The Internet of Things (You Don’t Own) under Bourgeois Law: An Integrated Tactic to Rebalance Intellectual Property

First paragraph: It is a commonly held view that intellectual property (IP) is a policy bargain whereby exclusive rights and monopolies are granted as a reward to intellectual labour and investments in order to incentivise innovation and creativity. The idea that IP rights (IPRs) would be a necessary incentive has been largely debunked. Law and economics studies demonstrated that IP is just another product of capitalism aimed at creating new enclosures of the ‘commons.’ This notwithstanding, a number of national and international laws have kept expanding its scope and augmenting the relevant level of protection. Most IP-stemming monopolies are temporary on paper but end up producing revenues that are regarded as rents on a virtually permanent basis. The elevation of IP to perpetual rent is rendered possible by complex strategies that rely on cumulation of IPRs, factual control over data and service, contracts, and technical protection measures. Favoured by a legal environment that is ‘heavily tilted in favour of IP rent-seekers,’ IP has become the key ideological device of rentier capitalism. Traditionally, the phenomenon of rentiers refers to the fact that landowners would exploit their monopoly power over the land to impose a rent that was a monopoly price. As noted by Marx in The Poverty of Philosophy , ‘[r]ent, in the Ricardian sense, is patriarchal agriculture transformed into commercial industry, industrial capital applied to land, the town bourgeoisie transplanted into the country.’ Marx and Ricardo could not foresee that new forms of rent-seeking would become an essential component of capitalism: rent-seeking through IPRs. The IoT is pivotal to rentier capitalism as it generates ‘new sources of rent, new infrastructures of rentier relations, and new mechanisms of extraction and enclosure.’ While the IoT is not rentier in nature, the historically existing IoT is indeed rentier also thanks to IP abuses. According to Jathan Sadowski, data extraction, capital convergence, and digital enclosure are the main mechanisms of rentier capitalism. 9 IP is key to digital enclosure, as instantiated by the use of software licenses to control access and collecting rents over the physical world, regardless of the ownership of the underlying tangible assets

Legal challenges to future information businesses

The thesis studies new legal challenges to future information businesses: it presents an applicable research method, lists central legal challenges, and discusses the implications of those challenges. I have developed a scenario-based method that produces lists of legal challenges and helps to analyze them. The method highlights information products and services from commercial entity's viewpoint: other business aspects are paid less attention. Also, some specific characteristics of particular companies cannot be considered in a general method like this. Therefore challenges in legal areas such as tax law or competition law do not appear although in practice they can be relevant. The method is still able to point out numerous relevant legal challenges. The study focuses on the future: the time span is about two to ten years from now. The focus is on the business-to-consumer (B2C) market. The emphasis is on strategic product and service development. I have listed, analyzed, and discussed the future legal challenges that the method has found. I conclude that the most important legal challenges to future information businesses are within the areas of privacy and data protection; intellectual property rights; and contracts. I have also discussed the major distinguishers of businesses implying legal challenges. They help to point out the specific legal challenges related to a certain information product or service. Legal rules can affect businesses in many ways. At their best, they enable businesses, but too often they also harm useful activities. I conclude business drivers and hurdles that are important from the legal point of view.reviewe

An assessment of the patentability of business methods in the US and European jurisdictions and an evaluation of the implications

Advances in information technology have enabled the design and development of innovations in business methods. This is particularly felt with IT enabled innovations such as Sun Microsystems' stateless shopping Cart for the web which is a Web shopping cart system that does not require any data files to be maintained on either the client or the server.Firms attempt to leverage these innovations to gain competitive advantages through cost reduction and other quality improvements, which may also pass some benefits on to consumers. However, such competitive advantages are increasingly difficult to sustain because business method innovations are often easy to copy or imitate. Quick and cheap imitation of innovative products and processes may reduce the incentives for firms to invest further in innovation. Thus, patent protection for business method inventions became a live issue with different on outcomes as between the US and Europe. At present, in the US business method patents are legally recognised since the State Street Bank decision, 149 F. 3d 1368 (US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit 1998). However, the European Patent Office (EPO) still is noncommittal although some business method-related inventions have been granted de factoprotection by EPO suchas Hitachi Ltd’s automatic trading method and apparatus (EP 567 291), the Western Union Company’s method and system for performing money transfer transactions (EP 848 361) etc.. John Stuart Mill (1909) said "the superiority of one country over another, in a branch of production, often arises only from having begun it sooner".1 So it seems that the uncertainty of EPO's attitude to business method patents may result in a serious negative impact in European industry and economy. This thesis sets out to examine what precisely are the attitudes of the US and European institutions to business method patents and to explain what is the present law and how it has arisen. The author thereafter carries out an evaluation of the rationed economic and social effects of allowing / disallowing Business Method Patents and to address the question of whether Europe should adopt patent protections for business method–related inventions. To address these questions, the research focuses on the following questions: (1) under the current legal framework provided by EPC what business method–related inventions can be granted European patent? (2 )whether business method –related inventions are worth protecting by the patents in Europe. To answer the latter question, the thesis not only analyses the predictable economic and social effects of allowing or alternatively disallowing business method protections generally, but we also discuss “patent quality” which is used by US patent economists to analyse whether business method inventions have a sufficient value to justify the granting of exclusive patent rights in return for disclosure of the inventions’ specifications to the public. In analysing the predictable and likely economic and social effects of allowing or alternatively disallowing business method protections, the US position in patenting business method –related inventions needs to be considered, therefore the thesis also evaluates the US patent legal framework for business method patents and contrasts it with the European position. Through analysis of the relevant provisions and decisions, the research has concluded that under the current legal framework business method apparatus inventions are patentable in Europe if they can meet the patentability requirements of the European Patent Convention (EPC). To the effect that if a business method process invention is achieved by a technical means, solves a technical problem, or achieves a technical effect, it is often patentable in Europe provided it meets the EPC patentability requirements. However, turning to the evaluation of the economic effects of business method patents, economic analysis cannot find strong evidence to support increasing the current protections for business method patents. At the same time, the economic analysis also cannot find strong evidence to oppose present protections for business method patents. But when the US position is considered, infringement risk would favour it for it appears on balance that there may be some reason to think that Europe should adopt stronger protections for business method patents. Furthermore, the value of disclosing patented business method–related inventions’ specifications seems also to show that accepting business method patents is an appropriate choice for Europe.1 Mill, J. S.,1909. Principles of Political Economy.7thed. London: Longmans Green. p. 7

Morality patently matters: the case for a universal suffrage for morally controversial biotechnological patents

This thesis is a critique and proposed reform of the decision-making process under the European Patent Convention 1973, Article 53(a) as it relates to morality. It postulates that the manner in which the morality bar is currently managed is inappropriate as it relies on patent officials to make the initial decision as to whether the patent application is morally permissible or not. In a pluralistic world, morality is understood differently by a wide variety of people but this is not currently being acknowledged within the patent system. Whilst there is an option to bring opposition proceedings to challenge patent grants, this onus is considerable on the challenger and any debate is then played out by a very small sector of highly specialised experts, often with very differing views on morality. This thesis seeks to broaden the decision-making process to reflect society’s pluralism. Officials, it will be argued, should instead of trying to decide what constitutes morality in a realm of such importance for humanity as a whole, administer a system which facilitates public participation and a vote. This will be based on existing models of widespread public deliberation and participation, albeit not ones that currently operate in (or near) the patent world. At present, criticisms in the legal literature tend to suggest more deliberation in the patent field and more participation is recommended in science literature but the logistics are unexplored and will be brought together in this work, making an original contribution to knowledge. In order to achieve its aim, the thesis employs a pluralistic methodology which includes doctrinal, socio-legal and interdisciplinary facets which will enable the construction of a model for reform of the patent system in the domain of morality. This will come from outside of traditional legal mechanisms such as legislative, judicial or patent office reform solutions, as a far-reaching paradigm is envisaged. The claim to originality lies in the extraction of principles from deliberative and participatory models of democracy and their application to the decision-making process in morally controversial biotechnological patents

Scientometric Analysis of Technology & Innovation Management Literature

The management of technology and innovation has become an attractive and promising field within the management discipline. Therefore, much insight can be gained by reviewing the Technology & Innovation Management (TIM) research in leading TIM journals to identify and classify the key TIM issues by meta-categories and to identify the current trends. Based on a comprehensive scientometric analysis of 5,591 articles in 10 leading TIM specialty journals from 2005 to 2014, this research revealed several enlightening findings. First, the United States is the major producer of TIM research literature, and the greatest number of papers was published in Research Policy. Among the researchers in the field, M. Song is the most prolific author. Second, the TIM field often plays a bridging role in which the integration of ideas can be grouped into 10 clusters: innovation and firms, new product development (NPD) and marketing strategy, project management, patenting and industry, emerging technologies, science policy, social networks, system modeling and development, business strategy, and knowledge transfer. Third, the connectivity among these terms is highly clustered and a network-based perspective revealed that six new topic clusters are emerging: NPD, technology marketing, patents and intellectual property rights, university-industry cooperation, technology forecasting and roadmapping, and green innovation. Finally, chronological trend analysis of key terms indicates a change in emphasis in TIM research from information systems/technologies to the energy sector and green innovation. The results of the study improve our understanding of the structure of TIM as a field of practice and an academic discipline. This insight provides direction regarding future TIM research opportunities

Intellectual Commons: The Normative Perspective

This thesis examines the moral significance of the intellectual commons and proposes appropriate modes for their regulation with the aim of accommodating their social potential. In the course of exploring their normative aspects, the thesis proceeds successively by analysing (i) the ontological characteristics of the intellectual commons, (ii) the relevant literature concerning their potential and interrelation with capital, (iii) the ways that they been shaped by law across history, (iv) their circuits of value, and (iv) their elements which bear moral significance. The thesis concludes by outlining the fundamentals of a normative theory for the intellectual commons. The thesis offers an overall analysis of the intellectual commons with the aim of grounding a holistic normative theory for their regulation by the law. The ontological part of the thesis examines the elements, characteristics, tendencies and manifestations of the intellectual commons and their potential for society from the perspective of processual ontology. Furthermore, its methodological part presents the main theories of the intellectual commons from the prism of critical epistemology and sketches out their divergent approaches on the relation between the intellectual commons and capital. In addition, its historical part exhibits the historical evolution of the cultural commons and their interrelation with law and society. Accordingly, the thesis features extensive social research concerning the ways that social value is generated, circulated, pooled together and redistributed within and beyond the communities of the intellectual commons and concerning the dialectics between commons-based and monetary values. The final normative part of the thesis analyses the moral dimension of the intellectual commons. Throughout its analysis, the thesis adheres to the methodological choices of critical theory. The thesis demonstrates that the intellectual commons are a social regime for the regulation of intellectual production, distribution and consumption, which bears moral significance. The contemporary formations of the intellectual commons feature elements of inherent moral value, have the potential to produce outcomes of net social benefit and underpin freedom, justice and democracy in ways, which justify their protection and promotion by the law. Morality thus requires the enactment of an independent body of statutory rules to protect the intellectual commons from encroachment by private enclosures and to promote commons-based practices in the form of a non-commercial sphere of creativity and innovation in all aspects of intellectual production, distribution and consumption