Intellectual property as a complex adaptive system (original) (raw)
Related papers
2006
This interdisciplinary paper focuses on an evolutionary and problem-solving approach to intellectual property rights in order to discuss some controversial issues in the European legislation on computer software and in some recent competition law case (e.g. the Microsoft case). Given such claims, we argue that a standard "Coasian" approach to property rights, designed to cope with the externalities of semi public goods may not be appropriate for computer software, as it may decrease both ex-ante incentives to innovation and ex-post efficiency of diffusion. On the other hand the institutional definition of property rights may strongly influence the patterns of technological evolution and division of labour in directions which are not necessarily optimal. Taking the European legislation on computer software and some recent competition law cases as an example, this paper intends to show that a more careful balancing of costs and benefits, both in static and dynamic terms should be suitable for a pro-innovation IP regime and competition policy.
Technology as a complex adaptive system: evidence from patent data
Research Policy, 2001
This paper develops a theory of invention by drawing on complex adaptive systems theory. We see invention as a process of recombinant search over technology landscapes. This framing suggests that inventors might face a 'complexity catastrophe' when they attempt to combine highly interdependent technologies. Our empirical analysis of patent citation rates supports this expectation. Our results also suggest, however, that the process of invention differs in important ways from biological evolution. We discuss the implications of these findings for research on technological evolution, industrial change, and technology strategy.
Jus Civile, 2023
The analysis starts from the problems connected to the circulation of knowledge on the net to draw the possible evolutionary lines of the contractual models. In this perspective, it is necessary to make a fundamental theoretical passage - a real paradigm shift - summed up in the possible configurability of the product of knowledge as commons: goods which are functional to the full and free development of the person par excellence. Only later, we will analyze the evolutionary profiles of contractual models for better circulation of knowledge on the net, in particular the application of legal design as a possible virtuous model for conveying and communicating regulatory content.
The New Constitutional Architecture of Intellectual Property
Oxford University Press eBooks, 2021
Rosa's analysis does not account for the likely influence of IP as an institution on technological, economic, and cultural acceleration processes. By providing exclusive rights on globally new and inventive technological solutions (patents) and creative expression (copyright), among others, IP inhibits competition based on imitation. By doing so, it shifts competition from a production level to innovation and creation levels. This spurs ever faster innovation and cultural renewal due to intensified competition on these levels. The patentability of incremental invention and the low threshold of originality for copyright likely further accelerate inventive and creative activities. Invention and creation become imperatives for almost any business: they become routinised and chronic parts of almost any economic activity, rendering older technologies and cultural artefacts redundant at an ever-faster pace. 21 Rosa, Social Acceleration (n 17) 262-67. 22 ibid 262.
Towards an integrated theory of intellectual property
This Article addresses a curious gap in the theory of intellectual property. One of the central dogmas in both the legal and economic literatures is that patents, copyrights and trademarks constitute separate forms of protection, each serving different purposes and designed to operate independently of the others. By challenging this dogma, however, this Article shows that certain combinations of intellectual property protection give rise to important synergies. When a patentee can develop brand loyalty among its customers, the existence of trademark protection allows her to extend its protection even after her patent expires, and thereby earn higher profits than would be possible without such leverage. Paradoxically, our model reveals that this patent/trademark leverage is actually efficiency-enhancing: it gives patentees an incentive to price less monopolistically than they would if their protection terminated upon the expiration of the patent. Importantly, this is not a purely theoretical result: several case studies demonstrate that firms actually do combine patent and trademark protection in much the way we describe. We show that the same synergies are at work when trade-secrecy is combined with trademark protection.
Intellectual Property' and Knowledge Creation in Disorganisations
E-Learning, 2006
Given the current forms of economic production and corporate markets, the liberating and democratic potential of digital information is counteracted by the concentration of media ownership, as well as by policy, legislation, and the development of proprietary forms of technology. The notion of 'intellectual property' produces artificial scarcity where digital technology could remove it. This tension between the proprietary and non-proprietary aspects of the information society can be analysed by looking at two types of knowledge creation: organisational and disorganisational. While organisational knowledge work can benefit from a notion of 'intellectual property', disorganisational knowledge work is disrupted, if not destroyed, by proprietary barriers on information. This is unfortunate if and when the crucial innovations and ethical potential of the information society are connected to disorganisational communities, even though the organisational type is more visible and better represented in the traditional structures of society.