Greenspan Examines the Economics of IP

lilgerry writes "Alan Greenspan is asking some tough questions about the correct balance between rewarding innovators and inhibiting follow-on innovators. There's not many answers here, but there's a hint that there could be some clear economic thinking coming to be added to the discussion. Several good questions raised, and in very precise terms that should get papers published on these topics for years to come."

Comments

Re:All this patent crap can be resolved very simpl

[BetterThanCaesar]

Damn, I had my heart set on patenting neutrinos...

Nice paper---

[waferhead]

Kids, Alan Greenspan is asking exacly the questions that have been flying around here forever.

I think he is a closet slashdot reader.

Yeah... I'd vote for him for President, but he's far to smart to do something like that.

Re:He sure talks a lot

[knowledgepeacewi]

sounds like the way a lot of people get and keep their job(s). By impressing people stupider than they are by making something simple sound complex.

sanitation engineer: I watch your **** float by
garbage engineer: I pick up trash (sometimes)
Architect: I draw pictures of houses
Professor: I profess. er, I'm a teacher with a spiffy name and better students. And usually better credentials, but mostly I use bigger words.

Freeloader

[Waffle Iron]

Only in recent decades, as the economic product of the United States has become so predominantly conceptual, have issues related to the protection of intellectual property rights come to be seen as significant sources of legal and business uncertainty. Intellectual property is clearly more difficult to define and, hence, to protect. The physical property of one owner cannot occupy the same space as that of another. Ownership of physical property is capable of being defended by police, the militia, or private mercenaries. Ownership of ideas is far less easily protected.

Indeed, the nature of intellectual property is importantly different from physical property. In particular, one individual's use of an idea does not make that idea unavailable to others for their own, simultaneous use. Furthermore, new ideas almost invariably build on old ideas in ways that are difficult or impossible to delineate. From an economic perspective, this provides a rationale for making the calculus, developed initially by Leibnitz and Newton, freely available, despite the fact that those insights have immeasurably increased wealth over the generations. Should we have protected their claim in the same way that we do for owners of land? Or should the law make their insights more freely available to those who would build on them, with the aim of maximizing the wealth of the society as a whole? Are all property rights inalienable, or must they conform to a reality that conditions them?

Hmm.... This is the exact same line of reasoning that I've seen in hundreds of /. posts. I think it's more than likely that Mr. Greenspan has pirated one of these postings. If he wants to make a living discussing economic issues, he needs to go back and innovate his own arguments, then exercise the due dilligence to make sure that they are in fact totally novel. This previously used argument is the rightful property of those whoever first posted it here.

Let's ask Greenspan to do a Slashdot Interview!

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's ask Greenspan to do a Slashdot Interview!

Why not? What's the worst that could happen?

Hmmmm., maybe he doesn't have/use email.

a delicate question

[snarkh]

The modern pauper commands more wealth than an ancient emperor: he wears clothing made in some other part of the world from fibres imported from yet other regions of the globe; he eats food shipped across thousands of miles and delivered fresh; he listens to music each minute of which has had hours of labour spent to maximise its value. That's all due to a growing economy. Sure, he's a pauper in relation to me--but he's a very rich man indeed in relation to the pauper of a dozen years ago, or a century, or in the time of King Edmund.

If I may be so bold, how many concubines do you have in your harem?