Intellectual Property and Investment Protection: A Misleading Equation
[Christophe Geiger] Without any doubt, important investments are often needed to generate creative outputs. However, the intellectual property (IP) system does not protect them as such; investments are only indirectly protected through the possibility to exploit and monetize the rights granted to a creator as a counterpart to the collective enrichment generated by the access to his new work. If the investment (however substantial) does not lead to a creative output, no protection is granted. This short opinion article tries to demonstrate that the progressive paradigm shift of intellectual property to an investment-protection mechanism is probably at the core of most of the current problems faced by the IP system.
