Impact assessment on IP key to determine the impact of overall IP policies

(Faculty of Law, University of Ottawa, “Evidence-Based Intellectual Property Policymaking: An Integrated Review of Methods and Conclusions,” pg online @ https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/jwip.12069 //pa-ef)

Based on my analysis of the literature, and identification of its gaps and deficiencies, I identify a potential solution to the challenges of assessing the economic impacts of IP. I explore the usefulness of an innovation process framework as a practical means to structure the analysis of the socio-economic implications of IP policy decisions for specific sectors and across the economy. The framework explains how firms’ intellectual property management decisions at the microeconomic level are affected by IP policy decisions, and how firm level decisions relate to broader outcomes at the level of a particular industry or innovation system. Most importantly, this framework may help to shift the focus of policymaking from a firm-centric micro-economic perspective to a systemic macro-economic analysis. This is the crucial leap that few if any studies in the existing IP impact assessment literature have made. Such a framework could allow policy makers to investigate how the impacts of their decisions are likely to propagate through the economy, and who the winners and losers will be.