Where Are the Giants to Stand On?

Standing On the Shoulders of Giants

Dwarfs standing on the shoulders of giants is a seasoned metaphor that can be traced back almost one thousand years.

It has empirically been interpreted as “discovering truth by building on previous discoveries”.

But how much truth is there to it?

Well, how about we find a pair of giants to stand on. 

Sir Isaac Newton famously stated that “If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.”

Steve Jobs thought that “Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something.”

What can we derive from this?

We can deduce that, according to two of the greatest inventors and thinkers in the history of humanity, creations of mind do NOT stem from the individual alone.

In fact, we can claim that all original creations of mind are based on previous creations of mind. It is the shoulders of giants that facilitate new creations. 
How comical... didn't we arrive at this conclusion standing on the shoulders of giants?

Anyway, if previous creations of mind therefore serve as premise for new creations of mind, what happens when we claim the latter as property?

Yes, you guessed it.

I am talking about Intellectual Property Rights.

Intellectual Privilege Rights

Intellectual Property Rights are the rights given to persons over creations of their mind. The three types of Intellectual Property Rights are patents, copyrights, and trademarks. I am sure many of you are familiar with these three terms. (If you are not, click here to become familiar!)

Intellectual Property Rights essentially allow the holder to exercise a monopoly on the production and use of the given item for a specific period of time.

As you may have noticed, however, I referred to these rights as Intellectual Privilege Rights in the sub header.

I did so because I believe them to be just that. They should be thought of as government granted privileges, not property.

But am I the only one to believe that?

The answer is a strong negative. Professor Tom W. Bell (Chapman University) actually published a book titled “Intellectual Privilege” in 2014. He argues that copyrights cannot be labeled as property for two reasons. Firstly, because copyrights only exist thanks to a federal statute, while all other types of property exist in the state of nature or common law. Secondly, copyrights are limited in a number of ways that property is not, most notably because they expire after a given period of time. This argumentative framework can be reasonably well applied to patents as well.

Patents

Patents, however, protect inventions. 

In many cases, the incredibly high research and production costs for the given product, especially in the pharmaceutical industry, will only be condoned if high enough profits can be made to off-set the high costs of research and production.

Patents seem very reasonable here. In fact, I find it very hard to argue against them.

So what’s the catch?

The catch is that the high number of patents is actually hurting our inventiveness! 
Yesterday, I was fortunate to have the opportunity to listen to Professor Alex Tabarrok from George Mason University argue just that. His evidence strongly supported the claim that the excessive number of patents is actually drastically hurting our inventiveness. As the number of patents increases, the number of new inventions decreases. This is an indisputable matter, according to Professor Tabarrok’s data.
Take a look at the Tabarrok curve below. I hope you get the general idea. Also, I would highly encourage you to do a little research on Alex Tabarrok and his work on patents.

For the sake of this post, however, this is as far as I will go with the academic material.
Let's look at the intuitive explanation. 

Reinventing the Wheel

This idiomatic metaphor implies that we should not spend time reinventing or creating something that has already been optimized by others. 
Thus, if we have to reinvent the wheel every time we want to build a car, not many cars will be built. This beautifully translates over to patents. 
If we have to reinvent every little component even remotely needed to invent and produce a new product, not many new products will be invented and produced. 

Another way to illustrate this, is that a high number of patents takes away the giants.

Basically, patents are giants telling us “Sorry bud, but you cannot stand on my shoulders. Come back in x years.”
This, as proven by Professor Tabarrok's data, has drastic effects on our inventiveness.
After all, it was the shoulders of giants that let Isaac Newton see further and Steve Jobs connect the dots.

The Bottom Line

The bottom line is a fine line. 
A fine line that needs to be drawn here, to secure the lucrativeness of cost-heavy inventions at no expense of overall inventiveness.

Unfortunately, however, the high number of patents has cumulated a gigantic wall. 
A gigantic wall of sleeping giants waiting for their patents to run out so they can finally let the next Isaac Newton see further, and next Steve Jobs connect the dots.

Stay tuned.

I would love to hear some of your thoughts on this.

Simply drop a comment below!

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