The tale of the snake and the elephant: Intellectual property expansion under informational capitalism

ABSTRACT While macro theorists of informational capitalism have tended to consider intellectual property in a vague and general way, intellectual property researchers have tended to focus on extremely specific issues. What gets missed is an understanding of intellectual property as a system and its relationship with the totality of capitalism. Starting from a cognitive materialist approach, this article offers a systematic account of the recent expansion of intellectual property rights. Thereafter, it situates the data on the expansion of intellectual property vis-à-vis the transition from industrial to informational capitalism and relates that expansion specifically to informational productive processes. It concludes with a general proposition about the relationship between the changes of stage in capitalism and the institutions of intellectual property.

[1]  Robert P. Merges,et al.  Commercial Success and Patent Standards: Economic Perspectives on Innovation , 1988 .

[2]  M. Narasimham,et al.  The economics of knowledge , 2003, Int. J. Inf. Technol. Manag..

[3]  Slavoj Žižek,et al.  First as tragedy, then as farce , 2009 .

[4]  Juan José Gilli.  La sociedad postcapitalista , 2004 .

[5]  Dimitri Sanga.  Index Numbers , 2011, International Encyclopedia of Statistical Science.

[6]  P. Hill.  Tangibles, intangibles and services: a new taxonomy for the classification of output , 1999 .

[7]  Neil Weinstock Netanel,et al.  Copyright and a democratic civil society , 1998 .

[8]  Laura Hoch,et al.  Critique Of Information , 2016 .

[9]  Jerome H. Reichman,et al.  Charting the Collapse of the Patent-Copyright Dichotomy: Premises for a Restructured International Intellectual Property System , 1995 .

[10]  M. Korstanje.  The Risk Society: Towards a new modernity , 2009 .

[11]  D. Richards.  Intellectual Property Rights and Global Capitalism: The Political Economy of the TRIPS Agreement: The Political Economy of the TRIPS Agreement , 2004 .

[12]  C. Correa.  Implementing National Public Health Policies in the Framework of WTO Agreements , 2000, Journal of World Trade.

[13]  Lawrence Lessig,et al.  Free culture - the nature and future of creativity , 2008 .

[14]  N. Crafts.  Industrial Revolution in England and France: Some Thoughts on the Question , 1977 .

[15]  Christine MacLeod,et al.  Inventing the Industrial Revolution: The English Patent System, 1660-1800 , 1990 .

[16]  Unctad-Ictsd.  Resource Book on TRIPS and Development: Patents: Biotechnological Inventions: Genetic Resources, Plant Variety Protection, Traditional Knowledge , 2005 .

[17]  R. Posner,et al.  The Political Economy of Intellectual Property Law , 2004 .

[18]  Irina D. Manta.  The Puzzle of Criminal Sanctions for Intellectual Property Infringement , 2011 .

[19]  C. May,et al.  Intellectual Property Rights: A Critical History , 2005 .

[20]  William W. Fisher.  The Growth of Intellectual Property: A History of the Ownership of Ideas in the United States , 2005 .

[21]  Jeffrey A. Hart,et al.  Information Please: Culture and Politics in the Age of Digital Machines , 2007, Perspectives on Politics.

[22]  Wendy J. Gordon,et al.  An Inquiry into the Merits of Copyright: The Challenges of Consistency, Consent and Encouragement Theory , 1989 .

[23]  R. Nelson,et al.  The benefits and costs of strong patent protection: a contribution to the current debate , 1998 .

[24]  Christine MacLeod,et al.  Inventing the Industrial Revolution: The English Patent System, 1660-1800 , 1990 .

[25]  G. Tom.  ARE PATENTS AND COPYRIGHTS MORALLY JUSTIFIED , 1990 .

[26]  A. Dennis.  Intellectual Property Rights, the WTO and Developing Countries: The TRIPS Agreement and Policy Options , 2002 .

[27]  Martina Gillen,et al.  Copyrights and Copywrongs: The Rise of Intellectual Property and How it Threatens Creativity , 2004, Int. J. Law Inf. Technol..

[28]  Scott Stern,et al.  Are All Patent Examiners Equal? The Impact of Examiner Characteristics , 2002 .

[29]  Mariano Zukerfeld.  Knowledge in the Age of Digital Capitalism: An Introduction to Cognitive Materialism , 2017 .

[30]  G. Lunney.  Patent Law, the Federal Circuit, and the Supreme Court: A Quiet Revolution , 2003, Supreme Court Economic Review.

[31]  D. Bell,et al.  The Coming of Post-Industrial Society: A Venture in Social Forecasting. , 1974 .

[32]  Christian Fuchs,et al.  Labor in Informational Capitalism and on the Internet , 2010, Inf. Soc..

[33]  Hal R. Varian,et al.  Differential Pricing and Efficiency , 1996, First Monday.

[34]  D. Gervais.  The Internationalization of Intellectual Property: New Challenges From the Very Old and the Very New , 2005 .

[35]  G. Ohlin.  The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development , 1968, International Organization.

[36]  B. Foster,et al.  First a tragedy, then farce , 2008 .

[37]  Susan K. Sell,et al.  Using Ideas Strategically: The Contest Between Business and NGO Networks in Intellectual Property Rights , 2004 .

[38]  Jeremy Rifkin,et al.  The Biotech Century: Harnessing the Gene and Remaking the World , 1998, Nature Medicine.

[39]  Luigi Orsenigo,et al.  Technological Revolutions and the Evolution of Industrial Structures: Assessing the Impact of New Technologies upon the Size and Boundaries of Firms , 2008 .

[40]  Jeremy Rifkin,et al.  The Age of Access: The New Culture of Hypercapitalism Where All of Life Is a Paid-For Experience , 2001 .

[41]  The Property Rights Movement's Embrace of Intellectual Property: True Love or Doomed Relationship? , 2007 .

[42]  Justin Hughes.  Copyright and Incomplete Historiographies: Of Piracy, Propertization, and Thomas Jefferson , 2006 .

[43]  B. Coriat,et al.  Intellectual Property Right Regimes, Firms and the Commodification of Knowledge , 2009 .

[44]  Eric Robinson,et al.  The Patent System and Inventive Activity during the Industrial Revolution, 1750–1852 by Harold I. Dutton (review) , 1984 .

[45]  Gilles Deleuze.  Conversaciones, 1972-1990 , 1995 .

[46]  P. Samuelson.  Information as Property: Do Ruckelshaus and Carpenter Signal a Changing Direction in Intellectual Property Law , 1988 .

[47]  Jeremy Atack,et al.  The Patent System and Inventive Activity during the Industrial Revolution, 1750–1852. By H. I. Dutton. (Dover, N. H.: Manchester University Press, 1984. vii + 232 pp. $32.50.) , 1985 .

[48]  Crosbie Smith,et al.  Heroes of invention: technology, liberalism and British identity, 1750-1914 , 2009 .

[49]  Michael A. Carrier.  Cabining Intellectual Property Through a Property Paradigm , 2004 .

[50]  C. Pérez.  Technological Revolutions and Techno-Economic Paradigms , 2010 .

[51]  Loet Leydesdorff,et al.  The Knowledge-Based Economy , 2006 .

[52]  E. Rullani.  El capitalismo cognitivo: ¿Un déjà-vu? , 2004 .

[53]  Avishalom Tor,et al.  Incentives to Create Under a 'Lifetime-Plus-Years' Copyright Duration: Lessons from a Behavioral Economic Analysis for Eldred V. Ashcroft , 2008 .

[54]  K. Moore,et al.  Judges, Juries and Patent Cases: An Empirical Peek Inside the Black Box , 2000 .

[55]  Andrés Guadamuz González,et al.  Information Feudalism: Who owns the Knowledge Economy? , 2004, Int. J. Law Inf. Technol..

[56]  Klaudia Kaiser,et al.  The Gifts Of Athena Historical Origins Of The Knowledge Economy , 2016 .

[57]  J. Mokyr.  The Economics of the Industrial Revolution , 1985 .

[58]  Mark A. Lemley,et al.  Empirical Evidence on the Validity of Litigated Patents , 1998 .