The psychology talks were a lot more accessible to a general audience I strongly recommend watching them online even if not a lawyer or patent buff. The psychology panel added the perspective of how innovation or creativity occurs to the legal issues involved.
There are definite discrepancies in the formulation of how a “person having ordinary skills in the art” is thought to invent by the court and how inventions are created. The most important part of the talk came in the Q & A, when we focused on whether economic incentives actually create innovation. The physiological data cited promoted the opposite thesis to the one promoted by the public policy arguments of the courts. The psychologist argued that paying for creativity resulted in less innovation and more mundane solutions to problems presented.
Solutions:
Patent pools
Reward small sparks
Compulsory licensing (taken from Lessig)
Open Standards
Brian’s Response: This was an excellent practical talk that focused on both creation and on what people think is creative. In the Q&A Keith focused on some of the broader issues regauring the legal fiction of how inventions are created and possible problems with the single inventor model. I will post a copy of his paper after LC publishes it.
On a side note: Understanding what people perceive to be creative, based on word choice, could be a very important what explaining an invention to a jury.
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Colleen Seifert Now Why Didn’t I Think of That?
Colleen added some interesting points on how the court views innovation and invention verses how cognitive research views the same issues.
Steven Smith did a great job of explaining and showing examples of how prior knowledge corrupts individuals ability to look at things from a neutral perspective.
Note on formate change: Being an Information Science professional and Law Student I will only be posting play by play on the legal talks. I will be posting general impressions on the nonlegal talks that include multiple speakers.
