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| A Citiation System for Ideas? An article at Prospect Magazine UK argues that a lack of legal protection for ideas stifles their free exchange and is slowing the potential pace of innovation. For the author, the core problem is idea theft - when a good idea gets patented by another, or another person claims all the credit for the idea. Or if companies do not properly give credit to employees, them may begin to hoard their ideas and use them in work outside the firm. The scholarly community has solved this problem with a system of citation that is rigidly enforced by the private rules and mores of academia. The academic citation system helps to maximize the number of ideas that get distributed through academic channels, because there is a high likelihood that the author will get due credit for the idea in the academic community. Extending this solution to society as a whole would probably prove to be quite difficult. In the world of business the payoff for lying and cheating seem much higher: it's possible to profit greatly a patentable idea, or use the uncredited ideas of others as a means for job advancement. The risk of exposure is minimal, and the payoff can be considerable. New Legal Protections for Ideas If a voluntary approach is unfeasible, then a mild form of intellectual property protection might do the trick. Currently there seems to be the intellectual commons where public ideas circulate freely and the high wall of patented ideas were the inventors are granted exclusive rights. The solution would be a gradual rise in the level of protection between ideas in the public domain, and those protected by patents. At the base, ideas should be able to be placed in the public domain simply and easily. Using a symbol to represent public domain works would be one way, supplemented by an online database of works put into the public domain. The intermediate level would be a form of registration for new ideas. This could be another database just to make sure that innovators get credit for their work. Registering an idea in this database would not give you any financial stake in the idea, but it would help defend your ideas against plagiarism. If this was around today, I would register the genomic medical derivative idea, and curse the fact that the investors of the blind-trust for campaign contributions had beaten me to the punch. If this database were online, it would have a beneficial effect of the allowing searchers to know the exact state of the art for any given field. This could dramatically reduce the amount of duplication of effort that goes on among innovators. Much like the patent system helped create a culture of invention in 19th century America, a system of idea registration could provide an institutional reinforcement for innovation for the 21st century. Written by Mark Justman Copyright 2000 Posted 3/27/2000 http://go.to/futureplex |
