Steven Johnson: más sobre la propiedad intelectual y la patentabilidad de los genes

Un artículo en el New York Times

In my research, (su libro aquí) I analyzed 300 of the most influential innovations in science, commerce and technology — ... First, there is the classic solo entrepreneur, protecting innovations in order to benefit from them financially; then the amateur individual, exploring and inventing for the love of it. Then there are the private corporations collaborating on ideas while simultaneously competing with one another. And then there is what I call the “fourth quadrant”: the space of collaborative, nonproprietary innovation, exemplified in recent years by the Internet and the Web, two groundbreaking innovations not owned by anyone…

Why has the fourth quadrant been so innovative, despite the lack of traditional economic rewards? The answer, I believe, has to do with the increased connectivity that comes from these open environments. Ideas are free to flow from mind to mind, and to be refined and modified without complex business development deals or patent lawyers. The incentives for innovation are lower, but so are the barriers.

Consider a recent start-up called Kickstarter, which embodies many of these complex values. Kickstarter is a site that allows individuals to fund creative projects, like movies, art installations, albums and so on. Donors may get special gifts in return for their contributions — signed copies of the final CD or an invitation to the opening — but they don’t own the creations they help support. In just two years of existence, Kickstarter has raised more than $20 million for thousands of projects, taking a small cut of each transaction.

Y su charla en TED

Lo mejor es cómo cuenta el nacimiento del GPS.

Y aquí, un artículo que explica que los EE.UU han cambiado su política respecto a la patentabilidad de los genes. Aquí las alegaciones “amicus curiae” del Gobierno norteamericano. Básicamente, que el DNA genómico aislado del genoma humano, sin modificación alguna, no puede ser patentado.

Y aquí un excelente artículo sobre las rentas derivadas de la innovación y cómo las empresas tratan de convertir lo que debe ser efímero – la obtención de ganancias supracompetitivas – en permanentes: Microsoft es “A company whose sources of rent have largely tipped from innovation to those based on barriers to exit (lock in), policy (lobby against open source), and patronage (let's bring the entire USAF IT staff to Redmond for a conference and feed them ice cream at every break!)”