 Increased costs, however, are not necessarily bad  If marginal gains from patent protection exceed marginal costs to obtain/enforce, then cost levels are acceptable  Little real-world data exists comparing gains to costs  Because of this, some theorize that patent protection is unnecessary (Boldrin and Levine, 2013)  Quality of life has substantially increased since 1995 (the Internet, smart phones, etc.) – but whether this is the result of patent protection is unknown
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