This paper explores the apparent anomaly in the patenting strategies found in the agricultural biotechnology industry, when it is compared to the literature's view of the patenting strategies in the general biotechnology industry and in the pharmaceutical industry in particular. By extending an extensive game model of the agriculture biotechnology industry, we show that, like the rest of the biotechnology industry, the integration of the agriculture biotechnology industry into several large private research firms with accompanying government laboratories can be transactions-costs limiting and thus efficient, given the existing institutional structure. A review of the literature respecting the general biotechnology industry reveals an apparent anomaly... |