Brevet, secret et concurrence technologique : comment protéger les instruments de recherche ?.

This article uses a two-step technological race model to evaluate the optimal protection of new research instruments, i.e., inventions that are not directly associated to commercial profits but that facilitate further technological progress. We show that paradoxically, granting the patentee an exclusive ownership right over all the research line and related applications (prospect doctrine) is optimal only when the R&D costs are relatively low and when the courts can implement mixed strategies regarding the settlement of patent trials (thus implying that identical legal cases lead to differing outcomes). In other settings, the court should rather force the infringer to pay a license fee proportionate to the R&D savings generated by the disclosure of the research instrument (enablement doctrine).