Re: NAS: Intellectual Property Rights in a Knowledge-Based E

[kolodney@fr.com (LKK)]

     The link you provided was not operative.  Could you provide the chain 
     of links that got you to the report?


______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________
Subject: NAS: Intellectual Property Rights in a Knowledge-Based Econo
Author:  James Love <love@cptech.org> at Internet
Date:    9/23/99 6:31 PM


This generally unpublished report from the National Academies has 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/8525648b0070c170852562cb0073ff22/371702b9c0c250a
38525674d0061f3a6
     
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