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Science 20 August 2004:
Vol. 305. no. 5687, pp. 1110 - 1111
DOI: 10.1126/science.1100526
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Policy Forum

INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY:
Commons-Based Strategies and the Problems of Patents

Yochai Benkler

The effects of patents on scientific research and access to medicine are hotly debated. While providing incentives for R&D, patents increase the costs of research tools and raise cost barriers on access to drugs. This Policy Forum reviews the experience of free software, distributed computing, and other forms of commons-based peer production. It then proposes two complementary avenues open to scientists and universities to alleviate the costs of overly protective patent systems.

Yale Law School, Yale University, 127 Wall Street, New Haven, CT 06520, USA. E-mail: yochai.benkler{at}yale.edu

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THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
Technology Licensing: Lessons From the US Experience.
G. K. Sobolski, J. H. Barton, and E. J. Emanuel (2005)
JAMA 294, 3137-3140
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Genomic Resources: Moving Wheat Into the Mainstream in Plant Genomics.
J. P. Gustafson, P. E. McGuire, and C. O. Qualset (2004)
Genetics 168, 583-584
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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)