US Patents and Innovation

An old article that had gone unpublished - a little dated, but still relevant for sure!

Following my earlier article on the IPR Regime (http://suniljalihal.blogspot.com/2009/05/ipr-regime-whom-does-it-protect.html) came across an article from BusinessWeek (via Rediff). I don't think patents alone have helped innovation thrive in the US all these years. I think its their excellent Universities, their Venture Capital industry, huge domestic market that is full of "early adopters" and their well cultivated consumers hunger for more innovation that has been the main reason for its success. Their sense of scaling an idea and hard work to cross all the chasms from Innovators, Early Adopters to Mass market and their marketeers relentless work on this path has created markets out of Ideas.

The article talks about "the cost of protecting patents", the cost of lawyers fees and time to hand out patents that's "distracting" marketeers from taking a product to market.

The "Cost of Innovation" in terms of product engineering and marketing will soon become a major factor that will slowdown US innovation. Many other (low cost) countries now have large domestic markets and global platforms (like GSM in the mobile telephony world) and therefore have similar market access as the US has enjoyed for many years. This competition will slow down innovation in the US along with its (over) dependence on fresh immigrants to do much of their innovation.

Here's a link to the BusinessWeek Article ... (http://business.rediff.com/report/2009/apr/11/whats-stifling-us-innovation.htm)