Reason on IP Protection and Creativity

rnturn writes "A long but interesting article over at Reasononline discusses a paper written by a pair of economists and published by the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis (!) and the reactions to it of several other economists. A snippet from the article: 'Moreover, U.S. court decisions in the 1980s that strengthened patent protection for software led to less innovation. "Far from unleashing a flurry of new innovative activity," Maskin and Bessen write, "these stronger property rights ushered in a period of stagnant, if not declining, R&D among those industries and firms that patented most."' Not exactly news to most readers but it appears that their paper is making waves in economic circles."

Comments

IP Protection

[Anonymous Coward]

Indeed, we need more IP Address protection... er... wait-a-minute...

Patent not anything new idea's.

[$$$$$exyGal]

We're not claiming to have invented anything new, really," says Boldrin. "We're recognizing something that we think has been around ever since there has been innovation. ..."

Wow. They should patent that "not anything new" idea, just like everybody else, nowadays ;-).

--sex

Length = boring?

[Faust7]

"A long but interesting article"

Ah, the true readership culture of Slashdot shows itself. ;)

Practice abstinence not protection

[Bender Unit 22]

IP protection does NOT work, abstinence is the solution.

Be cool, Don't do it!

Re:Reason shmeason!

[xchino]

Eh? Reason didn't write or publish this paper, they are just covering it. And other than that you were just rambling on. Perhaps you should take a vacation from slashdot for awhile..

Now you may hate them.

[Bender Unit 22]

Now you may hate the entire country of France, but they have a saying, "Der er biler paa striben i aften" which could be transferred to the Simpson quote "Take an existing product and put a clock in it".
Of course innovation requires that you won't get ripped of when you come up with a great idea, but at the same time what good is it if no one can use it. Would the WWW have accelerated so fast if you were to pay license fees for every application using HTML codes? I think not. It's a fine balance that you have to maintain. To little and too much protection is evil.

Re:Eye Opener

[Qzukk]

some one with a Nobel Prize calls it an eye opener?

See, I told you they would listen to Reason.

Re:Eye Opener

[Alsee]

It is amazing, /. has been saying this for years, but some one with a Nobel Prize calls it an eye opener?

This supprises you? It should be pretty obvious that slashdot posts aren't exactly written by Nobel prize winners. Heck, half the time I wonder if they've even been awarded highschool diplomas. :D

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