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7. The Covid-19 vaccine as commons: the sui generis inclusive right

Across the world there have been important campaigns related to the issue of vaccine access and allocation, such as the Free The Vaccine initiative which demands that ‘Covid-19 diagnostic tools, treatments and vaccines must be available to everyone everywhere’,146 or academics, including Boschiero, who stated the nature of vaccines as ‘global common/public goods’, despite being currently regulated as ‘private market goods’.147 The question to be answered now is how this desirable shift to a Commons Regime can be realized from a normative perspective. 7. The Covid-19 vaccine as commons: the sui generis inclusive right Across the world there have been important campaigns related to the issue of vaccine access and allocation, such as the Free The Vaccine initiative which demands that ‘Covid-19 diagnostic tools, treatments and vaccines must be available to everyone everywhere’,146 or academics, including Boschiero, who stated the nature of vaccines as ‘global common/public goods’, despite being currently regulated as ‘private market goods’.147 The question to be answered now is how this desirable shift to a Commons Regime can be realized from a normative perspective.

Answering this question requires an evident but important premise: innovation nowadays is reputed to be cumulative in its nature,17 since it is seen as a scientific pyramid, where each scientist adds a block to a certain creation.18 In this constant R&D, typically the new inventor cannot simply recognize credits to the previous one in form of citation, but the patent system would require each new manufacturer to demand a license to the former patent holder for their follow-on inventions.19 In this context, it is possible to identify a specifc phenomenon called ‘patent thickets’ that can be explained as ‘a dense web of overlapping intellectual property rights that a company must hack its way through in order to actually commercialize new technology’.20 This phenomenon is mostly present in complex technology industries, meaning a type of technology which includes different components that can be assembled to result in different products (‘modular’), and these products consist of a multitude of these different components (‘complex’).21 Given this complexity, as there are overlaps in the functionality of different components, there is an overlap in the patents granted for those components, and if the patents are granted to different firms, the patent thickets arise.22 And these thickets could trigger a ‘vicious cycle’. In fact, in certain industries, it is difficult to identify all the granted patents, to assess the claims in every patent and to avoid the overlaps, and the owners of these technologies have no intentions to arrest the production of innovative products, due to the presence of existing thickets.23 The consequence is that companies are prompt to fling hundreds of patents each year to avoid patent infringement and to be in a more convenient trade position if and when negotiations take place. The result is more patent thickets.

Biotechnology, which includes vaccine R&D, is one of the industries that mostly involve patent thickets.24 As stated above, although they are based on natural elements, such as mRNA, vaccines require the constant human intervention for every step that leads to their production. And different patents are granted for one specific vaccine to protect this complex technology on different levels.25 A finalized vaccine product is constituted by various components, and each of them may be covered by different patents. In particular, a vaccine can be formed by an antigen, an adjuvant and an excipient, which are respectively covered by more than one patent.26 For instance, when a novel antigen is identifed, there can be the patentability of the nucleic acid level, the protein level and the expression technology, which would all receive a distinctive protection than the one towards adjuvants and vehicle technologies.27 Not only the vaccine per se but also its medical application can receive a distinct patent protection,28 with regard to, for instance, a new delivery device, a novel vaccine combination with various substances, a new dosage or a different target group.29 Therefore, probably a single vaccine manufacturer is not the holder of all the patents for that product and the relative medical applications.

Cifrodelli 24 [Gabriele, PhD Candidate & Research and Teaching Assistant, University of Glasgow (CREATe Centre), “Can you patent the sun? Towards a sui generis inclusive right to manage the relationship between intellectual property and Commons,” “Journal of Intellectual Property Law & Practice,” 2024, Vol. 00 No. 00, DOI: ,” ALB]

Introduction A

A very brief account of the development of mainstream intellectual property law as it relates to genetic resources will be outlined in this section. This summary will provide a useful context within which to appraise the potential significance of the protection of indigenous knowledge. It will also serve as an introduction to a few anomalous aspects of intellectual property law that might provide openings for, or complement, efforts to create new systems for the protection of indigenous and local knowledge.     In the case of genetic resource management, three factors--technological capacity, market demand, and intellectual property protection--have developed in close association over the course of the last sixty years. During that period, it is possible to concurrently trace the evolution of these three factors through three fundamental shifts in focus: (i) asexual flower breeding; (ii) improved cross-breeding of sexually producing crop plants; and (iii) biotechnical manipulation of plant parts and microbes.     International and domestic intellectual property laws have shifted to accommodate and protect these evolving technologies and markets. For example, the United States Plant Patent Act(FN22) extended protection only to asexually reproducing plants. Similarly, the first international agreement to countenance the subject of plant-related intellectual property law--an amendment to the Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property(FN23) at the London Conference in 1934(FN24)--extended recognition to breeding efforts concerning asexually reproducing flowers. Subsequent domestic legislation and international conventions extended protection to improved varieties of sexually producing plants. The legal protection in these cases had to be sui generis protections because plant varieties could not qualify for generic plant protection since industrial plant breeding activities could not meet the standard patent law criterion of novelty and non-obviousness, and because it was impossible to disclose in writing the nature of plant breeding innovations.(FN25) New and somewhat more lax criteria for the protection of plant varieties had to be created to protect the plant-breeding industry, market, and technologies. The new requirements were that the new varieties had to be distinct, uniform, and stable.(FN26)     More recently, advances in biotechnology have made it possible to engineer new plant varieties (and other biologically based "inventions") which can satisfy the novel and non-obvious criterion.(FN27) Once this technology was firmly established, the Union for the Protection of Plant Varieties ("UPOV") convention was revised in 1991 to allow national governments to provide patent protection for plant varieties.(FN28) Even if countries should choose not to implement patent laws in favour of new plant varieties, UPOV 1991 adds the criterion of novelty to the previous three criteria of distinctiveness, uniformity, and stability.(FN29) One possible future development is that mandatory patent protection of plant varieties will be included in an amendment to article 27(2)(b) of the TRIPs(FN30) agreement, which was scheduled for review in 1999. Finally, with respect to biotechnologies, in response to new-found capacities to create and/or use microorganisms in novel ways, many countries have broadened their intellectual property laws to the effect that they can protect life-forms.

Due to the obstacles to protecting AI outputs by copyright, patent, or related rights, some scholars have proposed creating a special sui generis regime for the protection of AI-generated works. De Cock Buning writes that introduction of a sui generis right for the protection of AI outputs is a very likely option, as it would leave room for the attribution of rights that is most suitable: whether the beneficiary is the legal entity that made the investment into the AI system or the legal entity to be established in order to represent the AI system’s acts in law.65 Lorenzoni proposes a sui generis system for AI outputs that would protect works of art and inventions under the same regime. Per Lorenzoni, works of art, autonomously created by an AI system, for which investments have been made, and that are original, meaning they are not copies of existing works, would be protected by the sui generis system and, similar to copyright, not require registration. AI-generated inventions would be protected if they satisfy the requirements of novelty, industrial application, and “innovative step” (instead of an inventive step for patents), meaning the invention should be different from the prior art and such difference should make a substantial contribution to the working of the invention. For both works of art and inventions, Lorenzoni proposes a term of protection in between that offered to software and databases, e.g., 10 years. Similar to the sui generis database right, the sui generis right in AI outputs would be allocated to the person taking the initiative and the risk of investing into the AI system.66 Despite the detailed description of the proposed sui generis system, it is not clear how the two regimes, which are essentially a copyright-like protection and a regime similar to utility patents, are to be combined into a single sui generis regime.

Continued use of an innovation to maintain and extend protection is one possible avenue of determining duration. For example, in trademark law in the U.S., a declaration of use (or excusable nonuse) is required every ten years in order to maintain trademark protection.72 This provides owners an incentive to continue using the right (i.e. so that they can continue to maintain protection), while also allowing competitors or other innovators to create their own marks within the same field. Such a continued use duration, though, has downsides when applied to an AI. So many aspects of an AI invention, whether it in the input data, algorithms that comprise it, or output produced, can change throughout its “lifetime” that defining “use” to any single embodiment would be almost impossible, as that use could change often. In the trademark context, the mark (as well as the company to which it applies) will generally remain the same throughout the course of its use. A solution could be that each subsequent embodiment of an AI, developed over time, would be entitled to its own protection. However, such a scheme would require further administrative costs as each use would need registration (as outline above) as well as a determination of when the AI has changed enough to warrant further protection. Another alternative could be a set term of years, as is usually used in copyright and patent regimes. Given the speed at which this field develops, a shorter period may be desired, on the order of perhaps 5 to 10 years. This duration would depend upon a careful study of how these technologies develop as well as the costs related to that development and potential for recouping that cost in the market. Another alternative, used by the sui generis database right, is the option to renew the right for an additional term of years upon showing of “substantial investment.” This could be attractive to AI developers, as in this way they can continue developing their AI, changing the base algorithms, inputs, and outputs without fear of losing their protection. Of course, there is still the administrative cost of registering and tracking the AI changes, but in this case, they do not risk losing protection that they already have, but rather risk not gaining protection, if they fail to properly report and track their invention.

In navigating this uncharted terrain, the sui generis approach proposed here emerges as a beacon of adaptability. It acknowledges AI as a dynamic co-creator while upholding the rights and intentions of human participants. By fostering a balanced ecosystem, this approach empowers creators to leverage AI's capabilities, while ensuring that the outputs remain true to their vision. As legal scholars and policymakers grapple with the intricacies of protecting AI-generated creations, the sui generis approach emerges as a formidable solution. Its adaptation allows for the preservation of the inherent value of both AI and human creative input yet recognizes and addresses the inherent imbalance between humans and AI in the creative process. By embracing this nuanced approach, society can fully embrace the artistic possibilities of AI while safeguarding the foundations of creativity, innovation, and the public domain. In a world where human imagination and artificial intelligence converge, the sui generis system offers the promise of harmony amidst complexity, embodying the true essence of creative evolution.

We have seen that at present copyright regimes may not be fit to accommodate what is produced by algorithmic creativity; indeed, copyright laws in several jurisdictions do not explicitly protect machine created works. The lack of human authorship/originality is a key factor in this regard. Yet, whether we agree or not, it is inevitable that corporate entities will lobby for a form of exclusive rights to protect the final outputs of machine-driven processes. Could an acceptable compromise be offered by a sui generis system—a kind of protection that could incentivise the development of and use of AI creative platforms while at the same time safeguarding human ingenuity?185 The benefit of a sui generis regime (as opposed to using the full scope of copyright to protect such works) would be that right holders could be given only a thin scope of protection, allowing them to prevent others from exploiting exact copies of the machine-generated work. In this view, it would essentially be protection against literal copying only.186 As to the length of protection, unlike the typical copyright duration, a very short duration could be applied in the AI context e.g. three years from the date of publication of the work (the length of term suggested in a recent AIPPI “Study Question” by Dutch delegates).187 Why should a thinner and shorter right be preferred?188 The usual justifications for the long duration in the context of human authors would not apply. In fact, providing AI developers and companies incentives for AI-created works by offering the strong traditional copyright protection/duration may even lead to fewer human-generated works being created in the long run.189 AI creative capacity is potentially both more vast and speedier than human capacity.190 The risk is a devaluation of human intellectual ingenuity and a marginalisation of the human creative potential.191 Just as automation threatens (and, over time, eliminates) existing jobs in manufacturing, AI creativity could threaten the value of human authorship. The provision of a limited sui generis right might neutralise this risk by providing an incentive to recognise the creativity of AI works without giving machines an equal level of protection to humans.192 The fact that only literal copying would be prohibited would leave human creators free to adapt, transform and reinterpret AI-generated works and thus to use them for creative purposes. In fact, such a feature of the proposed sui generis right may fit with the characteristics of many AI machines such as Amper, an AI music composition system.

To meet the needs of the international marketplace, an effective mechanism for the protection of IP rights must be established, preferably multilaterally but if necessary through regional and bilateral arrangements (Doane, 1994). The TRIPS Agreement has taken a more direct approach to copyright (WTO, 1994), and EU directives on database legal protection (Directive 96/9/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 March 1996 on the Legal Protection of Databases, 1996) and harmonization of certain aspects of copyright and related rights in the information society (Directive 2001/29/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 22 May 2001 on the Harmonisation of Certain Aspects of Copyright and Related Rights in the Information Society, 2001) have also clearly addressed copyright. Directive 96/9/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council explicitly deals with issues related to database protection by stating that certain aspects of databases require more protection than copyright, and in so doing it leans more heavily toward sui generis for certain technical aspects. In the UAE, the concept of IP and AI is addressed in the IP legal framework in the provisions of TRIPS Art. 10(2) on Data Compilations5 (WTO, 1994). It should be noted that the TRIPS Agreement provides that gatherings of data and other material essentially must be protected “as such”. While it is not said that these compilations must be protected as works, this can be assumed since the provision appears in that part of the TRIPS Agreement which deals with copyright (WIPO, 2012). The traditional perspective towards AI and IP has evolved especially the stance of WIPO conversations on trends in technology and artificial intelligence in 2019 and 2021, respectively. This approach led to addressing the main issue related to the traditional IP rights legal system, especially copyright shortcomings regarding sufficient protection within the current copyright system leading to seeking alternative solutions

Another way to look at this is to consider these future challenges as the new Law of the Horse to the most pressing issue facing western civilization - climate change. The modification of our environment for purposes useful for us, including the use and promotion of the automobile, has had a profound effect on our civilization, demanding a political and legal response. The transportation sector, and our use of automobiles, is one of of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in Canada.

After reviewing the debate of cyberlaw, Ruhl & Salzman make the case in the in 2013 for a new, sui generis area of law of climate change law, distinct even from environmental law. Doing so can provide a forceful political statement that develops its own authoritative texts and foster new laws and policies, and improve efficiency by encouraging highly technical and deep knowledge into a new field of specialized knowledge.

Patents are criminally inappropriate when rapid diffusion of technology is a priority. The logic of patents is compelling: research is incentivised by the granting of a monopolistic period during which R&D costs can be recuperated. Guided by this principle, government strategy has so far revolved around establishing fast-track lanes for green IP, setting the stage for a green patent ‘arms race’ between the biggest companies. However, the double-bind of patent is that diffusion of technology in the short term is sacrificed to incentivise innovation in the long term. In the context of climate change, we must consider whether this is a bargain we are willing to accept. Do we want to see what happens when the ‘wicked’ problem of climate change meets the ‘tragedy’ of the Anti-Commons?

Certain game-changing technologies - wind and solar, for example - have already been developed but patenting of the underlying technology has limited their impact. Licensing has been too expensive to make follow-on development and cheap production of the technology commercially viable. High-profile cases have already brought this into stark relief. In 2014, Mitsubishi were blocked from importing wind turbines into Texas because of an infringement of a General Electric patent. More recently, GE themselves were unable to deploy the Halide X turbine in the US because of a Siemens Gamesa patent. There are calls to shorten the period of exclusivity for green patents, but these miss the point: if there can be no justifiable delay to technological diffusion in the present circumstances, how can there be time for patents?

Intellectual property beyond patents. Given the essential focus on the innovation and dissemination of new technologies in the climate change debate, the patent system has borne much more scrutiny than other aspects of intellectual property law and policy. But IP is a broader field, and should not be conflated with patents alone. Several other aspects of IP law and policy may be relevant to addressing the challenge of climate change, for instance:

The protection of undisclosed information or trade secrets for key areas of knowhow relevant to mitigation and adaptation

Even in today's modern US economy, large enterprises play a much smaller role than often expected. [xxxvii] For example, according to the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA), ninety nine percent of all independent enterprises in the US have fewer than 500 employees, and these small enterprises employ fifty two percent of all US workers. In fact, about 19.6 million Americans work for businesses having fewer than twenty employees, 18.4 million Americans work for companies employing between twenty and ninety nine workers, and 14.6 million work for businesses employing between 100 and 499 people. In contrast, 47.7 million Americans work for larger firms employing 500 or more people. In addition, small businesses provided seventy five percent of new job growth in the period between 1990 and 1995, an even larger contribution than in the 1980's. It is evident that small businesses are a critical part of the US economy and a major contributor to its growth. Unfortunately, US intellectual property law and its practice can be financially challenging to small businesses. For example, it is estimated that the typical cost for a small US business to obtain a patent might be $20,000 to $30,000--not including the necessary attorney's fees and associated legal services. [xxxviii] In fact, due to these rapidly increasing costs, some small businesses question whether filing a patent is a worthwhile practice. [xxxix] Similar comments have been made by small business leaders in Congressional testimony; for example, Mitchell Gross, Chairman and CEO of Mobius Management Systems, has stated that the process of issuing US patents is too costly and takes too much time. [xl] Therefore it appears that there is clearly a need for a more rapid and less expensive form of intellectual property protection for inventions in the US, particularly one that would be affordable and useful to small businesses. Of course, the reduced costs associated with utility models would benefit not only small businesses, but also larger technology firms. Those businesses that are characterized by rapid innovation and short product cycles would benefit from the inexpensive and rapid protection of intellectual property rights, as discussed above. In particular, start-up firms would more quickly obtain enforceable IP protection for their developments, which could aid them in seeking capital and investors. In addition, US firms face increasingly stiff competition from abroad, and some of the rapidly developing countries still have weaker IP protection and enforcement, which has in some cases fostered the development of companies that are quite effective at rapidly bringing copying or imitating products to the marketplace. Therefore a number of firms in various industries might also potentially benefit by being able to quickly obtain an enforceable IP right in the US to help in dealing with the potential importation of any such copied or imitated products.

Current law is at best unclear. Judicial precedent is muddled and legislation has frequently been interpreted beyond its explicit meaning and guiding principles. This state of affairs is simply the product of the logical desire to fit a new human endeavour into the same legal framework that has governed novel endeavours from time immemorial. However, as the law has developed, its policy objective has become obscured by the push and pull of opposing lobbies in the debate. Demonstrating the resulting ambiguity of the current regime will involve looking in detail at the current state of the law. Observation of every facet of reasoning in this complex area of law is beyond the scope of this paper, however, and so with a view to giving an impression of that complexity and the bewilderment it causes, the most salient problems will be focused upon. It is not intended to examine trade secrecy law, given the more material and contentious issues surrounding the laws of copyright and patent. Suffice it to say, trade secrets, which prevent disclosure of works such as formulas and processes, are generally considered to be something of a dead duck in terms of software. This is due to the historical shift of emphasis in the industry from the practice of custom-designing and installing computers, where software secrets tended to be useful on only very few machines, to the sale of off-the-shelf computer programs, which operate on a wide range of hardware and can be running on thousands if not millions of general-purpose computers simultaneously.7 Considering whether the replacement of the current regime with a sui generis system is the best way forward will involve not just the (clearly important) objective of clarifying the law, but also the consideration of certain important real world factors. Given the omnipresence of software in our lives and its importance in the commercial world, such extra-legal factors will reveal some important considerations for the future of the legal protection of software. These will be considered further below.

In the EU, under the Database Directive, sui generis right was granted for the protection of databases regardless of their originality, based on substantial investment.38 The concept of sui generis in EU copyright has emerged due to the legal structure in Dutch law – ‘geschriftenbescherming’ – which provides legal protection for non-original works. It is this approach that has been taken as the basis for determining the legal protection of non-original databases in the EU. In Dutch law, this construction is applied primarily to literary works and provides protection that is essentially similar to copyright protection. Historically, this unique right appeared to protect the rights of book publishers and was enshrined in the Copyright Act of the Netherlands of 1912, in particular, in Art. 10 (1), which provides for the protection of an open list of works. Thus, the wording of the article on ‘protection of books, brochures, newspapers ... and other written works’ gave rise to a contradictory diversion of the last two words.39 At the same time, this background should not be taken as the sole scope of sui generis right for databases, but rather as a historical illustration of the development.40 For now, the Database Directive is the only legal act that provides such sui generis intellectual property protection. In 1996, WIPO presented the draft of the ‘Basic Proposal for the Substantive Provisions of the Treaty on Intellectual Property in Respect of Databases to be Considered by the Diplomatic Conference’,41 which combined the EU and the US proposals concerning sui generis right in databases, although WIPO’s draft treaty was never adopted.

The term ‘utility model’ is used by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) to indicate a type of exclusive right granted (or registered) on an invention which is ‘different’ from patents.1 The concept goes under different names in different countries, but there are common elements:

The requirements for filing and registering a utility model are generally less stringent than for patents. While the requirement of ‘novelty’ is always to be met for both patents and utility models, the requirement of ‘inventive step’ or ‘non-obviousness’ may be much lower or absent altogether.

The debate over intellectual property protection for new plant varieties in India goes back to 1967 when the Seed Review Team, constituted by the government of India, recommended the enactment of a law to incentivize the creation of new plant varieties (Kochar, 2010). However, no action was taken in this regard till the signing of the Agreement on Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS). This Agreement, which was a part of the WTO Agreement, gave its signatories three options when it came to protecting new plant varieties: either protect new plant varieties under national patent law or enact a sui generis legislation to protect only plant varieties or a combination of these two systems.

Like many other countries, India chose the option of enacting a sui generis legislation called the Plant Variety Protection & Farmer's Rights Act, 2001 (PVPFRA) to protect new plant varieties. This law appears to draw some inspiration from the International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV) although there remain significant differences between Indian law and UPOV. It should be mentioned that the Indian law has some rather unique provisions on “farmer's rights”, which mandate benefit-sharing in certain circumstances (Jayaraman, 2001). Anew variety can be registered under the PVPFRA as long as it conforms to the criteria of novelty, distinctiveness, uniformity and stability. 2 The country also amended its patent law in 2002 to specifically exclude the possibility of patent protection for plants and plant varieties. 3

One of the preconditions for determining patent infringement is whether the patented subject has been used. For this reason, it needs to be determined whether cultivating plants containing the cell and gene may amount to infringement, or if a patent might be infringed only by "patented invention in isolation." The Supreme Court pointed to the commercial nature of agriculture and dismissed the farmer's argument that patent infringement should be interpreted narrowly because plants reproduce themselves "through the laws of nature, rather than human intervention."118Link to the text of the note The Supreme Court decided the dilemma between patent protection and property rights of farmers - invoking essentially the concept of farmers' rights - in favour of patent protection, extending it over genes as well as modified cells.

The fact that, in the Supreme Court's reasoning, the patent might be infringed in a situation where the intent or use of the gene is absent seems to be important in this regard. However, the dissenting opinion to the judgment suggests that enabling gene and cell claims to extend patent protection to plants might undermine the flexibility under Art.27.3(b) of the TRIPs Agreement.121Link to the text of the note Moreover, it is also suggested that applying the sui generis system of protection - which was already in place at that time in Canada - would be more appropriate, since the patent protection should not take precedence in cases where another, more tailored form of intellectual property protection is in place. The term "sui generis" means "of its own kind" [*101] and is often used to describe unique or specific systems or arrangements. In the context of intellectual property rights related to biodiversity and traditional knowledge, a sui generis system refers to a framework tailored to address the unique characteristics and needs of traditional knowledge holders and indigenous communities.124Link to the text of the note

Those complicating factors do not suggest that patents are unimportant. Rather, they reveal that neither all nor even most inventions fall into the neat category of "public goods." Thus, patents form part of a larger universe of incentives - competition, first-mover advantage, trade-secret protection, and beyond - that collectively bestow the net incentive to invent. Sometimes, the absence of patent protection would not lead inventors to abandon R&D investment, such as where the expected value of R&D without patents exceeds the innovator's reservation return. 6 Nevertheless, we would expect that introducing patents would increase the net incentive to invent a first-generation technology.

Other things being equal, strengthening the patent grant will enhance the incentive to invest in R&D to create a pioneer good or method. By giving an inventor a broader right to exclude, patent law increases the expected value of innovating. One tradeoff is that broadening the exclusive right increases the deadweight loss generated by any market power that flows from the patent. 87 When more competition in a product market increases social welfare - as is likely the case in markets that are not natural monopolies - then it is possible to enhance efficiency by narrowing the patent grant, but only if the welfare benefits of greater competition exceed the diminished incentive to invent.88

Patents as discrete inventions are the building blocks for collections of inventions. Patents can be combined to form a patent portfolio. Firms can assemble a portfolio of patents with different technologies to meet their production needs. Buyers can license or purchase patents from different patent owners. Patent bundling offers transaction efficiencies by providing convenience to buyers and sellers. Because they represent discrete inventions, the particular needs of buyers and sellers can be satisfied by choosing the best combination of patents.

By offering divisibility, patents promote efficiency in the organization of firms and industries. A firm need not conduct R&D on all the technologies necessary to produce a product or service. Instead, firms can specialize in a particular type of R&D. Then, buyers can assemble the technologies they need through the market for inventions. In this way, patents help foster modularity of technologies, which allows the separation and combination of different parts of a technology platform.