Subcribe
30 June, 2009
Intellectual Property: The Costs and Benefits to Innovation
Date: Tuesday, June 30th
Time: 1:15pm - 2:45pm
Venue: Conference Room 6, UN Headquarters
Is intellectual property regulation a 'barrier to entry' or an incentive to innovate? Intellectual property (IP) laws regulate the ability to access and build on past innovations, as well as protect innovations and give people a financial incentive to produce. But, many disagree how these dual effects of IP regulation affect innovation and development.
Many of the most valuable commodities developed and exchanged around the world are intellectual property. IP laws regulate how those assets are developed, owned, used, and sold. Bilateral and multilateral treaties have attempted to harmonize the effect of each nation's IP laws on international trade and development in this valuable and growing sector of the global economy.
Given the importance of intellectual property laws to innovation and international development, UNU-ONY hosted this UNU Midday Forum to address the following issues/ topics:
• How does Google balance the value of innovation in the broadcast and distribution of information with the value of innovation in the creation of content?
• While weakening IP laws might benefit developing countries and encourage innovation in the short run, what are the effects in the long run? On future innovation? On development?
• The historical and international perspectives of the ways intellectual property can pose barriers to innovation, including the history of development and IP regulation in different countries.
• Forms of collaborative innovation, such as open source, which are not as dependent on IP as an incentive.
This UNU Midday Forum examined the influence of intellectual property regulation on innovation and what this means for development.
**Listen to the audio recording of the event.**
Event Photos:
To download the audio transcript of the event, CLICK HERE
Speakers:
William Patry, Senior Copyright Counsel, Google Inc
Rishab Aiyer Ghosh, Senior Researcher and Head of the Collaborative Creativity Group, UNU Maastricht Economic and Social Research and Training Centre on Innovation and Technology (UNU-MERIT)
Background Materials from Speakers:
Rishab Ghosh's powerpoint presentation (June 30, 2009)
Society for Computers and Law Annual Lecture 2009 (William Patry, March 2009)
Information and Intellectual Property: The Global Challenges (UNU-MERIT Working Paper #2006-029) by Rishab Aiyer Ghosh and Luc Soete
Other Related Materials from UNU:
Uneven Paths Of Development: Innovation and Learning in Asia and Africa by Banji Oyelaran-Oyeyinka, UN-HABITAT and UNU-MERIT; and Rajah Rasiah, University of Malaya, Malaysia and UNU-MERIT (2009)
Knowledge Economies: Organization, location and innovation by Wilfred Dolfsma, UNU-MERIT (2009)
Emerging challenges for science, technology and innovation policy research: A reflexive overview by Piera Morlacchi and Ben R. Martin (2009)
Science, Technology and Development: Emerging concepts and visions by Luc Soete (UNU-MERIT Working Paper #2008-001)
Internationalisation of European ICT Activities: Dynamics of Information and Communications Technology by Meijers, Huub; Dachs, Bernhard; Welfens, Paul J.J. (Eds.) (2008)
The Global Challenges of the Knowledge Economy: China and the EU by Can Huang and Luc Soete (UNU-MERIT Working Paper #2007-28)
Speakers' Profiles:
William Patry, Senior Copyright Counsel, Google Inc.
William Patry is Senior Copyright Counsel at Google Inc. He was formerly copyright counsel to the U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on the Judiciary, and a Policy Planning Adviser to the Register of Copyrights. He is the author of numerous books on copyright, including an eight-volume, 6,000 page treatise, "Patry on Copyright" (Thomson West, 2007), which is the largest treatise on copyright ever written in any language. Recently Mr. Patry has authored two books, "Patry on Fair Use" (Thomson West, April 2009) and "Moral Panics the Copyright Wars" (Oxford University Press, Summer 2009).
Rishab Aiyer Ghosh is Founding International and Managing Editor of First Monday, the most widely read peer-reviewed on-line journal of the Internet. Rishab is currently Senior Researcher and Head of the Collaborative Creativity Group at the Maastricht Economic Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (MERIT) at the University of Maastricht and United Nations University, the Netherlands.
In 2000, Mr. Ghosh started what has become the leading research group worldwide on innovation, technology and open collaborative production, in particular Free/Libre/Open Source Software (FLOSS). He studied the use of open source software and ICT worldwide and has led pioneering surveys and studies on the economic impact of open source software, and collaborative content on the Internet such as Wikipedia.
Mr. Ghosh's 2005 book, "CODE: Collaborative Ownership and the Digital Economy" was published by MIT Press, with endorsements by Lawrence Lessig, the well known Stanford law Professor who originated the Creative Commons Project. He is a member of the jury of the Stockholm Challenge Award first presented by the King of Sweden to the world's most socially relevant Information Technology projects; and a grant proposal evaluator for the European Commission, Dutch Science Council and Belgian/Flemish Science Council. He is an invited reviewer for leading academic journals in economics and management and Information Technology.
For more information on the Collaborative Creativity Group:
http://ccg.merit.unu.edu
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Jean-Marc Coicaud will moderate this discussion.
Dr. Coicaud's Bio
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The UNU-UN Midday Forum series is organized with the aim of offering an intimate and informal setting for the exchange of ideas and experiences, giving people concerned with similar problems the opportunity to meet and discuss important topics relating to the UN. It is a chance for academics and policy-makers, from the UN and beyond, to reflect on and participate in the work of the United Nations.
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Page last modified Last modified: February 03 2010 at 10:29:25 AM.
