Innovation is at the heart of the success of a modern economy. The question is how best to promote it. The developed world has carefully crafted laws which give innovators an exclusive right to their innovations and the profits that flow from them.
But at what price? There is a growing sentiment that something is wrong with the system governing intellectual property (IP). The fear is that a focus on profits for rich corporations amounts to a death sentence for the very poor in the developing world. So are there better ways of promoting innovation?
Intellectual property is different from other property rights, which are designed to promote the efficient use of economic resources. Patents give the grantee exclusive rights to an innovation - a monopoly - and the profits this generates provide an incentive to innovate. Recent years have seen a strengthening of IP rights: for instance, the scope ...
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