Innovation and Entrepreneurship

• Author: Christopher L. Sagers
• Pages: 231-239

231

CHAPTER XII

INNOVATION AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP

In a variety of ways, U.S. policy supports private innovation. For

example, the federal government directly subsidizes scientific research in

universities and private firms, and it performs and shares a substantial

amount of its own research. The government also maintains the

intellectual property system, and transfers intellectual property developed

through its own research efforts to private persons for private

commercialization.

1

One small component of this general innovation policy has a

consequence for the scope of antitrust. Because research and the

production of new or innovative products has sometimes been

collabora tive, it has faced some antitrust risk. And so one further way

that Congress has sought to encourage innovation is through protection

from legal liability for collaborative research and production. This

protection has taken three forms. First, the National Cooperative

Research and Production Act (NCRPA)

2

provides protections for

research and production joint ventures. Second, by amendment to the

NCRPA in 2004, its protections were extended to standards development

organizations (SDOs).

3

Finally, a strong but rarely used exemption has

also been granted to small business collaborations.

4

1

. See gener ally Brett Frischmann, Innovation and Institutions: Rethinking

the Economics of U.S. Science and Technology P olicy, 24 VT. L. REV.

347 (2000).

2

. The law was first enacted as the National Cooperative Research Act of

1984, Pub. L. No. 98-462 , 98 Stat. 1815 (1984), and then modified by the

National Cooperative Production Amendments of 1993, Pub. L. No. 103-

42, 107 Stat. 117 (1993). These laws are now commonly referred to as the

National Cooperative Research and Production Act, and are codified at 15

U.S.C. §§ 4301-06.

3

. Standards Development Organization Advancement Act of 2004

(SDOAA), Pub. L. No. 108-237, 118 Stat. 661 (2004).

4

. Specifically, by provisions in the Small Business Act of 1953. See Pub. L.

No. 83-163, §§ 201, et seq., 67 Stat. 230, 232-40 (1953) (codified at 15

U.S.C. §§ 631, et seq.).