Networks hanging loose: the domestic sources of US-EU patent disputes

Intellectual property assets and most notably patents are assumed as most crucial instruments for an effective commercial exploitation of technological inventions. Although both the US and Europe agree in principle that an enhanced cooperation between their patent offices would foster the economic development, various negotiation rounds to harmonize patent application standards have been frustrated during the last 30 years. In our article, we claim that neither the US nor the member states of the European Patent Organization are willing to invest their regulators with a comprehensive negotiation mandate. As long as the decision-making substantially remains within the competencies of domestic institutions, societal actors in both economic spheres prove able to impede any rapprochement. The article concludes with a few tentative generalizations about the relationship between transnational regulatory networks, their institutional embeddedness, and domestic actors' constellations.