Document Type
Article
Publication Date
Summer 2014
Publication Citation
4 IP Theory 28
Abstract
Simply making empirical progress is not always enough to influence policy, as demonstrated by the polarized public discourse over issues ranging from climate change to gun control. The current discourse over patents appears to have a similar pathology, in which cultural values — such as respect for strong property rights or concern about limiting access to knowledge — shape priors and affect the weight given to new information, such that advocates and policymakers on both sides of the patent wars often fail to acknowledge the ambiguity of existing evidence. This Essay suggests that the “cultural cognition” framework might help scholars to understand this value-based division and to study ways to design and communicate patent experiments so that the resulting knowledge has the impact it should.
Recommended Citation
Ouellette, Lisa Larrimore
(2014)
"Cultural Cognition of Patents,"
IP Theory: Vol. 4:
Iss.
1, Article 3.
Available at:
https://www.repository.law.indiana.edu/ipt/vol4/iss1/3
