James5

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More on the issues surrounding intellectual property from James Surowiecki in The New Yorker. In the second decade of the twentieth century, it was almost impossible to build an airplane in the United States. That was the result of a chaotic legal battle among the dozens of companies—including one owned by Orville Wright—that held patents on the various components that made a plane go.

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Kim over at Lawfont took a look at the proposals made by the RIAA on the ACTA. Some crazy suggestions on the plate.

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The New Yorker has a great article on the multiple occurrence of inventions - when more than once inventor invent the same thing, for example Bell and Gray both invented the telephone independently and filed for a patent at the same time. Gladwell’s article is a great read - the work of Intellectual Ventures sure sounds fun - and made me think about what impact this has on the law of intellectual property - specifically patents.

The utilitarian justification for the monopoly powers granted to patent holders is that it provides incentives to inventors to invent. By giving inventors a specified time limit within which they solely will be able to profit from their creation, people are more likely to share their invention with the world.

The problem that Gladwell’s article demonstrates is that a lot of inventions aren’t once-off, rare occurrences that need the massive incentives. In fact many people often invent the same thing around the same time, only to be denied any profit from their investment because someone else independently arrived at the same conclusion.

This line of argument doesn’t hold up in regards to other forms of creative endeavor, for example music, and indeed for some forms of research and development that require years of work and lots of money there may be a stronger argument for strong incentives to encourage production. However, in areas such as software patents perhaps this is another reason to think about reforming the status quo.

I’ll end with a favourite quote of mine, from A. Samuel Oddi:

If a developed country has a patent system, there is insufficient evidence available to recommend that the patent system be abolished; conversely, neither does the available evidence suggest the adoption of a patent system if one does not already exist

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Fantastic news from Doctors Without Borders. The US Patents Office has moved to revoke four key patents on the drug tenofovir disoproxil fumarate, opening up opportunities for increased access for developing countries.

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China are pushing for better drug access for developing countries by amending the TRIPS agreement. This amendment would be the first time a core WTO agreement has been amended.

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