[ Thanks to Matt Asay
for this link. ]
“In the course of doing so, Phelps portrays Microsoft
as desperately striving to adapt to a new world of aggressive
enforcement of intellectual property (IP), but ends up suggesting a
rising IP hegemon eager to shape a new world of such enforcement.“It’s not pretty.
“Phelps is the man who turned IBM’s patent portfolio into a $2
billion business (as he reminds the reader several times), but his
goal at Microsoft wasn’t to generate cash through licensing, he
declares. Nor is Microsoft’s new IP strategy a rehash of the old
world where IP is treated as a negative right (i.e., the ability to
protect one’s IP from the wiles and avarice of competitors), but
rather IP becomes “a bridge to collaboration with other firms.”“But this is where the contradictions begin.”