Question

The traditional justification for patent law is the "incentive-to-invent" theory, which posits that inventors require the guarantee of temporary monopoly protection in order to recoup high research and development costs. However, legal scholar Naomi Zarin challenges this historical consensus. She argues that in fast-paced technological industries, patent law actually stifles innovation by creating "patent thickets"—dense webs of overlapping intellectual property rights that companies must navigate to commercialize new technology.

Economist Marcus Choi counters Zarin's critique by drawing a distinction between different phases of innovation. Choi contends that while Zarin correctly identifies patent thickets as a barrier to subsequent iterative development, she overstates their negative impact on initial invention. According to Choi, patent protection remains an essential mechanism for early-stage capital formation, without which initial inventions would struggle to secure funding.

Ultimately, both Zarin and Choi base their arguments on the assumption that the primary purpose of the patent system is to influence the rate of invention. This shared assumption overlooks the most crucial function of patents in the modern era. The primary utility of the patent system is not incentivizing invention, but rather facilitating the structured public disclosure of technical information that corporations would otherwise hoard as closely guarded trade secrets.

According to the passage, which one of the following claims is explicitly attributed to economist Marcus Choi?