System patentowy a ekonomiczna teoria dóbr
The Patent System and the Economic Theory of Goods

Summary/Abstract: The essence of the patent system is the granting and guaranteeing to the inventor or other entitled entity the right of exclusive commercial and professional use of the invention within a period defined by law. The legitimacy of patent protection is not, however, unanimously agreed upon by contributors to the subject. Some emphasize the necessity and usefulness of the patent system, others negate its purposefulness and yet others assume that an unequivocal answer to the question of the legitimacy of the patent system does not exist. Thus, the article is an attempt to assess the question of whether maintaining patent protection is justified from an economic point of view. Moreover reflections are devoted to the analysis of the patent protection system from the perspective of the economic theory of goods, especially in the differences between public goods, private goods and club goods. Some technological solutions which should have qualified for patent protection may have been excluded because the interpretation of the legislator has classed them as public goods. On the other hand, regulating license agreements offers a possibility of using the invention within the framework of granted license, similarly to the use of so-called club goods (defined in terms of the theory of James M. Buchanan). Doubts are also raised about the issue of compulsory licenses and how classification as to the category of public goods or club goods has been set.

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