From Exclusive IPR Innovation Regimes to “Commons- Based” Innovation Regimes Issues and Perspectives

The aim of this paper is to draw attention to the emergence of a new innovation regime characterized as “commons-based”, and to the benefits that can be drawn from its expansion.

To do so the paper is divided into three parts:

1.  In the first part of the paper, we review how and why the basic rules of the” Open Science” institutions were installed in the course of the 20^th century. We show how the frontiers between “secret”, “open disclosure” and temporary monopolies granted through patents were re-defined within the open science system. We show how the open science system gave rise to an “innovation regime” that was conducive to the requirement of growth for firms, from the end of WW2 to the mid 1970s

1. The second part (focusing on the US case) reviews from the 1970s onward the ways in which this innovation regime was progressively eroded by a series of “displacement of frontiers” provoked by a series of IPR laws and court rulings that have altered the characteristics of the classical open science system. If the large firms of the new emerging sectors (especially in Biotech and Information technologies) have benefited from these changes in the IP regime, we argue that in many cases, the new regime has posed important threats and obstacles to the creativity of a large variety of communities of innovators
2. In the third part we focus on the initiatives of some communities of innovators in reaction to the limits and shortcomings instituted by the new enhanced IP Regime. We examine how, under the name of “Commons”, a series of new entities were established.  Based on the sharing of information and cooperation between the actors at the origins of different types of information and knowledge commons, these new entities have given rise to what we can characterize as a commons-based innovation regime

A short conclusions emphasizes the new role of the state that results for these changes