Reform of UK IP Law? Not Likely

by Stephan Kinsella on February 8, 2011

According to a recent TechCrunch post, Your chance to re-make the UK’s IP laws in the image of a startup:

Back in November last year the UK’s Prime Minister said he was announcing a number of initiatives aimed at technology companies. Since then there have been a few periphery announcements from the various large tech companies (Google, Facebook et al) about what they would do to help. But one thing that was on the agenda was a review of the Intellectual Property rules. PM David Cameron confirmed a six month review into IP law that he hopes will help attract technology companies to the UK.

The US position on IP leans towards a ‘fair use’ environment, whereby IP can be used to a certain level without owner consent. This is very close the to Creative Commons licenses which aided the growth of startups like Flickr. In the UK copyrighted material is more highly restricted in use. Generally in Europe we rely too much on copyright and not enough on innovation. Witness Nokia’s suing of Apple for instance.

So in this new IP review web business models, costs and complications surrounding the enforcement of IP law ad the costs to startups for accessing services to protect their IP are all up for discussion.

Say what? Comparing the US IP system to Creative Commons? Saying that the US has less restrictive IP law? Maybe on Bizarro World, where everything is the opposite of the way it really is. The truth is the US IP system is among the most draconian in the world, and the US continually pressures other countries to increase the strength of their IP systems and to adopt more US-style laws.¹ In any case, the web of international treaties obligating the UK to have provide certain minimum standards in its patent and copyright law² makes any meaningful reform impossible.

[Mises blog cross-post]