Intellectual Property Regimes: a Comparative Institutional Framework

In this paper, we construct a framework for understanding the multiplicity of institutional arrangements that shapes the governance of intellectual property resources ­ what we call IP regimes. Our notion of IP regime is rather broad and includes not only relevant state-designed laws and institutions but also the private arrangements that contribute to defining the social relationships pertaining to the use of intangible resources. The object of our analysis thus includes not only patent, copyright and trade secrets laws but also private institutions such as open source and creative commons communities, collective copyrights organizations and patent pools.
Indeed, while substantial attention has been paid in the literature to the design of IP laws, and especially patent laws, and ­ to some extent ­ to formal intellectual property institutions such as specialized courts and administrative procedures, scant attention has been devoted to exploring in a unified framework the range of institutional arrangements that contribute to the governance of intellectual property resources.
We rely on comparative institutional analysis to explore the properties of different intellectual property regimes and assess the trade-offs involved in the relevant organizational choices. Rather than being concerned with identifying the conditions for implementing an efficient ³ideal² IP system, as most of the IP literature, we are concerned with the concrete organizational arrangements that shape the management of intangible resources and aim at comparing their salient properties.
The paper is organized as follows. In section 2, the rationale for an approach that goes beyond formal IP institutions and towards issues of governance will be explored. In section 3 the characterization of intellectual property regimes we propose will be introduced so as to highlight its relevant dimensions and trade-offs. In section 4 the characteristics of the knowledge/technology domain we deem salient will be described. Section 5 maps the latter to the previously identified features of IP regimes so as to identify the nature of the IP regime best suited to the different knowledge/technology domains.