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Tragedy of the Anticommons? Intellectual Property and the Sharing of Scientific Information

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Justin B. Biddle
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Abstract

Many philosophers argue that the emphasis on commercializing scientific research—and particularly on patenting the results of research—is both epistemically and socially detrimental, in part because it inhibits the flow of information. One of the most important of these criticisms is the “tragedy of the anticommons” thesis. Some have attempted to test this thesis empirically, and many have argued that these empirical tests effectively falsify the thesis. I argue that they neither falsify nor disconfirm the thesis because they do not actually test it. Additionally, I argue that there is other evidence that actually supports the thesis.

Type
Norms of Science and Science Policy
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 79 , Issue 5 , December 2012 , pp. 821 - 832
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

†

Thanks to Martin Carrier, Michael Hoffmann, Rebecca Kukla, Hugh Lacey, Aaron Levine, Bryan Norton, Miriam Solomon, John Walsh, and Torsten Wilholt for their comments on earlier versions of this article. Thanks also to the audiences at PSA 2010, EPSA 2011, SPSP 2011, the TRiP conference on Science, Expertise, and Democracy, and Bielefeld University for their comments.

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