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Critic of Software Patents Wins Nobel Prize in Economics
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).
The similarities between software development and Evolution are striking. As this article states, software tends to progress slowly, building upon the previous generation, improving on it and occationally adding new features to give it the advantage over it's competition.
But when a software product progresses with little or no competition to speak of, it's innovation stops, it gets bigger, slower and more bloated.
+1 IDisagreeSoHeMustBeATrollOrAnAstroturferOrAShill
since when geniuos minds play any significant role in politics? I imagine politician thinking "This guy would would give me half a million if I support software patents BUT there is this famous research study... Oh god, if I only could support both!".
839*929
While Sweden is a Scandinavian socialist state, the economics prize is generally awarded to neo-liberal economists. The judges are based, but they are actually biased against the popular values of their own country.
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.
As far as I can see, Maskin isn't against IP, only patents. His article says "copyright protection for software programs (which has gone through its own evolution over the last decade) may have achieved a better balance than patent protection." Copyright is IP too.
As a country develops it's own intellectual property, it becomes important to protect it. For example, India seems to be moving towards proper copyright protection. However, this article is specifically about software patents, not copyrights. Of course software copyrights need to be protected. The authors need to have the rights to do whatever they want with their software, and it should not be stolen from them. Software patents are different. They don't protect your software, but restrict me from writing equivalent software. I can't recall a single example in history where a software innovator was rewarded by their patent - there are probably a few, but they are vastly outnumbered by the software patents that have restricted innovation. Instead of rewarding innovation, software patents make it possible for M$ to attack Linux, while doing nothing to help innovators break into the software market dominated by M$. Don't get me wrong... I'm a big supporter of M$ in general, but lets face it: software patents exist to protect M$ and other huge calcified players, rather than reward innovators.
Beer is proof that God loves us, and wants us to be happy.
Seconded. The Nobel Prize in Economics is NOT a real Nobel, and is awarded by the socialist Swedish central bank. Their awards are biased.
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. Hernando de Soto has pegged a lack of real property rights as the primary issue that prevents wealth from being created in the third world (agricultural economies).
You do realise that property rights have absolutely nothing to do with "intellectual property"? 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. Property rights is a rather obvious concept derived from the simple fact that if you take something from someone else, they lose it. "Intellectual property" is a government-sanctioned privately owned monopoly that prevents other people from creating something identical to what you have, or in some cases even just slightly similar.
As government-awarded private monopolies, "intellectual properties" are artificial barriers for the free market and thus you can certainly be opposed to them without being a "socialist".
That said, I doubt the Bank of Sweden knew about Maskin's patent critique, or if they did, that they cared about it. They gave him a prize for some neat theoretical work.
Money for nothing, pix for free
Money for nothing, pix for free
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...
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
That's partially because, despite what the people posting here would have you believe, the economics prize is awarded by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences -- the same organization that awards the prizes in physics and chemistry. It was established and funded by a grant from the Swedish central bank, but the bank does NOT determine the laureates.
I have seen the future, and it is inconvenient.
Copyright and patents do not create wealth, they make all of us poorer, because they tend to inhibit progress as the professor who got the Nobel has shown in the specific case of patents and the IT industry.
Also, quoting wikipedia:
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
Of course you realise that every single one of those economies started out by vigorously ignoring IP, especially that of other nations, until such time as it had some of its own to protect and only then implemented its own IP-related laws, don't you?
You do also realise that there are many other factors in why the US and Europe, Japan, etc are more prosperous than third world countries, don't you, and that blaming it all on a lack of IP laws is simplistic almost beyond belief?
It's official. Most of you are morons.
Is mindblowing to the average person. This is the sort of paper that really needs to be distributed as much as possible (but rewritten to be understandable to the layman), because there really needs to be a great deal of political support for such an exemption from the patent process here. The biggest problem is that the software industry has already defined a piece of software as a patentable product, similar to a car or a monitor, and the general populace believes that to be true. However, you don't make a new car by tearing out the carburetor of a 1995 Ford, clean it up, add a couple parts from a 2002 Chevy to it, and stick it into your new car. However, that is precisely how software is generally made. There's your layman's explanation right there.
No, it does not follow. The differences between real property and IP have been hashed out over and over again; what holds for one does not necessarily hold for another.
Major relevant differences --
1) Lack of exclusivity. One user of intellectual property does not interfere with another.
2) Less limited resource -- with few exceptions, no one is making more land. New IP is created all the time
And a difference in the systems protecting them
3) With real property, a whole system of rights-of-way has been developed to prevent my use of my real property from interfering with your use of your real property, even if my real property stands between yours and some shared resource you need. With IP, it's the opposite -- your patent on your invention can easily prevent me from implementing mine.
-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.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
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.
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.
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
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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make install -not war