Patents and Innovation Policy PluralismInnovation ecosystems are complex, shaped by diverse actors with different goals and incentives. This should make wary of ‘one‑size‑fits‑all’ solutions to the problem of how to incentivise innovation and allow us to recognise that the patent system is only one (albeit important) lever that policymakers have at their disposal. There are, moreover, other reasons for questioning the market-centric view of innovation on which the patent system rests. Consequently, there are good reasons for advocating a pragmatic, context‑sensitive approach to incentivising innovation, one that embraces diversity in institutional design and regulatory tools. That said, advocates of innovation policy pluralism must also recognise that the alternatives to the patent system are themselves imperfect and that we are therefore left with an awkward conclusion: innovation policy is about using a set of imperfect tools to influence a process that we do not fully understand.
