In 2011 the economist Alex Tabarrok argued in his book Launching the Innovation Renaissance that the American patent system, far from encouraging innovation, is now discouraging it. Echoing the famous Laffer curve, which shows that beyond a certain point higher tax rates generate less revenue, he drew a graph on a paper napkin to suggest that beyond a certain point stronger patents generate less innovation, because they make it hard to share ideas, and create barriers to entry. The Semiconductor Chip Protection Act of 1984 resulted in more patenting but less innovation in the United States, as
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