Definitions

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun The reverse of a commons; a situation in which a resource is subject to fragmented rights, whereby potential users can exclude one another.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Coined by Michael Heller, based on "tragedy of the commons", a term coined by Garrett Hardin.

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Examples

  • Recent studies addressing this issue in the United States1, 2, Germany3, Australia4 and Japan5 find that "patent thickets"6 or an "anticommons"7 rarely affect the research of academic scientists.

    B2fxxx 2009

  • At the IPSC conference in Berkeley, one of the regulars commented to me that we seem to be entering an era of "normal science" in IP: the most engaging projects are not aiming to "shift the paradigm," but rather to incrementally solve problems such as anticommons, or excess uniformity in legal treatment of diverse phenomena recognized much earlier.

    Archive 2006-08-01 2006

  • At the IPSC conference in Berkeley, one of the regulars commented to me that we seem to be entering an era of "normal science" in IP: the most engaging projects are not aiming to "shift the paradigm," but rather to incrementally solve problems such as anticommons, or excess uniformity in legal treatment of diverse phenomena recognized much earlier.

    Kalman's Historian's Eye View 2006

  • By "anticommons," they meant a situation in which the existence of a large number of intellectual property rights applicable to a single good or service unduly retards or even prevents its provision.

    Reason Magazine Ronald Bailey 2010

  • Navigating the Patent Thicket: Cross Licenses, Patent Pools, and Standard Setting, "In: Innovation Policy and the Economy 1: 119-50) or the" anticommons "(Heller & Eisenberg, 1998,"

    Patent Docs 2009

  • Fair use warning iPhone apps: cash cow or anticommons?

    What sweetens a legend most? Rebecca Tushnet 2009

  • Fair use warning iPhone apps: cash cow or anticommons?

    Revitalizing false patent marking Rebecca Tushnet 2009

  • Fair use warning iPhone apps: cash cow or anticommons?

    FDA preemption argument loses again Rebecca Tushnet 2009

  • Fair use warning iPhone apps: cash cow or anticommons?

    IPSC: trademark and the consumer Rebecca Tushnet 2009

  • Wednesday, August 19, 2009 iPhone apps: cash cow or anticommons?

    Archive 2009-08-01 Rebecca Tushnet 2009

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