Intellectual Property

To many people, Intellectual Property can feel like a foreign language.

La propriété intellectuelle peut se sentir comme une langue étrangère

If you don’t know any of the words, it all looks like gibberish.

But, knowing just a few of the words can make it easier to work out the full meaning.

Intellectual Property can feel like a langue étrangère

Remember that in the past, for the last 1700+ years, there was almost no incentive to innovate. If you created something new, anyone else was free to use it.

Which really meant that people didn’t create new things. It simply wasn’t worth it.

The first countrywide patent systems offered inventors a limited monopoly in exchange for sharing their idea. An inventor could make, use, or sell their idea for a set amount of time and then everyone else could make, use, or sell it once that time was up. One of these inventors was James Watt.

James Watt had an idea that would change history. What he didn’t have was money to develop this idea.

This new patent system offered James something new, the chance of a reward for developing his idea. James Watt found an investor who was filling to fund this idea so long as it could be protected once it was complete. The investor knew that if he allowed Watt to focus on his idea, they could both be rewarded for its success.

James Watt no longer had to choose between feeding his family and working on his idea.

James Watt was granted a patent on the first practical steam engine. It allowed steam engines to be used in all situations. No longer was energy tied to the work that could be done by a man. James Watt became a wealthy man from his idea.

We know the name James Watt, because he was given the opportunity to change the world.

How many people came before Watt with ideas that could have changed the world? How many people never brought those ideas to fruition because they had to choose between letting their family starve and pursuing their ideas?

The industrial revolution almost didn’t happen. Without far-reaching intellectual property, without the protection of ideas, progress stood still for over 1700 years.

Innovation is not inevitable. Not without intellectual property.