Vol # THE PROBLEM OF UNIFORMITY COST in intellectual property law. As uniformity costs rise with the growing economic importance of, and variation among, information-centric industries, policymakers should strive harder to maximize context- sensitivity in intellectual property law This Article analyzes current U.S. patent and copyright law from the uniformity-cost perspective and identifies three features that function or should function, to reduce uniformity cost: (1)real options that regulate who acquires, and who keeps, intellectual property rights; (2) flexible standards that define rights to promote context-sensitive application of the law; and(3)legislative or judicial measures that explicitly vary the subject matter,scope, or duration of intellectual property rights. After identifying these this article focuses analysis on the economic function of real options and flexible standards in patent and copyright law. I take up analysis of tailoring intellectual property rights in a separate paper. By making uniformity cost the focus of economic analysis of intellectual property law and by analyzing the features of entitlement design that can be deployed to reduce uniformity cost, this Article supplies a general framework for analyzing the economic stakes in a range of policy debates in contemporary intellectual property law. Moreover, this Article argues for legal realism in the analysis of the formally unifor rights that patent law and copyright law grant and shows that the law is less uniform in practice than some analysts assume This Article unfolds as follows. Section II introduces the uniformity-cost perspective by showing how granting differently-situated innovators a uniform set of rights leads to overprotection in some cases and underprotection in others. Section Ill offers a working definition of uniformity" for purposes of this discussion and through that lens provides a snapshot of current U.S. intellectual property law as specified by constitutional, international, and statutory sources. This Section demonstrates that rights in patent and copyright law generally are uniform but have been tailored for a number of purposes. Section IV demonstrates that in addition to explicitly tailored rights, real options and legal standards are features of current law designed to reduce uniformity This analysis suggests that future research should focus on use these features to reduce uniformity cost. Section V concludes 7 See Michael W. Carroll, Tailoring Intellectual Property Rights(draft April 2005)(on file with author)Vol. ##] THE PROBLEM OF UNIFORMITY COST 4 in intellectual property law. As uniformity costs rise with the growing economic importance of, and variation among, information-centric industries, policymakers should strive harder to maximize context￾sensitivity in intellectual property law. This Article analyzes current U.S. patent and copyright law from the uniformity-cost perspective and identifies three features that function, or should function, to reduce uniformity cost: (1) real options that regulate who acquires, and who keeps, intellectual property rights; (2) flexible standards that define rights to promote context-sensitive application of the law; and (3) legislative or judicial measures that explicitly vary the subject matter, scope, or duration of intellectual property rights. After identifying these, this Article focuses analysis on the economic function of real options and flexible standards in patent and copyright law. I take up analysis of tailoring intellectual property rights in a separate paper.7 By making uniformity cost the focus of economic analysis of intellectual property law and by analyzing the features of entitlement design that can be deployed to reduce uniformity cost, this Article supplies a general framework for analyzing the economic stakes in a range of policy debates in contemporary intellectual property law. Moreover, this Article argues for legal realism in the analysis of the formally uniform rights that patent law and copyright law grant and shows that the law is far less uniform in practice than some analysts assume. This Article unfolds as follows. Section II introduces the uniformity-cost perspective by showing how granting differently-situated innovators a uniform set of rights leads to overprotection in some cases and underprotection in others. Section III offers a working definition of “uniformity” for purposes of this discussion and through that lens provides a snapshot of current U.S. intellectual property law as specified by constitutional, international, and statutory sources. This Section demonstrates that rights in patent and copyright law generally are uniform but have been tailored for a number of purposes. Section IV demonstrates that in addition to explicitly tailored rights, real options and legal standards are features of current law designed to reduce uniformity cost. This analysis suggests that future research should focus on how to better use these features to reduce uniformity cost. Section V concludes. 7 See Michael W. Carroll, Tailoring Intellectual Property Rights (draft April 2005) (on file with author)