Intellectual property: regulation of useable information

Abstract

Intellectual property law regulates the exploitation of creative products. From patents one can obtain commercial intelligence and also technical information. Front‐page documentation when analysed for collections of patents yields commercial information on the technology, its markets, active inventors and institutions. The text of a patent is a technical document. It can be referred to for its specific details or combined with others to illustrate a trend. The overlap of patent and journal literature is greater than had been measured previously when only groups of patents are taken into account. Copyright concerns the availability of existing information. By trying to enforce existing law when the underlying concepts have lost their validity, the law has become unenforceable and requires considerable modification. The problem is an economic one of developing the market rather than a legal one of strengthening regulations. This approach is exemplified by the computer industry which relies on physical controls where possible.