Patents are better for innovation and commercialization. Markets know better than governments, who are subject to bias and industry capture.
Buccafaso & Weinstein, Duke University, School of Law, Professor 23 [Christopher & Samuel, Georgia Law Review, 1/29/23, “Antisocial Innovation”, https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4520979 DOA 7/21/24, MP]
To a considerable extent, contemporary innovation research has come down on the side of markets and patents as opposed to the government and grants or prizes as the superior incentive regime.116 In these debates, markets’ superior knowledge of what people want is the key to their success.117 Markets generate information about what goods and services people desire, and patents enable innovators with new ideas to compete successfully against copyists.118 Governments and their bureaucrats, by contrast, may not know what people desire, and they may be subject to biases or industry capture.119 The role for grants and other ex ante incentives is largely reserved for early stage research and other areas that are not subject to commercialization.120