Land-grab fever has gripped intellectual property rights, says Seth Shulman. And he insists that only new approaches—such as "national parks for knowledge"—can protect the free flow of ideas that benefits us all...from Wanted: National Parks for Knowledge in Technology Review
Treating intellectual property in the same way that we treat products will actually decrease innovation rather than stimulate it. Patenting things that anyone could come up with (like Amazon.com's One-Click system) means that people can't freely use things that are more or less intuitive. In addition, sharing knowledge tends to increase the total amount of knowledge as others add to and refine the information.
Shulman proposes a system akin to the ways real estate is regulated. Individuals can own the 'property' but the community also has some say in how that property is managed. In addition, perhaps there should be some IP-free zones, like national parks where the information is open and available to everyone (for example, the human genome sequence).
Posted by dcoates at January 11, 2002 09:56 AM