ABSTRACT
All components of a patent system, including the question of which instruments are to be used to protect the intellectual property, as well as the market structure itself, potentially affect firms’ decisions concerning research projects. It is a quite complex system so it seems expedient to describe it in greater detail in order to understand its workings and mechanisms. Although the Agreement of Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property (TRIPs Agreement; World Trade Organization,1994) has harmonizedpatent lawand therefore also the patent system to a certain degree, there remain considerable differences in patent systems. These distinctions are inconsequential for the analysis in the following chapters so that we decided to refer to only one system, the United States (US) patent system.1 The first section traces an invention’s way through the patent system, i.e. from filing the application to the court rulings concerning remedies for the infringement of a patent.
