Owning the Future CL

by Seth Shulman

Book Overview

Knowledge is the key variable of the new global economy. But in the rush to stake claims in the knowledge economy, players are losing sight of impending threats to innovation, limitations on choice,... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0395841755
• ISBN13: 9780395841754
• Release Date: January 1999
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
• Length: 240 Pages
• Weight: 1.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.2" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

Top notch reseach and presentation.

Shulman is brilliant and convincing.... There is a free for all going on right now and a lot of public domain intellectual property is being squandered by opportunistic greedy business concerns and their parasite attorneys. The public is asleep at the wheel. When will they wake up? They are so asleep and sheep-like that it is easy to see how one could fall in to exploiting the situation. Still doesn’t make it right though. I dream that some day we as supposedly educated people will develop some higher ethical standards then we have now but some of these peoples actions detailed in this book make me wonder.

This book does not require a law or business degree to enjoy

What makes this book pleasurable to read is that Shulman is an excellent writer. He makes great arguments and backs them up with solid case studies and examples. What's more is that he accurate in his observations. This book is a must read for anyone interested in intellectual property and patents. The current bizarre world of patents and intellectual property is on the verge of blowing up just like the dot com fiasco. Shulman explains why the patent system as it now exists cannot continue indefinitely. The patenting of body processes, ideas, and business practices is absurd to even the casual reader. Shulman's examples will amaze you.Who will not like this book are those people bent on patenting everything from colors to the properties of indigenous peoples. They will see this book as exposing the fact that the emperor is naked and if they are in the business, they won't like what they read. There is no question that a new invention, like a new computer chip, should be patented, but Shulman explains how far the patenting system has strayed away from the way it should work. This book will not tell you how to file a patent. It will not even give you a very good overview of the patent process. It is not for inventers. What it will do is make you shake you head in disbelief at the sorry state of the patent system and develop an instant dislike of some of the industries abusing the system.What amazed me after reading Shulman's book is that there is no Ralph Nader kind of activist speaking out about the patent industry. The atrocities and deaths resulting from corporate misuse of the patent system fare exceed the scope and depth of Nader's attack of the auto industry. There exists a leadership vacuum in patent activism. Perhaps Shulman's book will awaken the leader we need to protect us from corporate misuse of patents and the broken patent system.

readable and farsighted

Shulman brings this material to life. This is no academic tome. If you read one book about intellectual property this year--this one should be it! With fights over the human genome intensifying and increasing numbers of press reports about legal battles over patents, this clear-headed book puts the complicated issues of the emerging knowledge economy in an accessible and thought-provoking context.Shulman uses the overriding public-interest concerns involved to pull the disparate material together in a compelling and readable fashion. I was surprised and angered by the stories he recounts from the frontlines of the intellectual property frontier.I also found the book hard to put down.

Cutting Edge Issue

Read about book in Atlantic Monthly article.Fit in well with class I'm taking on trade,TRIPS,and Intellectual Property in the MBA program at PSU.Very relevant to what's happening in a number of fields especially GM crops.