Invention and innovation, for the people?

Brent Edwards at the Innovation Science blog recently commented on a recent Supreme Court ruling on patents. This ruling basically means that it is more difficult to obtain a patent -- the ruling favours the public good over the individual.

It was interesting to read the following article in the Financial Times, as it deals with a similar issue.

James Boyle, William Neal Reynolds Professor of Law at Duke Law School, and author of The Shakespeare Chronicles, Bound By Law and Shamans, Software and Spleens, responds to a recent article by Mark Helpirn, author of Winter's Tale in the New York Times (Requires purchase).

Unlike Mark Helprin, James Boyle takes the position that patents and copyrights should not be extended too far. In the following quote, Mr Boyle refers to Thomas Jefferson's Constituition-based views on patents, a view that acknowledges that most innovations are built on -- and required access to -- previous inventions (knowledge/information).

"Mr Jefferson’s point was that for the process of invention to work, we need to confine narrowly the time and scope of the state-provided monopoly, otherwise further inventions would become impossible. Each process or part of a new invention would risk infringing a myriad of prior patents on its subcomponents. Innovation would strangle in a thicket of conflicting monopolies with their roots vanishing back in time."

Interesting stuff! Here's a video of James Boyle:



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