infoneer-pulse:

Forget competition — new research says that sharing patents with competitors will be the real factor that drives future innovation.  That’s the finding of Gilad Sorek, an assistant visiting professor of economics at the University at Buffalo, who found that free licensing, or giving up patent protection, stimulates demand for products and in the process make them more valuable.

“This research arose from the notion that a too-tight patent protection actually may hinder technological progress, reflected in sovereign acts taken by firms who give it up,” Sorek said. “In the scenarios I study, further innovation happens [through free-licensing] because a firm needs more research-and-development efforts to be taken by other innovators to stimulate the development of complementary technologies, or in order to encourage consumers stepping into a new market.”

» via Yahoo! News