摘要：Nanotechnology is the engineering of matter at scales less thanabout one hundred nanometers (one ten-millionth of a meter). Fromnanomedicines to nanoscale electronics to nanomaterials, nanotechnologyhas already had a substantial impact across a variety of industriesand is predicted to be an important driver of future economicgrowth. As an enabling technology across a wide range of fields, nanotechnologypresents a microcosm of the global innovation ecosystem.As described in this Article, the story of nanotechnology involvesboth substantial state funding and heavy use of the patent system.Governments around the world have played an essential role not onlyby funding basic research, but also by crafting infrastructure to lowerthe barriers to entry, and by providing substantial direct funding tofirms to help mitigate the risk of entering uncertain nanotechnologymarkets.1 Nanotechnology is thus a useful counterpoint both to thegrowing number of case studies on how innovation can flourish withoutintellectual property (“IP”), and to the myth of an independentprivate sector that produces breakthrough innovations without governmentintervention.
