[pp.int.general] purpose of manifesto

[Reinier Bakels]

> The worst problem with the term "intellectual property" is that it
> lumps together more than a dozen laws which overall have essentially
> nothing in common.  Using a different term to lump together these laws
> would not correct that problem.

You are right. And actually the problem is worse. Traditionally copyright 
law, patent law etc. were considered exceptions to the rule of information 
freedom. If not explicitly regulated, there was supposed to be freedom. But 
the "IP" concept could be construed as an open-ended concepts that includes 
"unwritten" types. There are some questionable fields at the edge of "IP", 
like goodwill, and slavish imitation. Actually the European Commission 
introduced "IP" as a *legal* concept (rather than a colloquial generic 
term). Courts have already decided that parts of copyright (or actually: the 
copyright statute: portrait right) are not "IP" (which makes a difference 
from the perspective of procedural law under the IPRED directive).

A recent investigation showed that Dutch judges are inclined a limited level 
of imitation, not more. Which is strange to some extent, because free 
competition typically requires imitation, welll, not 1:1 imitation, but 
imitation plus improvements. It is the "creative destruction" idea of the 
famous economist Schumpeter. Such harsh capitalism may sound unsympathetic, 
but the flipside is that otherwise consumers have to pay too much for too 
little.

reinier