The Economics of Patents and Copyright Foreword: a Primer for Free the Economics of Patents and Copyright

issues on intellectual property: e.g., the extension of patents to software and business models, the lengthening of copyright protection, the compulsory licensing of pharmaceutical products or the legal suits against music downloaders. Economics is also a powerful instrument to improve public policy. It helps to design the appropriate reform to adapt intellectual property law to the 21st century. That is why we wrote this book and decided to deliver it for free. Our aim is not to defend an opinion _ otherwise we would have written an essay or a manifesto instead of a textbook. We want to shed the light of economic analysis on major patent and copyright issues and, therefore, help our readers to make up their own minds. We thus describe and discuss the rationale of intellectual property law, its economic advantages and drawbacks and how to fine-tune them. Consistent with this approach, the book has been written to reach a wide public of both economists and non economist readers. In particular, it should also help lawyers, engineers and scientists to become more familiar with economic analysis of intellectual property. We have chosen to use the internet to share our conviction on usefulness of economics to the larger number of people. As we argue in one of our chapters, the development of the world-wide-web along with the digitalization of contents text, music, or video have opened new possibilities of diffusion which we have decided to experience with this book. Virtual books, as any digital content, can be copied and transmitted nearly for free. This may be a nightmare for those authors and producers who lose the economic incentives to invest in new creations. This may also be a unique opportunity for those _ like us _ whose prime aim is to diffuse knowledge and information. In return for free access to this book, we expect two benefits: useful feedback and further diffusion. A digital book can easily be updated and evolve as readers express new needs. We will thus welcome any suggestion (to [email protected]) that would be worth adding to the book. We especially encourage graduate students and instructors using this textbook to suggest addenda and exercises. We also encourage you to post the weblink to our book (www.cerna.ensmp.fr/PrimerForFree.html) on your website. This is exactly how the internet is useful! So enjoy the reading, and please diffuse this book!