Re: [Patents] Washington Times: Internet Patents Divide Industry

[Andrew Rendle <andrew@andrewr.co.uk>]

Simo Sorce wrote:
> On Wed, 2003-07-30 at 22:59, Hartmut Pilch wrote:
>
> > >    But "intellectual property" is not such an example.  The generalisation
> > >    in this term is needed in many contexts.  We can not chose whether we want
> > >    this concept to exist, we can only chose how to name it.
> >
> > > I have very rarely found a situation where this generalization
> > > (including patents, trademarks and copyrights) is useful for clear
> > > thinking.  If there is such a case, I think your proposed term
> > > "exclusion rights" would be a good choice, but we should first try
> > > separating the different issues.
> >
> > What about the case of accounting assets of a company?
> >
> > Patents, copyrights, trademarks etc, like real estate property titles,
> > have an estimatable value, can be sold etc.  Also, like real estate
> > property titles, their value is derived from a right to forbid people to
> > use certain ressources.
>
>
> I don't think the fact you can sell something mean a property.
> A service have a market value and is generally sold, but I find it hard
> to think it is a property.
> Eg: A lawyer make me a service I pay with hard money, but is his service
> in any way like a property ??

When you pay someone to provide a service, you are not buying something 
from them, you are employing them to provide a service (admitedly, in 
most cases, you will also be buying some items, eg the new rubber seal 
that the plumber put in to fix the leaky pipe last week is now our 
rubber seal, but we were paying him for was knowing how to fix it.)
A copyright is the exclusive right (with certain exceptions, eg fair 
use) to make (or allow others to make) copies of a work, and that 
exclusive right can be bought, sold, bequeathed, etc. just like material 
property.  While copyrights can be considered as property in some ways 
(mainly economic) the term "intellectual property" is a misleading one, 
as it confuses issues, and fails to describe what a copyright 
fundamentally is - the right to make copies.

> > For this context, "immaterial property" seems just perfect to me (as would
> > the lengthier "exclusion right based assets"), whereas "exclusion rights"
> > still lacks meaning of "asset".
>
>
> Yes but the problem is that you own a title, a monopoly, not the thing
> you have the title for!
>
> You own the patent not the idea. The problem is that immaterial property
> carry the idea that you own "the idea", not "an exclusive right on the
> idea".

Another problem with "immaterial property" is that it is even vaguer and 
wider that "interlectual property" - an internet domain name is 
immaterial property, stocks and shares are immaterial property, most of 
the time, most of my money is, to me immaterial, as most of what goes 
into and out of my account is done via electronic transfers between my 
account and that of the student loans company, or my landlord, or the 
supermarket, I only use fairly small proportion of it as cash.

Andrew