May 10, 2007

We're back on an Intellectual Property binge. I don't get why everyone thinks IP resides in other than the people who create IP. None of the technical items last for more than a few minutes these days as IP in some grand document system or something. Very few companies have original enough ideas that they can be protected, in any reasonable sense of the word, for any significant time. I suppose you can protect them with the Copyright laws, but the data you write is old and dead after just a few months so what do you have then? The only IP interesting to anyone now is a collaborative interaction with others. This is why Wiki has become so important. The point that there are comments and the documents live and are updated as new ideas and new information arrive. It's to the point where technical people won't use technical books more than say 2 years old because they are out-of-date, and the projects they describe have moved on: either with more and better features or just different, and generally more efficient ways to do things. IP won't sit still for the poor investors any more. It's all new and looks like it will remain that way permanently. There is no foreseeable end and in fact, it looks like it will get more dynamic as new ways to manage change are created. It's time to "think differently" about IP.