Introduction

With the exception of a very few authors, the vast majority of models describing the effects of patent policy instruments have been restricted to closed economies.1

For several reasons, it is natural that patent policy instruments are first studied in a national framework. Firstly, patent law is national in reach, and it has immediate consequences for the domestic market structure and intensity of competition despite the fact that the patentee might be a foreigner. Although one country might exert a certain influence over other countries to change their patent laws, the process is usually slow and painstaking and the outcome is by no means certain.2