CLASS 99
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WEDNESDAY, 18 MAY 2011
Hargreaves Reports - a call to action or a punt into the long grass?
Professor Ian Hargreaves' Report is now publicly available. For background, see our earlier postings here and here. At 123 pages, it will take us a while to digest, so here are just a couple of initial comments.
The initial impression is that there is confusion over whether the goal is to promote innovation alone, or the protection and exploitation of innovation (i.e. IP). Whilst innovation is "Mom-and-apple-pie" aspirational stuff, turning innovation into growth by the innovator (not just free-rider growth somewhere else) requires strong IP, in my humble opinion.
Although this was trailed in advance as a generally pro-IP exercise by a government looking for ways out of an economic mess, Hargreaves actually appears to accept the (increasingly fashionable) message that IP is a burden on industry - "IP transaction costs have risen as rights users navigate an ever more densely populated landscape of increasingly subdivided rights" is one of the underlying general themes.
What of designs? The mood music of Chapter 7 on designs is that the system involves "unnecessary complexity" (for which the cure will, we expect, be to scrap some of the laws which protect designs at present), and that "some argue that copying in the fashion industry may actually promote innovation".
How does that square with his rallying call in the executive summary: "Action is also called for with regard to the UK’s important and growing design sector"? The answer lies in the nature of this "action". What would you have expected to see down in the detail? If you said "an evidence-based assessment", go to the head of the class - you are fully in tune with the governance of coalition Britain.
No one would disagree that "Government should ensure that development of the IP System is driven as far as possible by objective evidence" - again, "Mom-and-apple-pie" stuff; shouldn't all policy be based on objective evidence (rather than, say, by short-term credit crises, ideology, or the search for eye-catching initiatives with which a politician can be personally associated) if possible? The practical problem is that "as far as possible" is often not very far at all in a complicated little corner like design rights. It may be that the requested research will show that (a) good, and/or innovative, design matters, and that (b) protecting it also matters. However, it is hard to believe that economic research alone will yield a result sufficiently quantitative to form the basis of an informed decision to, say, keep or scrap UK unregistered design right, or increase its term from 10 to 12 years.
Is the "Digital Copyright Exchange" just compulsory licensing under a new name? Is there really any scope for "Judge Judy Justice" for small IP claims? Is the report distorted by the emphasis on digital age copyright? Has it seriously engaged with design issues? Or is the call for further research just kicking the ball back into the long grass?
Read it, and let us have your comments. Posted by: David Musker @ 12.42
Tags: hargreaves, policy,
Perm-A-Link: https://www.marques.org/blogs/class99?XID=BHA238
Hargreaves Reports - a call to action or a punt into the long grass?
The initial impression is that there is confusion over whether the goal is to promote innovation alone, or the protection and exploitation of innovation (i.e. IP). Whilst innovation is "Mom-and-apple-pie" aspirational stuff, turning innovation into growth by the innovator (not just free-rider growth somewhere else) requires strong IP, in my humble opinion.
Although this was trailed in advance as a generally pro-IP exercise by a government looking for ways out of an economic mess, Hargreaves actually appears to accept the (increasingly fashionable) message that IP is a burden on industry - "IP transaction costs have risen as rights users navigate an ever more densely populated landscape of increasingly subdivided rights" is one of the underlying general themes.
What of designs? The mood music of Chapter 7 on designs is that the system involves "unnecessary complexity" (for which the cure will, we expect, be to scrap some of the laws which protect designs at present), and that "some argue that copying in the fashion industry may actually promote innovation".
How does that square with his rallying call in the executive summary: "Action is also called for with regard to the UK’s important and growing design sector"? The answer lies in the nature of this "action". What would you have expected to see down in the detail? If you said "an evidence-based assessment", go to the head of the class - you are fully in tune with the governance of coalition Britain.
No one would disagree that "Government should ensure that development of the IP System is driven as far as possible by objective evidence" - again, "Mom-and-apple-pie" stuff; shouldn't all policy be based on objective evidence (rather than, say, by short-term credit crises, ideology, or the search for eye-catching initiatives with which a politician can be personally associated) if possible? The practical problem is that "as far as possible" is often not very far at all in a complicated little corner like design rights. It may be that the requested research will show that (a) good, and/or innovative, design matters, and that (b) protecting it also matters. However, it is hard to believe that economic research alone will yield a result sufficiently quantitative to form the basis of an informed decision to, say, keep or scrap UK unregistered design right, or increase its term from 10 to 12 years.
Is the "Digital Copyright Exchange" just compulsory licensing under a new name? Is there really any scope for "Judge Judy Justice" for small IP claims? Is the report distorted by the emphasis on digital age copyright? Has it seriously engaged with design issues? Or is the call for further research just kicking the ball back into the long grass?
Read it, and let us have your comments. Posted by: David Musker @ 12.42
Tags: hargreaves, policy,
Perm-A-Link: https://www.marques.org/blogs/class99?XID=BHA238
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