We propose a new model of intellectual property that presents a different view to the market failure/monopoly rent model advanced by Arrow (1962) in which governments protect inventors from private theft. Instead, using Olson (1993), we represent a public theft model of intellectual property...

The standard economic model of intellectual property is an efficient property rights solution to a market failure problem of investment in a non-rival and non-excludable good. We propose a new ‘stationary bandit’ model of intellectual property based on a contracting approach in the context...