Num mundo sem patentes... tudo é acelerado

Num mundo sem patentes... tudo é acelerado, recordei num postal de Setembro último, "Num mundo sem patentes".

Ontem, num artigo de Martin Wolf no FT, "A hopless fight to halt the theft of ideas" apanhei:

"First, current intellectual property rights are not a moral or economic absolute. They are a compromise.
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This story illustrates why we should want productive knowledge to flow across the world. Knowledge also "wants to be free" because unlike a commodity, my use of your idea does not prevent you, or anybody else, from using it. In the jargon, knowledge is "non-rival" in consumption, which gives it the character of a"public good".
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A trade-off exists, then, between solving the free-rider problem, by granting temporary monopolies, and exploiting the free-rider opportunity, by making ideas freely available at once. For this reason, temporary monopolies are not the only way to motivate innovation. Alternatives include subsidised research and targeted prizes. The intellectual property rights regime we have has merits. But it is an imperfect compromise among conflicting interests, one of which—that of incumbent firms — is likely to be most powerful.
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Finally, people in advanced countries should fixate less on protecting the knowhow they have and more on the resources and institutions that will sustain innovation."

Lembro-me de em 2007 ouvir a estória de empresa de cerâmica portuguesa (talvez Raul da Bernarda) que fazia peças e as tentava proteger da cópia. No entanto, na feira seguinte lá apareciam as cópias chinesas, a certa altura perceberam que não podiam fazer face a isso. Portanto, assumiram que o novo normal seria estar sempre 6 meses à frente dos copiadores, a única protecção seria a inovação.

Num mundo sem patentes... tudo é acelerado.