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Science 1 May 1998:
Vol. 280. no. 5364, pp. 698 - 701
DOI: 10.1126/science.280.5364.698
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Review

The editors have asked selected members of the scientific community to respond to the Policy commentary by J. J. Doll and the Review by M. A. Heller and R. S. Eisenberg. Their remarks are available at www.sciencemag.org/feature/data/980465.shl

Can Patents Deter Innovation? The Anticommons in Biomedical Research

Michael A. Heller, Rebecca S. Eisenberg

The "tragedy of the commons" metaphor helps explain why people overuse shared resources. However, the recent proliferation of intellectual property rights in biomedical research suggests a different tragedy, an "anticommons" in which people underuse scarce resources because too many owners can block each other. Privatization of biomedical research must be more carefully deployed to sustain both upstream research and downstream product development. Otherwise, more intellectual property rights may lead paradoxically to fewer useful products for improving human health.

The authors are at the University of Michigan Law School, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1215, USA. E-mail: mheller{at}umich.edu; rse{at}umich.edu

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