Patent Failure: How Judges, Bureaucrats, and Lawyers Put Innovators at Risk
Authors: James Bessen & Michael J. Meurer
352 pp. | 6 x 9 | 21 line illus. 17 tables.
Princeton University Press

Honorable Mention for the 2008 PROSE Award for Professional and Scholarly Excellence in Law and Legal Studies, Association of American Publishers

In recent years, business leaders, policymakers, and inventors have complained to the media and to Congress that today's patent system stifles innovation instead of fostering it. But like the infamous patent on the peanut butter and jelly sandwich, much of the cited evidence about the patent system is pure anecdote--making realistic policy formation difficult. Is the patent system fundamentally broken, or can it be fixed with a few modest reforms? Moving beyond rhetoric, Patent Failure provides the first authoritative and comprehensive look at the economic performance of patents in forty years. James Bessen and Michael Meurer ask whether patents work well as property rights, and, if not, what institutional and legal reforms are necessary to make the patent system more effective.

Patent Failure presents a wide range of empirical evidence from history, law, and economics. The book's findings are stark and conclusive. While patents do provide incentives to invest in research, development, and commercialization, for most businesses today, patents fail to provide predictable property rights. Instead, they produce costly disputes and excessive litigation that outweigh positive incentives. Only in some sectors, such as the pharmaceutical industry, do patents act as advertised, with their benefits outweighing the related costs.

For more info, NeoAmericanist reviewers should visit:
http://press.princeton.edu/titles/8634.html

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Creating Colonial Williamsburg: The Restoration of Virginia's Eighteenth-Century Capital
Author: Anders Greenspan
240 pp., 6 x 9, 30 illus., notes, bibl., index
University of North Carolina Press

In Creating Colonial Williamsburg, Anders Greenspan examines the restoration and re-creation of the structures and gardens of Virginia's colonial capital beginning in 1926. The restoration was undertaken by the Rockefeller family, whose aim was to promote a twentieth-century appreciation for eighteenth-century ideals. Ironically, those ideals, including democracy, individualism, and representative government, were often promoted at the expense of a more complete understanding of the town's true history. The meaning and purpose of Colonial Williamsburg has changed over time, along with America's changing social and political landscapes, making the study of this historic site a unique and meaningful entry point to understanding the shifting modern American character.

In recent years, financial struggles and declining attendance forced a new interpretation of the town, extending the presentation into the period of the American Revolution, while adding new interpretive approaches such as street theater and a greater emphasis on technology. Over its eighty-year history, says Greenspan, Colonial Williamsburg has grown and matured, while still retaining its emphasis on the importance of eighteenth-century values and their application in the modern world.

For more info, NeoAmericanist reviewers should visit:
http://uncpress.unc.edu/browse/book_detail?title_id=1664

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