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Patents Vs Innovation - the Tabarrok Curve
New submitter Optimal Cynic writes "Slashdot likes to argue about intellectual property and patents, and it's clear that both extremes are undesirable. Dr Alex Tabarrok has tackled the question — what is the right level of patent protection? His answer is the Tabarrok Curve, which applies the Laffer Curve methodology to innovation."
Tabarrok seems to tacitly assume that innovation can be regulated via legislation. It seems to me that this non-proven, basic assumption has been proven wrong more than once, e.g. during the few years preceding the internet bubble of the '90s. The tip of the curve, then and there, lay completely to the left. ( Where IMHO it should be, but I am trying to separate facts from discussion from personal opinion here. )
Religous speak to God. Insane are spoken to by God. When all shut up, one can finally hear Shostakovich in peace
Tabarrok is also known for his work on how to fund public goods via non-patent means, in particular his dominant assurance contract form which is a variant of what Kickstarter does.
For software, they don't help innovation, and promoting innovation can't be the only goal. Lots of non-innovative software development is really useful.
* http://en.swpat.org/wiki/Studies_on_economics_and_innovation
* http://en.swpat.org/wiki/More_than_innovation
And it's really crucial that patents be analysed per-domain. The don't affect pharma and the auto industry the same, and they don't affect software the same either. The distribution models are different, as is the profile of who mass produces each thing, as is the complexity (number of ideas) that get added to a product within one lifecycle, and the length of product lifecycles...
* http://en.swpat.org/wiki/Why_software_is_different
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An even more fundamental assumption he makes is that intellectual property legislation is desirable because it encourages innovation. Why should that be a given?
Take for example, the very same example cited in TFA, Sir Issac Newton and his mathematical principles. Isaac Newton composed Principia Mathematica during 1685 and 1686, and it was published in a first edition on July 5, 1687. Copyright did not exist at that time; the very first copyright law, the Statute of Anne was enacted only 23 years later in 1710.
The point I am trying to make is that people will innovate and create, even without the protection of intellectual property laws.
On a separate point, if the whole rationale for intellectual property legislation is to promote innovation, shouldn't the focus be on protecting the rights of the actual person doing the creating, as opposed to whichever faceless entity who may own the contractual right to make use of the invention? Start by making intellectual property rights vest only in the creator, and make it non transferrable. This will force commercial entities to grant a fair share of the profits to the real innovators instead of the giving an unearned bonus to the patent troll who own a large number of the patents today. The way it is structured today, it is very clear that intellectual property legislation only benefits those with the capital to buy over the rights and not the creators themselves.
Oh, come on! These two curves are perfectly related: They're both attempting to vaguely connect 2 variables that intuitively seem like they ought to have something to do with each other without actually being a remotely accurate description of reality.
For reference, Arthur Laffer said the theoretical relationship between tax rates and government revenue per capita looks like this:
Laffer Curve
A suspicious Martin Gardner then plotted the actual relationship between tax rates and government revenue per capita, and got something that looks like this:
Neo-Laffer Curve
My basic view on the subject:
1. There's absolutely no way to measure real innovation. Some of the problems:
- Discoveries that seem unimportant can turn out to be incredibly important 15 years later, and vice versa.
- Organizations sometimes protect their discoveries by keeping them secret.
- Academics often give away the knowledge they have without patenting it to build their career. However, they can also build their career by giving away nonsense and getting away with it.
- A lot of "innovations" are just tiny variations on things that we already have and don't make much real difference (e.g. the rounded rectangle).
2. There are lots of motivations for innovation, some of which can't be bottled, organized, or turned into policies. For example, the more idealistic scientists are motivated more by the joy of discovery than by the cash they'll get.
3. That means that trying to take a theoretical approach to creating more innovation is just plain unworkable. The one thing that seems to have worked, historically speaking, is (1) put really smart people in contact with each other, (2) make sure they have plenty of cash and whatever they need to do their work, and (3) tell them they can focus on pretty much whatever they feel like working on, just make something awesome happen. That worked in Alexandria 2300 years ago, it worked in Baghdad around 1000 years ago, it worked in London around 200 years ago, it worked in Bell Labs in the last century.
I am officially gone from