This post is in response to the question “What are some of the negative consequences of the ownership of information?” posed by @macie.mcpeak.
What Does Owning Information Mean?
To be able to own an idea or information requires going through the process of getting a patent, trademark, copyright, or trade secret registered, in the eyes of a government agency, as belonging to the “inventor” of the idea. These four types of ownership of ideas make up the definition of intellectual property (“Intellectual Property Rights,” n.d.).
This means, that as the inventor or legal owner of an idea, you are entitled to protection against theft of the idea. This can be extremely useful for inventors, artists, etc. However, the system of intellectual property does have certain downfalls.
Disadvantages of Intellectual Property
Firstly, it can be extremely difficult, in our global world, to pinpoint who exactly came up with an idea (Roy, 2017). There is a big difference between the inventor of an idea and who’s intellectual property claim got submitted first in a certain country. Take an example from a patent, that was later revoked, for the medical use of turmeric that was filed by Mississippi Medical Center in 1995 (Jayaraman, 1997). The method they were attempting to patent, using turmeric to heal wounds, has “been commonly used for this purpose in India for centuries” (Roy, 2017).
Additionally, Kinsella (2010) points out that part of the patent approval system is the fact that, since patents are expensive and time-consuming to file, bigger companies can afford both to patent and have the time to wait for their patent to be approved. This means that companies can gradually “amass giant patent portfolios” and “set up barriers to entry” in different industries (Kinsella, 2010). Plus, as Brian (1998) points out, the ownership of patents can actually slow down innovation due to increased costs and reduced collaboration between inventors or companies.
Overall, while the protection of intellectual property does have many uses, it also has serious flaws that work against its original purpose of giving legal rights to the owner of the property and increasing innovation in a society.
Works Cited
Kinsella, S. (2010, November 15). Ideas Are Free: The Case Against Intellectual Property. Mises Institute. https://mises.org/library/ideas-are-free-case-against-intellectual-property
Martin, B. (1998). Against intellectual property. Information Liberation, 28.
Intellectual Property Rights around the Globe. (n.d.). Retrieved September 21, 2021, from https://saylordotorg.github.io/text_international-business/s17-02-intellectual-property-rights-a.html
Roy, E. (2017, March 24). Protecting intellectual property: The good, the bad and the ugly. Trade Ready. https://www.tradeready.ca/2017/topics/researchdevelopment/protecting-intellectual-property-good-bad-ugly/
Jayaraman, K. S. (1997). US patent office withdraws patent on Indian herb. Nature, 389(6646), 6–6. https://doi.org/10.1038/37838
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