NAS: Intellectual Property Rights in a Knowledge-Based Economy

[James Love <love@cptech.org>]

This generally unpublished report from the National Academies has
apparently set of some surprising policy reviews in the 
Clinton Administration on a range of intellectual property issues.


http://www4.nas.edu/pd/step.nsf/8525648b0070c170852562cb0073ff22/371702b9c0c250a38525674d0061f3a6

the National Academies,

BOARD ON SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, AND ECONOMIC POLICY

Intellectual Property Rights in a Knowledge-Based Economy

  
Here are a few excerpts:


Although many groups supported the principal policy changes on the basis that
they increased research incentives, others have expressed concern that in some
circumstances the assertion and exercise of IPRs are discouraging or may
discourage research, its communication, and its commercial use. These issues
can be categorized by their potential effects:

1) on the performance and communication of academic research

     concern that an international agreement favored by the European Union and
     the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) to extend copyrights to
     scientific databases will inhibit research;
 
     concern that expressed gene sequence (EST) and other biological material
     patents will make it prohibitively complicated and expensive to conduct
     research using these tools or, alternatively, expose research investigators
     to infringement suits;

     concern that allowing federal grantees to obtain patents has altered their
     incentives to conduct basic versus applied research;

     concern that universities', researchers', and sponsoring companies'
     financial interests in exploiting academic results (by IPRs and otherwise)
     are inhibiting open, timely scientific communication; and

     concern that universities' and potential industry research sponsors'
     inability to resolve differences over IPRs will discourage corporate
     support of academic research.


2) on personnel mobility and informal technical communication between rival
companies

     concern that enforcement of new federal trade secrecy laws, providing civil
     and criminal penalties for misappropriation, will have a chilling effect on
     mobility and informal know-how trading among firms.


3) on industry investment in R&D and innovation, both radical and incremental,
initial and subsequent innovation

     concern about the uncertainty of the scope of IPRs;
     concern that slow and secret patent administration processes reduce R&D
     incentives;

     concern about high litigation uncertainties and costs, both financially and
     in terms of the time of scientists, engineers, and managers; and

     concern about licensing terms barring probing the intellectual content of
     software or genomic material and making modifications and improvements
     (so-called "decompilation")


4) on industry competition and structure

     concern about the use of patent portfolios to block competitors' entry or
     discourage related research; and
  
     concern about the penalties for initial innovators (e.g., business software
     developers) when IPR protection shifts from trade secrecy to patents.


-- 
James Love, Director, Consumer Project on Technology
I can be reached at love@cptech.org, by telephone 202.387.8030,
by fax at 202.234.5176. CPT web page is http://www.cptech.org