Intellectual Property: A Very Short Introduction

Very Short Introductions #508

by Siva Vaidhyanathan

We all create intellectual property. We all use intellectual property. Intellectual property is the most pervasive yet least understood way we regulate expression. Despite its importance to so many aspects of the global economy and daily life, intellectual property policy remains a confusing and arcane subject. This engaging book clarifies both the basic terms and the major conflicts surrounding these fascinating areas of law, offering a layman's introduction to copyright, patents, trademarks, and other forms of knowledge falling under the purview of intellectual property rights. Using vivid examples, noted media expert Siva Vaidhyanathan illustrates the powers and limits of intellectual property, distilling with grace and wit the complex tangle of laws, policies, and values governing the dissemination of ideas, expressions, inventions, creativity, and data collection in the modern world.

Vaidhyanathan explains that intellectual property exists as it does because powerful interests want it to exist. The strongest economies in the world have a keen interest in embedding rigid methods of control and enforcement over emerging economies to preserve the huge economic interests linked to their copyright industries-film, music, software, and publishing. For this reason, the fight over the global standardization of intellectual property has become one of the most important sites of tension in North-South global relations. Through compelling case studies, including those of Starbucks, Coca-Cola, Sony, Amazon, and Google Books, Vaidhyanathan shows that the modern intellectual property systems reflect three centuries of changes in politics, economics, technologies, and social values. Although it emerged from a desire to foster creativity while simultaneously protecting it, intellectual property today has fundamentally shifted to a political dimension.

Genres: Law, Economics, Nonfiction, Politics, Business, Reference, Philosophy

144 pages, Paperback

First published March 9, 2017

About the author

Robertson Family Professor of Media Studies at the University of Virginia.

Ph.D., University of Texas at Austin.

B.A., University of Texas at Austin.

Siva Vaidhyanathan is a cultural historian and media scholar, and is currently a professor of media studies at the University of Virginia. From 1999 through the summer of 2007 he worked in the Department of Culture and Communication at New York University. Vaidhyanathan is a frequent contributor on media and cultural issues in various periodicals including The Chronicle of Higher Education, New York Times Magazine, The Nation, and Salon.com, and he maintains a blog, www.googlizationofeverything.com. He is a frequent contributor to National Public Radio and to MSNBC.COM and has appeared in a segment of "The Daily Show" with Jon Stewart. Vaidhyanathan is a fellow of the New York Institute for the Humanities and the Institute for the Future of the Book.

In March 2002, Library Journal cited Vaidhyanathan among its "Movers & Shakers" in the library field. In the feature story, Vaidhyanathan lauded librarians for being "on the front lines of copyright battles" and for being "the custodians of our information and cultural commons." In November 2004 the Chronicle of Higher Education called Vaidhyanathan "one of academe's best-known scholars of intellectual property and its role in contemporary culture." He has testified as an expert before the U.S. Copyright Office on the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

Reviews

[Thomas C · Rating 5 out of 5]

3 takeaways:

1. To review a patent application, one of the tests is whether the invention is 'non-obvious'. Yet, Apple successfully sought a judgment against Samsung for violating its design patent covering a rectangular device with rounded corners;

2. Patents do not necessarily promote innovation, but have many negative consequences. Great swells of innovation may occur within environments that value free flows of basic information. E.g. thickets of patents make it impossible for a small, independent creator to design and launch a better smartphone now.

3. Patent system does not provide enough incentive for pharmaceutical companies to research life-saving drugs that we need. There has been no new antibiotics since the 1980s, but the companies continue to press for drugs that can treat baldness, impotence, or other highly personalized treatments.

[Isabel · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent, short, review of the history, necessity, use and abuse of patents, trademarks, copyright and origin demarcations.
I enjoyed the book structure and its level was perfect for inexperts like me. The anedoctes are great. I was surprised to learn that it was Mark Twain who wrote “a Connecticut Yankee in king Arthur’s court”, which I knew only as a very old Disney movie, and even more surprised to learn that the story involves patents. I must read it.

[Luna Erica · Rating 5 out of 5]

This “very short” introduction to IP is a really accessible, well-written, attention-grabbing and -most-of-the-time-maintaining little book. Opening with a very relatable yet legal analysis of Starbucks, it utilises aspects of the world that we recognise in order to explain aspects that we may not necessarily ever have heard of. Vaidhyanathan goes about explaining intellectual property — a subject matter as vague to many as is most legal jargon — in a way that most anyone with a genuine interest in the topic could comprehend. I definitely recommend this book to anyone. Whether you’re an aspiring practitioner of law or a writer ready to deal with copyright or just someone who needs something new to read — because IP is the Big Brother of our times. It applies to all of us, and Vaidhyanathan’s brief but transparent introduction to the topic gives a good background as to what to expect from the IP overlords.

[Peter Groves · Rating 4 out of 5]

This would be a great primer for anyone coming to the field for the first time. It does exactly the right thing to engage the reader, setting intellectual property law firmly in the context of what we all do, every day. My reservations about it are first, that it is almost entirely about US law (which I found odd, in an Oxford University Press publication aimed at a general market), and second that it contains a few errors about the law, for example telling the reader that database right requires registration. I did wonder why they didn't get a lawyer to write it, but the title is "Intellectual Property" not "Intellectual Property Law", so that's not a valid objection. I'll be suggesting to students that it would a good place to start, especially if they are having trouble relating to the subject.

[Syeda M Sultana · Rating 4 out of 5]

Easy to read introduction for the laymen with plenty of examples.

- "...one reason your latte costs so much at Starbucks is that a good portion of the price pays for all the lawyers who protect that cardboard sleeve and everything else that is special about Starbucks's presentation."
- "Rights over rivalrous property are about managing scarcity. Rights over non-rivalrous things are about creating artificial scarcity where scarcity would not naturally exist."
- "Something so central to our economy and culture should not be so opaque, so captured by special interests, and so unpredictable."

[Jacob · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a solid introduction to the core tenets of intellectual property (copyrights, patents, and trademarks), as well as other components like trade secrets. He did a good job exploring the tradeoffs inherent in IP: on one hand, we should protect people’s ability to benefit from their time and resources spent on creative works or inventions. That said, having too many hoops in place can stifle innovation for smaller players and make it such that no one even tries unless they have an army of IP lawyers at their disposal.

[Reviewer’s note: I’ve been reading too many dry books like this recently lol I need to do a novel next.]

[AJ · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great introductory writing on I.P. by @sivavaid. Enjoyed his perspective and voice. I read this *after* I taught Intellectual Property in the Information Age for my university library's info studies minor, and was relieved to see our coverage overlapped plentifully--shout out for @nathanfielder's Dumb Starbucks!! Excited to tie this work in to future teachings of the course.

[Lynne Nunyabidness · Rating 4 out of 5]

Provided a good baseline about the different types of IP as well as the ethical issues involved. Particularly liked that it went beyond copyright to explain patents and trademarks and to compare the three.

[Addie Lopez · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you are just entering the field of IP this book sets you up with a phenomenal baseline. It provides you with the history of IP along with notable cases in each area. It truly is a very short introduction in a way that almost anyone would be able to comprehend.

[Diane · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very helpful and accessible overview of the issues of intellectual property.

[Peilin Li · Rating 4 out of 5]

concise

[Kirsten · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fine for a textbook

[Theodore · Rating 4 out of 5]

the 3rd year pre-reading begins 🤩🤩

[Tobias · Rating 4 out of 5]

I guess I wanted to get a simple answer: is intellectual property a mechanism for good or for bad? Unfortunately, as with most things in life, it's not that simple and this book opened up my eyes to the vast number of complexities of IP. Everything comes with tradeoffs and the many implementations of copyright, patents, and trademarks around the world are no exemptions to that.

An excellent introduction, which did more than just scrape the surface!

[Peter · Rating 3 out of 5]

The American cultural historian and media scholar Siva Vaidhyanathan published Intellectual Property: A Very Short Introduction in 2021. Vaidhyanathan has very strong feelings about the law dealing with Intellectual Property in the United States. I felt like the book was a well-done introduction to property law. Vaidhyanathan is not a lawyer, so the Goodreads reviewer Peter Grooves could be right that the book contains “a few errors” about the law. However, I still found the book a valuable introduction to the field of intellectual property when I was studying for a paralegal exam in the United States. Vaidhyanathan writes, "Many of the stories and issues in this book rely on developments in the United States. Nonetheless, I have tried my best to relate these issues to more general and global trends” (Vaidhyanathan xxi). I read the book on my Kindle. The book contains an index, illustrations, and a section recommending websites. The book has a section entitled “further reading” (Vaidhyanathan 105-112). One part of the book I enjoyed was how Vaidhyanathan used a visit to the coffee franchise Starbucks as a framing device in his book. Viadhyanathan’s book was a solid introduction to the field of intellectual property in the United States if one keeps in mind that Vaidhyanathan is a character in the book. I found the review of this book by the Goodreads reviewer Peter Grooves helpful when writing this ‘review.’

[Puja Boyd · Rating 5 out of 5]

It may seem ambitious to fit over 200 years of intellectual property history into something that also qualifies as "very short" but, nonetheless, readers have a new gem to pore over. Vaidhyanathan's concise yet comprehensive volume includes a brief discussion of the primary components of IP--copyright, patents, trademarks--and includes within each discussion anecdotes and examples of recent and historic cases spanning the globe, introducing readers to the primary stakeholders and players that shape each realm.
 
Herein lies the inconspicuous depth of this tidy monograph--in each chapter, the author prompts us to consider the implications of how IP is defined and exercised, and to what end the larger aims of democracy are either protected or threatened through implementation of arcane (and endlessly shifting) instruments of law, governance, and established cultural norms. Vaidhyanathan confidently addresses flaws in current US copyright and patenting systems, and maintains an academic objectivity when discussing the various useful (and suffocating) ways such mechanisms are interpreted and enacted. His tone is optimistic, though cautiously so, but there is a distinctive urgency underfoot. Once reaching the conclusion (entitled 'The politics of resistance,') we find ourselves equipped with a terrific reading list, but also with questions, resources, and a palpable sense of responsibility. IP will progress, sure, but on whose terms and with what consequence?
 
This is a terrific little book that openly addresses very large ethical questions impacting our shared cultural and political environment. Vaidhyanathan succeeds by inviting readers to not only understand IP, but to actively participate in developing, and often resisting, the practices that shape its use.