Volume 6 Issue 1 October 2018
Intellectual Monopoly and the Innovation Myth:
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Innovation improves our overall standard of living by helping us to live healthier and happier lives, but the process for innovating—creating and utilising ideas—is misunderstood and mischaracterised. This misunderstanding creates space for intellectual property law to be conceived as the primary catalyst for innovation and an ‘unavoidable evil’ in commoditising and regulating the supply and usage of ideas in society. However, a closer study of the innovation process and the effect of intellectual property law tells a different story: that, whilst intellectual property creates huge profits for rights-holders, it impedes innovation and social development, widens the divide between rich and poor, distorts political systems, and alienates individuals from themselves. Reform efforts should focus on promoting a greater understanding of the innovation process, publicly funding research and development, and reorganising knowledge industries to limit monopoly powers.
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