Stiglitz On Patents- How To Choke Innovation

Friday's Wall Street Journal carried an editorial co-authored by Nobel Laureate economist Joseph Stiglitz of Columbia University regarding patents for genes.

Stiglitz and his colleague used most of their piece to advance the usual arguments on this topic against awarding patents for those who identify or create genes.

However, near the end of their piece, the authors tipped their hand regarding their bias against individual property rights when they wrote,

"Had Alan Turing's mathematical insights been patented, the development of the modern computer might have been greatly delayed."

So what? Maybe it wouldn't have been delayed at all. Maybe Turing would have been approached to license his patents to the Institute for Advanced Studies, the University of Pennsylvania, or Sperry, for the design and production of one of the early digital computers.

The thrust of Stiglitz' argument is clearly that individuals shouldn't be allowed to have property rights protecting their inventions.

For the record, it's quite likely that part, if not all, of Turing's "mathematical insights" were funded by either wartime government spending, or some academic institution. So the Turing example is probably not even relevant.

But it does indicate that this debate is not apolitical.

Large companies, finding a small firm has bought a patent which they need, attempt to argue that use of patents ought to trump mere ownership without the means of production. I recall this argument coming up recently, perhaps in the case of RIM.

To me, it seems that Stiglitz, and others, merely want to set some artificially high tests for whether or not an inventor, or purchaser, of a patent should enjoy the rights of that patent.

Just because society may have waited a bit longer for the computer, or the developing company may have had to pay royalties or license fees to the proper owner of needed patents, is no reason to simply turn against assigning patents to discoverers of knowledge which qualifies as patentable according to our laws.

Even some economists, it appears, are subject to using stealthy arguments to cloak their inherent preference for state or oligopolistic rights to inventions, instead of those who actually created them.