[hxa7241]

While that is certainly a nice and well regarded model, it does not say much about what actually happens. It really only amounts to a proposition, and cannot be read as indicating a necessity. As Landes and Posner themselves later say:

"Economic analysis has come up short of providing either theoretical or empirical grounds for assessing the overall effect of intellectual property law on economic welfare."

-- 'The economic structure of intellectual property law'; Landes, Posner; 2003. Conclusion, p422, s3.

That is, to spell it out, we do not know if intellectual monopoly law is doing any good at all. This is easy to see for oneself: there must be, and obviously are, costs -- legal, enforcement, search engine 'fixing' -- yet we have no idea how much the gain is. If there is a negative, but the positive is unknown, it is quite possible the sum is itself negative.