This book explores Russia's 100-year history of institutional experiments with legal forms, incentives, and organizational structures in search of an optimal system of knowledge production and diffusion. How was the Soviet Union able to industrialize in the absence of intellectual property, while Russia fails to re-industrialize despite adopting strong intellectual property rights that are presumed to be better suited to promoting innovation? What happened to Russia after it introduced the globalized rules of intellectual property? Informed by interviews with key players in the Russian innovation system and case studies in biopharmaceutical and information technology industries, the book exposes the informal side of the institution of intellectual property in Russia. The study reveals that the Russian case is not simply a story of institutional decline; it is also a story of how a new informal system is evolving in which new networks are steering Russia's approach to innovation.

‘Russia's October Revolution of 1917 sent institutional and ideological shock waves that continue to crash on the shores of our world. How did Russia approach intellectual property and innovation after 1917? What changed after the end of the Soviet Union? This book, better than any other that I know, helps us to understand Russian innovation and its consequences.'

Peter Drahos - European University Institute