Prizes links to the elections/politics NB.
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]
Assume, for example, that a government is currently spending $1 trillion on innovation incentives, spread equally between patents and grants. If it wanted to keep the overall incentive level the same while boosting the share of grants, two things would have to happen. First, it would have to reduce the patent incentive by shortening patent duration, making patents harder to obtain, or reducing patent scope. Second, the government would have to increase the amount of public funding for innovation. While the latter move might appear politically unpopular, this is only because consumers often fail to recognize the extent to which they are already paying for the innovation incentives of the patent system. Increased education about the costs as well as the benefits of patents would be valuable.