Unleashing The Intellectual Property Virus

I have been listening to Unleashing the Ideavirus by Seth Godin on tape. I picked it up at a discount bookstore. It was a great bargain. An even better bargain is the free download of the book. At the beginning of the book Seth points out that 200 years ago having a farm was a good way to make money, 100 years ago you could make a lot of money cranking out steel widgets with a factory, but today Ideas are all that we have left to profit from in America. Something he doesn’t talk about, but it is something that I believe is a result of this, is the emphasis on creating Intellectual Property (IP) in companies. Additionally, the building up of IP portfolios has spawned the emergence of a nasty business model. The companies that follow this model are known as Patent Trolls. Patent Trolls make nothing and own nothing except patents then they try to find people who are violating their patents so they can sue them for money. The building up of legal protection by legitimate business’s and trolls, alike, almost certainly guarantees that the future of technological development in America will languish in the courtrooms. This does not bode well for innovation and growth in America. While other countries are moving ahead and growing their economies we will be arguing amongst ourselves and bankrupting each other. My recommendation, if you are a person with a technology background it might be a good career move for you to study law so that you can profit from the next economic wave – the litigation economy.

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