer
that “[t]he problems that the data do reveal may
have less to do with patents than with commercial
concerns, scientific competition and
frictions in sharing physical materials”8. The
emerging consensus of the science and policy
literature frames the issue as “material versus
intellectual property”9,10 and considers the latter
to be rarely a problem for scientists.
This consensus relies on indirect inference.
The literature offers almost no direct evidence