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Critic of Software Patents Wins Nobel Prize in Economics

Posted by Zonk on from the wise-man-in-multiple-ways dept.

doom writes "You've probably already heard that the Nobel Prize for Economics was given to three gents who were working on advances in mechanism design theory. What you may not have heard is what one of those recipients was using that theory to study: 'One recent subject of Professor Maskin's wide-ranging research has been on the value of software patents. He determined that software was a market where innovations tended to be sequential, in that they were built closely on the work of predecessors, and innovators could take many different paths to the same goal. In such markets, he said, patents might serve as a wall that inhibited innovation rather than stimulating progress.' Here's one of Maskin's papers on the subject: Sequential Innovation, Patents, limitation (pdf).

12 of 235 comments (clear)

  1. Not Nobel Prize in Economics by CRCulver · · Score: 2, Interesting

    It's the Swedish Bank's Prize in Memory of Alfred Nobel. Nobel's estate doesn't recognize it, and there is much evidence that the old man would have been horrified to see the dismal science being rewarded.

    1. Re:Not Nobel Prize in Economics by Dunbal · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Honestly any economist who doesn't recognize the value of creating and protecting intellectual property rights in an information economy is a POORLY trained economist.

            Yes and I am going to take YOUR word for it over a published, Nobel Prize winning economist...

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    2. Re:Not Nobel Prize in Economics by djmurdoch · · Score: 2, Interesting

      You do realise that property rights have absolutely nothing to do with "intellectual property"?

      That's a popular thing to say, but it's just not true. IP is not the same as physical property, but the concept of owning an abstract thing (the monopoly granted by the patent) is pretty closely related to the concept of owning a physical thing.

      One says that you are not allowed to steal other people's things, the other says that you are not allowed to create certain things if someone else created it first.

      IP corresponds to a "thing", not to a right. The IP "thing" is the monopoly. The property right is the ability to own that thing.

      I'd argue that software patents should never have been created, but in countries where they were created, they are certainly things that act a lot like other kinds of abstract property. There are lots of other abstract properties, e.g. your bank balance. Would you argue that changing the number on your bank statement to zero doesn't take something from you?

    3. Re:Not Nobel Prize in Economics by SgtChaireBourne · · Score: 5, Interesting

      -1 disinformative for you there.

      Sweden has never been socialist. It has, during nearly all of the previous century, followed a policy of the "Middle Path" choosing the elements from the free market where they are best applied and elements from socialism where they are best applied.

      Nowadays it is following a Bush/ Bliar/Thatcher-style neoliberalism with heavy emphasis on buracracy, privatization and corporate welfare.

      Go look at the statistics. During the years Sweden prospered economically, had low debt or a surplus, had good services such as health care, low unemployment, it was during the periods of closest adherence to the middle path. Look at the times where services are few and of poor quality, the budget is in shambles, lots of debt and high unemployment, it is during times when deviation from the middle path has been strongest -- such as the last 15 years.

      The Swedish banks are the worst examples of failure of unrestrained capitalism. They have collapsed and been bailed out twice. However, normally when one buys out the debt from a failed company, the buyer then owns the company. Stupidly in the last case, the buyer (the Swedish government) simply handed the banks back to the same asshats that bankrupted them in the first places. These are the clowns that then pick the recipients for the Swedish Bank's Prize in Memory of Alfred Nobel. To try to lend credibility to their scam they, to their credit, have schmoozed into the Nobel celebration. However, the Swedish Bank's Prize in Memory of Alfred Nobel is to the Nobel Prize what films like Ernest in the Army is to fine cinema.

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  2. Re:Has anyone else noticed... by jimstapleton · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I'd argue that software in general tends to get bigger, slower and more bloated.

    Typically, new releases of software tend to have more features - these added features are what cause the bigger-slower-bloatier effect, as the take space to store, time to execute, and not everyone wants them. I don't know of one piece of software that has managed to avoid this fate.

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  3. Re:Well Duh! by AusIV · · Score: 2, Interesting

    He didn't get a nobel prize for researching software patents. He got a prize for research into a new Economic theory, it just happens he's applying that theory to his research of software patents.

  4. Re:This may not lead to patent reform very soon by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    I just don't think the entrenched interests are willing to let it happen in a timely manner. Perhaps, but they are mortal. I've yet to meet anyone under 30 who thinks copyrights and patents are particularly reasonable (though I am in europe). The older generation is mystified as to our "lack of rebellion". Well, there is a major rebellion, they just don't see it yet - we will overturn their intellectual monopoly law. http://pp-international.net/
  5. Re:What is obvious to the dev community... by Darren+Bane · · Score: 3, Interesting

    You say that "the software industry has already defined a piece of software as a patentable product". This is only the _American_ softare industry--if you want to destroy your own international competitiveness, nobody will stop you. Software patents are illegal in Europe (although we're fighting hard to keep it that way).

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  6. Re:Great, but not an actual Nobel Prize by gerf · · Score: 3, Interesting

    http://nobelprize.org/

    Um, looks like Medicine, Chemistry, Peace, Physics, Literature, Economics. Further digging in their site shows that the Economics Prize was started in 1968. Well, perhaps Nobel didn't originate it, but it is selected by the same method as the others. Not that I'd consider that spectacular; They gave Al Gore and Jimmy Carter Peace Prizes after all.

  7. Hmmm.... let's see... by idontgno · · Score: 3, Interesting

    On the side opposed to software patentability, an eminent Nobel-prize-winning economist.

    On the side supporting software patentability, we have Steve Ballmer.

    Which side seems more credible to you? I'm going with the Nobel-winner myself. Even if Dancing Monkeyboy meanaces me with chairs while screaming "DEVELOPERS!" at me.

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  8. Now a Major Motion Picture! by Doc+Ruby · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Even though TV is packed with "business news" shows, I don't expect to see this strong argument against SW patents even mentioned anywhere near people who determine the rules that govern inventors, who drive the entire economy.

    All we'll ever hear about is "incumbent economics", which is how the rich always get richer, despite the actual economic values.

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  9. Re:What is obvious to the dev community... by Husgaard · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Yes, this paper is mindblowing, and more people should know about it. But this paper is also theoretical, so it can be disputed by IP fundamentalists as having little to do with the real world.

    But Research on Innovation has a lot of other interesting papers.

    In particular I like the paper AN EMPIRICAL LOOK AT SOFTWARE PATENTS. This paper is an empirical investigation of the effect it had on innovation in the IT industry when software patents were legalized in the US.

    From the abstract:

    We find evidence that software patents substitute for R&D at the firm level; they are associated with lower R&D intensity.