SOCI 235 Lecture Notes - Lecture 9: United States Department Of Justice, Corning Inc., Corningware
26 Nov 2017
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Intellectual property and innovation: the rationale for intellectual property: Firms would be unlikely to incur the risk and cost of innovating if other firms could immediately adopt the innovations they generate. In the first half of the 20th century a set of us producers of glass products (specialty glass, flat glass, glass containers) formed a cartel. The members of the cartel i) cross-licensed technology; ii) divided market segments among themselves; engaged in joint ventures. The rest of the lower court"s decision stood: corning responded to this judgment in two main ways. It forcefully and successfully defended a different form of intellectual property - trademarks. Its commercial strategy was to use the association of its name with high quality products to improve consumer acceptance of new products released under the corning brand. Brand loyalty, then, could provide some protection against lower priced competition. This was, to some extent, a substitute for patent protection.
