Recommendable! You find many critical articles about intellectual property rights on my blog (just click on the label)!
In my opinion, we ought to try the experiment of eliminating all intellectual property rights for new intangible assets! Second best solution, a dramatic reduction in scope and duration of intellectual property rights!
Innovators can stay ahead of the competition, because they are the experts and they have other advantages over mere copycats. They can also use business secret as a temporary protection!
"... seed breeders rather “sought long-run reputations” to build trust in their products. This is akin to the brand recognition argument highlighted by critics of patents. They also bundled their services with other commercial endeavors such as “selling fertilizers or publishing farm journals” in order to increase their profitability. Anyone who wanted to match the profitability of the innovators would have had to copy the entire bundle of goods. This essentially raised copying costs (especially when the different activities in the bundle were complementary). ..."
"The Antebellum American South experienced rapid biological innovation centered around an active market for new cotton seed varieties, despite the absence of intellectual property rights. Contemporaries complained new seed was initially offered at high prices, which subsequently collapsed. Using local newspaper evidence, this paper documents this market’s operation. It then rationalizes the price movements given the potential of improved seed to multiply at finite rates. The initial prices were sufficiently high to provide meaningful incentives to innovate. This study also identifies information problems affecting the cotton seed market, leading observers to claim too many new varieties were released, not too few."
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