[1]Coming off a recent discussion about the role patents play in fostering innovation (see: Are Patents A Driver of Innovation or Just a Tax? [2]), it is fortunate that I’ve had a chance to read Michael Gollin’s excellent book on how intellectual property not only drives the innovation cycle but sometimes stifles it, too.
Gollin’s book, entitled “Driving Innovation: Intellectual Property Strategies for a Dynamic World,” Cambridge University Press, covers fundamental IP concepts and practical strategies that apply to all innovation organizations, including industry, nonprofit institutions, and developing countries. Yes, even countries. Innovation is the very engine that propels every nation towards more development and participation requires a global perspective on how the IP system balances access to innovations, how it changes over time, and how it encourages and sometimes stifles innovation.
Gollin points out that in the knowledge economy, globalization, innovation and political leadership are the main driving forces in society. Unfortunately, the tightening interdependence of markets, technology and culture also drive a growing disparity between global haves and have-nots.
The duality of intellectual property is that it is a source of wealth and a source of an accompanying cost. That is, IP brings wealth only with some concomitant toll (a sort of hidden tax), whether on competitors or consumers, even if it is only a small part of the wealth pie generated.
So it is with IP rights, they inherently set up a tension between the pharmaceutical company enforcing rights and the patients wanting greater (read: less costly) access to medicine. A technology company wants to build and market a product but is forced to pay licensing fees to a patent holder.
In the end, this book is not about what the IP should be or how it could be changed but is about how to survive in a global system when IP rights have developed. This book is written as a very practical guide for a broad audience of anyone interested in innovation and how IP encourages (or discourages) the cycle of development. As Gollin puts it:
Creative individuals build on past knowledge, then share and develop their creative work with others in their community, until the innovative result of the collective effort can be adopted by larger society, thus enriching the pool of available knowledge for further creative effort.
Driving this cycle is an IP system that provides incentives to create, defines exclusive rights so that developments can be controlled and offers the means for dissipation to society. Gollin now provides a smart and understandable guide to the law and business of patents.
Driving Innovation is one of the best books around for weaving the reader through the history of intellectual property and the inherent tension between exclusion and access, private rights and public domain, monopoly and competition. Balancing these conflicting roles affects individuals and nations alike. We highly recommend this guide to anyone who has to work in the knowledge age.
“Driving Innovation: Intellectual Property Strategies for a Dynamic World,” by Michael A. Gollin, is available from Amazon. Michael A. Gollin is a law partner at Venable LLP in Washington, DC, and a faculty member at the Georgetown University McDonough School of Business.
Note: Proceeds from book sales will be shared with the Public Interest Intellectual Property Advisors (PIIPA) [3], an international non-profit organization that makes intellectual property counsel available for developing countries and public interest organizations who seek to promote health, agriculture, biodiversity, science, culture, and the environment.