A recent World Economic Forum survey rated the US 19th in IP Protection. As Nate Anderson (over at Ars Technica) points out “nothing objective is being measured in the WEF survey question on intellectual property (p. 347) except for the feelings of the executives who answered it.” None the less the US Chamber of Commerce has called for tougher IP protection.
Unfortunately this seems to ignore the question of what the right amount of IP Protection is. While it is not surprising that a group of businesses would call for tougher IP laws, I wonder whether they should be. It is often assumed by businesses that tougher IP laws will help them. However, anyone working in the current patent field will tell you that tougher IP can be a detriment to innovation. Every IP protection results in a loss to the public domain. In many cases the loss is outweighed by the benefits to society of the intellectual property. However in some cases it is not. For example in some scientific discoveries another party would have discovered the same thing weeks later. Yet the patent system often rewards the first discovery with full patent protection. This can lead to a net loss to society and a lossed business opportunity (assuming the discovery would have still occurred without patent incentive …)
Obviously this discussion could go on for ages, so I will instead leave you with these two thoughts:
What level of IP protection will result in not just an incentive to produce intellectual property but rather the right incentive (the gain to the producer must not outweigh the cost to society)?
How can we ensure the Congress is concerned with the above question and not the lobbying power of the US Chamber of Commerce?
