All Patents are Identical - You either get one or you don't.

Few consider the private and public gains that might accrue from a different system

The Prevailing System is Wrong. It's time for a new system.

Intelectual property lies at the center of the modern company's economicsuccess or failure.

Why? Because.....

Skills and knowledge have become the only source of sustainable long-term competitive advantage.

Example: Microsoft.

Microsoft owns nothing of value except knowledge.

For the last 100 years the wealthiest person has been associated with oil, now he's a knowledge worker.

The worlds majro growth industries (Microelectronics, biotechnology, designer-made amterials, telecommunications) are brainpower industries.........

...... if they intellectual property can be copied easily, they will NOT be able to generate either wealth for tehir owners or high wages for their employees.

The growth of electronic commerce is bringing a similar transformation to retailing. Fast knockoffs makes it difficult to sell anything that is truly unique.

The rising importance of intellectfual property can be seen in the earnings gained from the liscencing of technology.

Reverse engineering is a way of life in the corporate world. Where should the limits be?

Post WWII, knowledge was flowed easily and cheaply and was facilitated and paid for by the US government.

During cold war, economic success by other countries was seen as almost as important to the US strategic geopolitical position as it own economic well being.

Arrogance also was a contributing factor, Americans believed that the rest of the world could not catch up to their ingenuity.

Americans would invent the next generation technology while foreigners were copying the last generation.

That's all gone now......

America lives in a competitive world where its economic dominance is long gone.

Developing proprietary technologies and the skills to go with them is the only way to defend us workers from the downward wage pressures of factor price equilization.

The nations most profitable companies are those with a lock on some form of knowledge.

Thje US governnment is cutting its support for R7D in both real dollers and as a share of total spending.

As a result less knowledge will be available in the public domain, which will lessen the knowledge required to maintain its economic progreess in the future.

This gap will have to be filled through the private sector, and tehy will only do it if there a return available for their investment.

Part of the answer is stronger protection for intellectual property rights.

Without it companies will defend their economic positions by keeping their knowledge secret.

Secrecy is a much bigger deterent to the expansion of knowledge than any other monopolistic system of protection for intelectual property rights. It does not generate the next generation of knowledge.

New technologies have both created new potential forms of intellectual property rights and made old ones unenforceable.

How should we think about what should be patentable?

Society isn't going to let someone have a monopoly on the cure for cancer, nor will biologists be allowed to clone and own human beings.

Inventing a new piece of biology what alters the natural characteristics of humans is NOT the same as discovering How an exinting piece of biology works

Deciding between the two is going to be difficult.

What is a patent means must be different in these two areas.

We also need to differentiate between fundamental advance in knowledge and logical extensions of existing knowledge. Each deserves a different kind of patient.

New technologies make enforcement of proerty rights much tougher.

The choke points available tp prevent reproduction of what used to be printed materials have essentiall evaporated and with that comes the end of the copy right system - not just for books but all information and data systesms.

Magnify what is now happening in the mucis business and you can see the future of printed materials. (CDPirates hold 20% of the market).

The legal system may may be able to stop copying and selling contraband in volume but it cannot stop individuals from replicating the materials for themselves or their friends.

In Thailand up to 97% of the computer software has been illegally copied, 80% in Spain, 25% in the UK, and in the US up to 40%.

This is a good illustration of what happens when patent and copywrite laws do not keep up with technology.

The acquisition of knowledge is central for both "catch-up" states and "keep-ahead states".

Copying to catch up is the only way to catch up. Everyone country that has caught up has done so by copying.

Thrid world countries know that unless they can acquire the necessary knowledge, they will never make it to the first world.

They can't afford to buy the knowledge they need, and the sellers aren't willing to sell. So they have to copy.

Issues:

Different cultures and different parts of thew world look at intelectual property differently.

The idea that people should be paid to be creative stems from the Judeo-Christian and Muslim belief in a God who created mankind in his image.

There is NO analogue in Hindu, Buddhist, or Confucian societies.

Countries differ enormously in their propensities to use their patent systems.

No system of protecting intellectual property rights can work unless most of the world agree to enforce it.

National systems, such as that of the United States, are not going to evolve into de facto world standards.

The economic games of "catch-up" is not the game of "keep-ahead".

Countries playing either game have a right to a world that lets them succeed.