NY Times Blog Criticizes the Notion of Intellectual Property
The New York Times blog has an article by Joseph E. Stiglitz, revisiting the Supreme Court’s decision on gene patents. As he writes in specific relation to the gene patent case, “the case was a battle between those who would privatize good health, making it a privilege to be enjoyed in proportion to wealth, and those who see it as a right for all.” In short, the enforcement of a gene patent would have been a fundamental blow against the very concept of public health as a basic right. This becomes a springboard from which he begins to criticize the idea of intellectual property in general.
He begins by noting that IP laws appear to give power to corporations or people with significant wealth and claims that these laws limit innovation, which he views as being driven by competition. In Stiglitz’s view, a company with intellectual property doesn’t have to improve its design because it is the only design and the lack of competition prevents technological advancements from occurring quickly. This is especially important to the field of healthcare and Stiglitz references the work of Robert W. Fogel, who was a famous economic historian that won the Nobel Prize for his work, which is summarized thusly: “synergy between improved health and technology accounts for a good part of the explosive economic growth since the 19th century. So it stands to reason that intellectual property regimes that create monopoly rents that impede access to health both create inequality and hamper growth more generally.”
To an extent, these arguments are compelling. Certainly genuine competition results in the building of better devices and systems whereas a long term patent to protect investment could be seen as encouraging complacency. However, it is also important to note that innovators should be rewarded for their work and there probably wouldn’t be as much incentive to invent if there were no rewards for being the inventor of a product. Stiglitz notes this too, he recognizes that intellectual property does hold an important place in society but he believes that its role also needs to be scaled back some, saying: “Advocates of intellectual property rights have overemphasized their role in promoting innovation.” It seems as though there is a tide of public opinion that is growing to question how stringent intellectual properties truly need to be in order to perform their vital function to society. In fact, many comments in the article are quite supportive of Stiglitz ideas and quite a few go even further with their criticism of intellectual property in general, with commenter Ross Williams writing “Intellectual property rights are limiting innovation not stimulating it,” and “We should place strict limits on how someone can exercise any temporary monopoly we choose to give them.” As of this writing, Mr. William’s comment is the first comment to show up on the NYT Pick section of the comments, a section where the NY Times’ favorite comments are held up as being the best comments on an article.
The question becomes how far do intellectual property rights extend and, more importantly, how far should they extend? We can all agree that that Myriad’s attempts to patent human genes was an egregious overstepping of intellectual property and we can all agree that inventors deserve some sort of reward for their inventions, but beyond that, where is the happy middle ground between no protection and overwhelming protection? For Stiglitz, the middle ground lies far closer to no protection, where corporations will have less power and, according to his arguments, where inequality will be greatly lessened. While his personal opinions may not be the correct ones, Stiglitz has begun a fascinating conversation about just how much control intellectual property should have in our lives, a conversation that will grow in importance as our world continues to be powered more and more by abstract technologies like the Internet. How far the power of copyrights, trademarks, and patents extends could very well determine the shape of the century to come and thus it is important to discuss what the appropriate level of power is for these services.
Kevin James
Intern at
JAFARI LAW GROUP®, INC.