You may recall that Eckhard Höffner has been examining the history of copyright in Germany - finding that in its absence there was an explosion of knowledge - that due to the late enforcement of copyright in Germany, Germany emerged from a poor agricultural country in 1800 to the leading science nation in 1900. The German media being more advanced than the U.S. media Der Spiegel,the preeminant German weekly news magazine with a print run of about 1 million, and one of the most widely circulated magazines in Europe has picked up the story.

Explosion of knowledge. Was the industrial rise of Germany caused, because copyright was unknown. If your German is not good you might try Google Translate.

From my spam folder:

You could be sitting on a potential gold mine!

It's right under your nose, in the form of intellectual property created by you & your lab. Don't let your invention representing millions in potential revenue sit idle simply because you aren't aware IP & patent protection laws and other key aspects of moving innovations from your lab to the market..

What: Live Audio Conference When: Wednesday, August 4 at 1:00 pm EST (90 minutes)

Register Now! (http://www.on2url.com/app/adtrack.asp?MerchantID=163022&AdID=505332)

NBER Working Paper #16213 by Heidi L. Williams

Abstract:

This paper provides empirical evidence on how intellectual property (IP) on a given technology affects subsequent innovation. To shed light on this question, I analyze the sequencing of the human genome by the public Human Genome Project and the private firm Celera, and estimate the impact of Celera's gene-level IP on subsequent scientific research and product development outcomes. Celera's IP applied to genes sequenced first by Celera, and was removed when the public effort re-sequenced those genes. I test whether genes that ever had Celera's IP differ in subsequent innovation, as of 2009, from genes sequenced by the public effort over the same time period, a comparison group that appears balanced on ex ante gene-level observables. A complementary panel analysis traces the effects of removal of Celera's IP on within-gene flow measures of subsequent innovation. Both analyses suggest Celera's IP led to reductions in subsequent scientific research and product development outcomes on the order of 30 percent. Celera's short-term IP thus appears to have had persistent negative effects on subsequent innovation relative to a counterfactual of Celera genes having always been in the public domain.

The paper is here.

As you know we welcome comments. However the comments sidebar is getting taking over by gratuitous exchanges of insults rather than intellectual commentary on whatever side or point. I've tried not to moderate the comments beyond removing obvious spam. Heated exchanges are one thing but constant exchanges of insults are something else. I think interested readers are starting to feel discouraged by the tone of some of the comments, and some have complained. Let me start by requesting especially Lonnie, "nobody" and "none of your beeswax" to dial it back. If provoked don't respond, please try to stick to the intellectual point. If necessary we (the editors) will start removing posts that are designed to offend rather than inform. If you think another commentator is out of line, please don't respond in the comments, just let one of us know so we can take appropriate action.

Thanks,

David

Matt Mitchell draws our attention to

Stevens "concurring" opinion in Bilski, especially part VI. It is a pretty good summary of why patents are bad, generally. He confines his argument to business method patents, but they are easily extended in most cases.

The relevant part starts on page 41, after he makes a fairly unspecific defense of patents generally. In many sentences in the rest of VI you can just delete "business" or "business method" and reach the same conclusion as Stevens.

For instance, on the disclosure case for business method patents, I have replaced the specific use of terms realating to business methods with the general word "innovations." It is remarkably still a fairly lucid case, using only a find/replace on Stevens' argument:

"Nor, in many cases, would patents on (innovations) promote progress by encouraging 'public disclosure.' Many (innovations) are practiced in public, and therefore a patent does not necessarily encourage the dissemination of anything not already known. And for the (innovations) practiced in private, the benefits of disclosure may be small: Many such (innovations) are distributive, not productive - that is, they do not generate any efficiency but only provide a means for competitors to one-up each other in a battle for pieces of the pie. And as the Court has explained, 'it is hard to see how the public would be benefited by disclosure' of certain (innovations), since the nondisclosure of these (innovations) 'encourages businesses to initiate new and individualized (innovations),' which 'in turn, leads to a greater variety of (innovations).'"

There are lots of other examples in the "concurring" opinion.

Decision is kind of bad news, though. Thought they would end a lot of goofy patents.

Rufus Pollock has been looking into what the public domain doesn't look like. Here is a post with details.

What happens when he goes to the movies?

Not to speak of being essential for start-up firms that wanted support from venture capitalists.

A new blog on Gaming with Free Software by Shirish from India. He also draws our attention to copysouth.org - addressing some of the same issues we consider here.