Talk:Strategy for Information Markets/Intellectual Property

Other material
TDang (discuss • contribs) 16:12, 18 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Patent thickets, see this, for instance
 * Optimal patent life, see this, for instance

CBR13 review
There are some long sentences that conflict with one's ability to understand. For example: It is important to point out, however, that they are not entirely a necessity, works can also be released in the public domain (today rarely done, due to changes to the copyright law that makes it unappealing), or preserving the copyrights freely licensed to use, reuse and distribute.

Try not to editorialize: "It is sadly very rare today..."

It would probably be more helpful if there were sub-sections under "Patents" and "Copyright". Otherwise it just seems like a giant/overwhelming blob of information. Sub-sections of "Patents" could be: Definition of a Patent, Granting a Patent, Problems Associated with Patents. Sub-sections of "Copyright" could be: Definition, Copyrights and the Internet, Copyrights and Profitabilty, Legal Struggles Also, under Copyrights, "the origins of copyright law in the late 18th century in Germany" is not elaborated on, though it seems to be an important example of the problem of legal struggles. Cbr13 (discuss • contribs) 01:17, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Reditor1214 review
While the information that is given in this section is very useful, it would be more useful to a reader if organized in a better manner. The two subsections of Patents and Copyrights are introduced well however it seems that the last paragraph of the introduction would be better suited to actually be apart of the Patent subsection. With regard to the content already in the Patent subsection, more information on how to be granted a patent would be useful. Also the section following that seems to deal with the downside of both patents and copyrights and perhaps warrants its own subsection. With regard to the information in the copyright subsection, the last two paragraphs seem to do with IP in general and perhaps better belong at the beginning of this article. By reorganizing this information and keeping the subsections detailed and specific, it will become much easier for readers to extract useful information. Reditor1214 (discuss • contribs) 06:28, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

TDang review April 2012
I'm reviewing this version. I'll likely be more critical than complimentary, because (a) that's the way I am and (b) that's what will help improve things. Please don't take the criticism-over-compliments to mean I have a wholly negative view.

Make sure to check the all-purpose review thoughts as well.

TDang (discuss • contribs) 19:52, 29 April 2012 (UTC) TDang (discuss • contribs) 20:24, 29 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Use wiki-formatting for sections and sub-sections, not just putting sub-section titles in bold.
 * In the first paragraph, I think there's some quotations missing or mixed up.
 * Trademarks--There is good material on trademarks here, but it's a distraction from the goal of this book. Copyrights and patents (and potentially trade secrets) are close to the same thing from an economist's point of view, while trademarks are something else entirely--essentially the purpose of a trademark is to prevent fraud. So trademarks should get a really fast mention, and explanation that they'll be ignored for the rest of the article.
 * "If no such intellectual property laws were in existence then the incentive to create new products would not exist"--This is the argument for intellectual property, but it clearly isn't entirely true since people do create creative works without IP protection (now and in the past) or create works with IP protection which they don't use for profit. So, the statement is too strong. Also, the statement inspires a rebuttal right after it. I'd recommend pulling the statement out or maybe rephrasing it in terms of intent (but I think intent is already covered). Then, the rebuttals can also be removed.
 * "since they not only provide protection to the creator, but can be used strategically to prevent competition." This doesn't belong in the introduction, and may not belong anywhere. Copyrights and patents are explicitly set up with the purpose of preventing competition, so that's not a negative side-effect, it's part of the intent. If it's meant in a different way (perhaps in terms of patent thickets) then, it should be moved to another section, carefully referenced, and discussed.
 * Overall, the final paragraph of the introduction needs to be removed or re-worked. It's making some anti-patent arguments, which could be made, but in other ways:
 * First, rather than the book making anti-IP arguments, the anti-IP arguments should be attributed to someone important who makes them. Several economists and many other cultural commentators criticize aspects of current IP law, and so there can be references found for this.
 * If it's in the introduction, it should be very brief, perhaps instead it should be its own section.
 * Patents section
 * This is a little too long, providing more detail than we need. For instance, I think the "Who Can Apply For Patents" section is unnecessary for our purposes.
 * Economic Benefits of Patents--this part should be removed, as it's part of the overall discussion and doesn't need to be separated from the discussion of copyright. It also risks falling onto one side of the debate of how necessary patents are.
 * Patent Infringement and Punishments--This section is more detail than is needed for this book, up to the part where it gets to "In the absence of patents and other intellectual property law,...", which is again talking about the benefits of patent law and should be moved to wherever that winds up.
 * Requirements for Patentability--This has some plagiarism/copyright violations within it. The source used was cited, so I'm sure it was an honest mistake. However, the quotes/paraphrases were much too close to the original. I suggestion dealing with this by radically cutting down on the detail for each of these requirements. Unless you see an obvious bit of economic importance to a legal detail you're including, it's just as well to leave the legal detail out.
 * Real World Application of Patent Law--This is good stuff, but it should be separated into a section discussing possible drawbacks to patent law (and it appears what he called "gridlock" is what is commonly referred to as a "patent thicket" problem).
 * Importance of Patents--again, this is talking about patent thickets.
 * 'Opposition and Proposed Alternatives to Patents''--This needs a lot better referencing, or to be removed:
 * There's no reference to where Bessen makes these suggestions.
 * For instance, I'm aware of a lot of criticism of intellectual property, but I don't recall anyone suggesting that trade secrets are preferable, so that needs a reference or removal.
 * Copyrights section
 * reference links to http://www.copyright.gov/ need to point to the specific place where the information is.
 * "Copyrights are said to be territorial, which means that they do not extend beyond the territory of a specific state unless that state is a party to an international agreement. Today, however, this is less relevant..."--so don't mention it.
 * I moved some of the piracy stuff to the piracy page.
 * "There are many things that a holder of protected IP has to consider when trying to make as much of a profit as possible."--This paragraph is largely about 'costs and so should probably become the basis of a separate section on costs. Otherwise, the paragraph is a bit confused and I'm not sure what points it's trying to make.
 * Copyleft--this should probably move to Non-IP approaches to innovation
 * References
 * I think Stanford Encyclopedia is a good reference, it should be properly referenced in addition to being mentioned.
 * I added a "References" section to the bottom. Try to format your references so they appear as more than links and numbers.
 * Reference links to uspto.gov need to not be to the main page, but to the page which provides the information used.
 * Quasi-rent--Wikipedia isn't an adequate reference.
 * What's missing
 * This page needs more economics, which would ideally include formal models and graphics, but in any acse, more economics.
 * That means focusing on the efficiency trade-off: A monopoly is economically inefficient in the static sense that it leads to high prices and less of the thing being consumed than "should" be. However, IP accepts that inefficiency as the price to be paid for motivating the creation of the thing in the first place.
 * It's worth considering how unlikely it is that every copyrighted thing should get the same amount of IP protection to maximize efficiency. (Or every copyrighted thing.)
 * There are some attempts to identify the optimal length of a patent and copyright.
 * Talking about the passage of the Copyright Term Extension Act would be worthwhile. Almost every economist agrees the law was economically inefficient, and a case of successful rent seeking. Since it was retroactive, talking about it can also help clarify the issues of before-creation incentives versus after-creation monopoly.

graph of patent deadweight loss
I removed a link to this external graph, and text referring to it. Such a graph is a good thing for this book, but needs to be found at Wikimedia Commons or created especially for the book. TDang (discuss • contribs) 22:29, 17 May 2012 (UTC)