Comments on: IP may be overvalued as nanotech success indicator http://www.foresight.org/nanodot/?p=2093 examining transformative technology Wed, 03 Apr 2013 18:23:47 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.4 By: Adrian Wilkins http://www.foresight.org/nanodot/?p=2093#comment-7202 Adrian Wilkins Thu, 10 Nov 2005 14:59:40 +0000 http://www.foresight.org/nanodot/?p=2093#comment-7202 On the contrary, I see the proliferation of technologies designed to uphold IP rights, in conjunction with the increasingly draconian regulation being pushed into law by multinational companies, as being dangerous and counterproductive. Whether they realise it or not, they are setting up to exert a stranglehold over these technologies in the only way possible ; when you come down to it, once you have the right tools, raw materials, energy and manfacturing capital become secondary concerns and primary souce of value becomes the software. One can envision a future where "matterware" could either provide enormous value at little cost (as software does for those participating in the Open-Source movement), or provides an enormous monopoly on manufacturing for the few at immense cost to the rest of us (as software does for certain large desktop monopolies). One is a future of leisure, diversity, freedom and plenty. The other is a future of conformism and artificial scarcity. Even if there is more than one way to skin a particular cat, the cost of doing so is likely to impede technology development. Teams are going to have to vie for more research capital either way, and investors are less likely to want the risks of developing new ways of doing old tricks, with the pool of viable solutions to a given problem decreasing every year. Proliferation of solutions in a particular problem space may reduce costs due to competitive licensing, but there is always the risk of an oligopoly conspiring to control prices. In addition, the benefits are liable to be so great that I can't really see every culture in the world toeing the line of IP law ; in this scenario, those who respect IP law are liable to be severely disadvantaged. So in a way, I agree with the precept that IP is overvalued as a success indicator, just not for the same reasons. On the contrary, I see the proliferation of technologies designed to uphold IP rights, in conjunction with the increasingly draconian regulation being pushed into law by multinational companies, as being dangerous and counterproductive. Whether they realise it or not, they are setting up to exert a stranglehold over these technologies in the only way possible ; when you come down to it, once you have the right tools, raw materials, energy and manfacturing capital become secondary concerns and primary souce of value becomes the software.

One can envision a future where “matterware” could either provide enormous value at little cost (as software does for those participating in the Open-Source movement), or provides an enormous monopoly on manufacturing for the few at immense cost to the rest of us (as software does for certain large desktop monopolies).

One is a future of leisure, diversity, freedom and plenty. The other is a future of conformism and artificial scarcity.

Even if there is more than one way to skin a particular cat, the cost of doing so is likely to impede technology development. Teams are going to have to vie for more research capital either way, and investors are less likely to want the risks of developing new ways of doing old tricks, with the pool of viable solutions to a given problem decreasing every year. Proliferation of solutions in a particular problem space may reduce costs due to competitive licensing, but there is always the risk of an oligopoly conspiring to control prices.

In addition, the benefits are liable to be so great that I can’t really see every culture in the world toeing the line of IP law ; in this scenario, those who respect IP law are liable to be severely disadvantaged. So in a way, I agree with the precept that IP is overvalued as a success indicator, just not for the same reasons.

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