Driving Innovation
Patent Baristas has a Book Review of the new book Driving Innovation. It's interesting to me that patent lawyers seem to be beginning to begrudgingly acknowledge that the patent system has costs:
"The duality of intellectual property is that it is a source of wealth and a source of an equal and opposite cost. That is, IP brings wealth only through a hidden tax whether on competitors or consumers. So it is with IP rights, they inherently set up a tension between the pharmaceutical company enforcing rights and the patients wanting greater (read: less costly) access to medicine. A technology company wants to build and market a product but is forced to pay licensing fees to a patent holder."
What is bizarre here is the blithe assumption that the costs of IP are "equal and opposite" to its benefits. First, they can never be equal, due to the subjective, ordinal, and interpersonally incomparable nature of value. Second, even if they can be compared, there's no reason to think that they are equal--one is likely to be greater than the other. Third, even if you assume they are equal--then why have an IP system? I mean why even bother, if it all balances out? (See my There's No Such Thing as a Free Patent; What are the Costs of the Patent System?)
But even though they acknowledge the system has costs that might offset or even exceed the purported benefits, do they want to probe into whether IP is legitimate or should exist? No, explicitly not: "This book is not about what the IP should be or how it could be changed but is about how to survive in a global system when IP rights have developed."
Ah well, baby steps.
Comments (15)
Silas Barta
It's interesting to me that patent lawyers seem to be beginning to begrudgingly acknowledge that the patent system has costs: ""The duality of intellectual property is that it is a source of wealth and a source of an equal and opposite cost. That is, IP brings wealth only through a hidden tax whether on competitors or consumers."
And you can say the exact same (trivial, pointless) thing about physical property: hey, whatever wealth I have in owning anything is counterbalanced by an equal and opposite denial of access to wealth to other people. ZOMG!
In both cases, it's just question begging: would that wealth have existed if not for physical or for intellectual property? If not, then there is no "corresponding" loss, in that sense, because whatever was "denied" wouldn't even have existed otherwise, That also sounds like a denial!
First, they can never be equal, due to the subjective, ordinal, and interpersonally incomparable nature of value.
Sure, and by the same token, the free market doesn't get any better results than totalitarian socialism. They're just, so ... incomparable. We can only say one is better in a, you know, wishy-washy, "principled", "philosophical" sense.
Second, even if they can be compared, there's no reason to think that they are equal--one is likely to be greater than the other. Third, even if you assume they are equal--then why have an IP system? I mean why even bother, if it all balances out? (See my There's No Such Thing as a Free Patent; What are the Costs of the Patent System?)
Yes, I remember those links, and I have pretty thorough refutations of your ideas in at least one of them, probably both.
The quote cites how gosh-darned bad it is when people want to do business but are held back by those IP restrictions. Like I said above, this is just question-begging. Is he only able to do business in that way because of the intellectual works generated by the other business, and was the work only created because of IP? Then it doesn't seem like he's losing much at all. And if not, well, IP advocates don't support such a property right in that case on the grounds of indepedent (and/or eventual) discovery.
do they want to probe into whether IP is legitimate or should exist? No, explicitly not: "This book is not about what the IP should be or how it could be changed but is about how to survive in a global system when IP rights have developed."
Wow, somebody wrote a book that might be useful to people, rather than a book on the topic of "Is IP justified?" Shame, shame.
Gosh, almost as bad as telling the government to go beat up people who copy your stuff.
Know anyone like that?
Published: March 3, 2009 12:42 PM
Inquisitor
Would you care to demonstrate that the costs of physical property outweigh the wealth it creates? Then do so. And do it for IP as well. You make many claims ex cathedra, but never substantiate them. So give it a go, Silas.
Published: March 3, 2009 1:07 PM
Brian Gladish
Would an argument that the police and military exact too high a price for property protection support an argument against what is generally considered to be property? Certainly, Galambos, the strongest IP proponent that I know, never supported the patent and copyright systems as implemented by various states and looked to market-based (non-coercive) institutions to replace them. If such a system were too expensive and restrictive there is nothing to fear, as it would not be supported by the market.
Published: March 3, 2009 1:32 PM
nazgulnarsil
We'll never know what the benefits would have been to not having IP laws during the time that these events happened. Thus you can not state with any certainty how the negative effects compare to the positive effects. The only way to fully measure the negative effects is with a control group.
Published: March 3, 2009 3:23 PM
nazgulnarsil
We'll never know what the benefits would have been to not having IP laws during the time that these events happened. Thus you can not state with any certainty how the negative effects compare to the positive effects. The only way to fully measure the negative effects is with a control group. We can say that "the negative effects we are aware of in 1 trial were approximately equal to the benefits". But this is not useful.
Published: March 3, 2009 3:24 PM
Magnus
What is bizarre here is the blithe assumption that the costs of IP are "equal and opposite" to its benefits. First, they can never be equal, due to the subjective, ordinal, and interpersonally incomparable nature of value.
What he means is, "I assume that the costs of IP are equal and opposite to its benefits, because if the costs were greater than the benefits, I'd be out of a job and/or couldn't live with myself."
Published: March 3, 2009 3:45 PM
Cosmin
Weird.
I didn't think Silas would show his face again, after the way he disappeared from an earlier debate when Jason Gordon pointed out what a preposterous position he backed himself into.
Published: March 3, 2009 4:49 PM
Silas Barta
@Cosmin, I didn't disappear because of being backed into a preposterous position. My position's been the same all along, and I've addressed his (and others') exact point several times over. I just didn't have the patience to hold Yet Another person's hand though it, which is why I'll probably be developing an FAQ so I can just point people to that. Nor were many people following at that point.
But go ahead and frame it however you need to to feel good about yourself. You people never had a good response to my points on IP, and you never will. Even Stephan_Kinsella has been forced to admit that his position crucially relies on an arbitrary distinction, making it effectively circular, and yet he still trudges on as if nothing happened.
@nazgulnarsil: Ditto for property. We'll never know what totally awesome products and production methods we have if we hadn't recognized TEH STATE MONOPOLYZORZ in physical objects. You know, entrepreneurs can just "work around" a complete lack of respect for "their" stuff.
@Inquisitor: Examples, please? I've given far more *relevant* substantiation for every claim I've made. (Of course, all that typically replies is, "Watch me do a swap-out to show you how much you just 'proved'.")
To answer your question, a poorly implemented property system/ kafkaesque resolution of property rights can certainly be worse than a free-for-all, so I don't believe the argument you attributed to me in the general case. However, unlike Stephan-Kinsella, I don't generalize this to "All property is teh evilzorz."
Published: March 3, 2009 5:03 PM
Peter
I didn't disappear because of being backed into a preposterous position. My position's been the same all along
Well,_that's_true.__It's_been_preposterous_all_along.
Funny_how_you_can_type_spaces_between_words,_but_not_in_Stephan Kinsella's_name.
Published: March 3, 2009 6:27 PM
alansmithee
"Sure, and by the same token, the free market doesn't get any better results than totalitarian socialism. They're just, so ... incomparable. We can only say one is better in a, you know, wishy-washy, "principled", "philosophical" sense."
classic.
Published: March 3, 2009 7:36 PM
Gil
Another thought when comparing I.P. to ordinary property is the question: does it matter if private property ownership is less effficient than without it? It would otherwise be said that when a person 'homesteads' a plot - he owns it. He doesn't have to justify it as being more efficient than before - it's just his, period. If a farmer closes off a parcel of land and turns it into farm when, beforehand, it was a site in which nomadic tribes walked through for hunting and gathering then should his method of farming be less productive because he uses a highly-inefficient form of farming - it's not his problem. He has no duty to the nomadic tribes - they didn't homesteaded, it was unowned and he proceeded to own it. If any tribes complain, he can treat them as trespassers should they jump the fence.
Published: March 3, 2009 8:14 PM
Stefan Guta
My biggest opposition against IP is that only some ideea can be patented. If IP is to exist, than all ideeas should be protected, not just some.
For instance, if I have this great ideea of opening a sushi restaurat in Tokyo - since japanese people love sushi - then I should be able to patent it, and then deny everybody the right to open such a restaurant - even if, in the end, I dont even bother to open it afterall.
Published: March 4, 2009 12:52 AM
libertarian
@Stefan Guta
"For instance, if I have this great ideea of opening a sushi restaurat in Tokyo - since japanese people love sushi - then I should be able to patent it, and then deny everybody the right to open such a restaurant - even if, in the end, I dont even bother to open it afterall."
Great example!
What about the homesteading principle? What gives you the right to tell the owners of restaurants in Tokyo that they are NOT allowed to sell sushi or redesign their restaurants to fit the "sushi-style"?
If you make your idea public than you no longer "own" it.
Your idea is just a pattern in your brain. If you communicate this pattern, then the receiver of this message reconfigures automatically his brain to store this idea. Therefore he owns this copy of the idea himself. And it is legitimate for him to use his property (or buy property from others) to make the ideas in his brain real!
Problem solved. Intellectual property can't exist without breaking the homesteading principles!
Published: March 4, 2009 11:29 AM
Peter Surda
> And you can say the exact same (trivial, pointless)
> thing about physical property: hey, whatever wealth
> I have in owning anything is counterbalanced by an
> equal and opposite denial of access to wealth to
> other people. ZOMG!
Once again the same lack of understanding. This assumption only holds for rival goods. IP is non-rival by definition.
Published: March 5, 2009 5:24 AM
IPdoesnotexist
Yeah,property is about rival goods, about exclusivity, about scarcity.
Property is a solution for conflicts about physical objects.
Everything else is contractual!
Published: March 6, 2009 2:20 AM