What is "Intellectual property"?
I don't know what "Intellectual property" is!! So, why am I writing about it? Simple, nobody really knows. Let's start with the property part. It's something owned. So, what's being owned when people use this phrase? That's exactly the problem. Intellectual property is a highly dangerous and deceptive phrase that bundles three seperate things together.Those using this phrase should be challenged to explain exactly what they mean by it. The three main possibilities are trademarks, copyrights, and patents.
Trademarks...
Every business has a legitimate right to associate products with their brand. By using a trademark, a business is using it's goodwill and reputation to identify a product and establish trust in it. Use by third parties of a trademark is theft of goodwill and repuation. It's theft and it's wrong.Example: A customer buying say, a ladder on the strength of it's stolen trademark buys a "fake", falls and gets seriously injured. The fakers are guilty of a crime.
Problem: Acme Software Ltd. sells their flagship product "Magicware". EduPrint publishes "Magicware 24 hour kickstart". Are EduPrint stealing or misusing Acme's trademark, or is their publication actually advertising Acme?
Copyright...
Everybody is familiar with this, but where do we draw the line? Nobody disputes that it's the right of the creator of a work, to decide hiw their work is used.Examples:
Tangible inventions are the simplest. Gadget X does function Y. Acme Manufacturing produces it. Grabbit Ltd. starts making the same thing. Grabbit face charges when Acme finds out.
Artistic works of any kind are hazier. At what point do two creations differ?
Music: Unless all notes from start to finish are identical, they're technically different. Still, many songs have passages of identical notes, so how many notes in a row does it take to distingush one work from another? Best to leave this to the courts to decide.
Written works (plays, novels films, poems etc.) exercise the imagination....
Poems and lyrics are easist to identify as copied because of the deliberate choice or words. Then it gets messier! How different do plots have to be in order to be considered different, is a discussion in itself. Taken to it's extreme, who owns the phrases we use in our everyday speech?
Patents...
Insofar as patents are used to protect the time and effort that went into a legitimate invention, there is nothing inherently wrong with patents. In practice it's not as simple. There are ethical questions where it comes to the common good. Balancing inventors rewards particularly in the pharmaceutical sector against the life-or-death of the poor or the sick is constantly discussed, here the compromise appears to be "generic drugs".Misuse of patents ...
Hyjacking of ideas is wrong and stifles invention and creativity. It happens because of the deliberately vague language used in patent applications, so that the patent could potentially cover not "just one identifiable thing". For more information, see Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure.In effect the "arms race" to acquire Software Patents is the method used by big players to determine who can compete in the market. These are massive stakes and are well documented on Groklaw.