IP² Working Paper No. 14005 - Patents award innovators a fixed period of market exclusivity, e.g., 20 years in the United States. Yet, since in many industries firms file patents at the time of discovery (“invention”) rather than first sale (“commercialization”), effective patent terms vary: inventions that commercialize at the time of invention receive a full patent term, whereas inventions that have a long time lag between invention and commercialization receive substantially reduced – or in extreme cases, zero – effective patent terms.

Abraham Sofaer examines domestic legal constraints, finding that US law has consistently allowed the executive “broad authority to plan for and manage the nation’s security, while preserving in Congress the power to approve, disallow, or take no action on executive initiatives.”

The paper first briefly surveys the extent to which the provisions of United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) intersect with those of US interests in the Arctic. Not surprisingly, there is extensive overlap. The paper then reviews and critiques the arguments that (UNCLOS) is irrelevant or even antithetical to achieving those. interests; it then examines the case for UNCLOS, focusing on US interests on the Arctic seafloor and arguing that those interests are extensive and that accession would...