Monday, March 05, 2007

Blogs that make me think

No, Dave Snowden did not tag me. I would not have liked that. He invited people, and I was hooked.
So Q.E.D. - one of these blogs that make me think - and act(?) is http://www.cognitive-edge.com , but I'm not sure if passing the meme back is appropriate.
Thus, five others:
- We make money not art ; Regine's worldview is very different from mine: art, not business ; esthetics, not pragmatism. It's a life I'd like to live if I had a second one.
- Bruno Giussani's http://www.lunchoverip.com/ : People, places, technologies and ideas from a very Swiss European Worldwide perspective.
- Dana Blankenhorn helps me to understand the world of the critical, moderately conservative US , the approach to politics, business, the idea of always-on and how the individual relates to society - a society which is quite different from the one that I experience.
- Athanasium Kircher Society is just weird and fun and extreme and inspiring - yesteryear's future. Before steampunk (memedropping just for the fun of doing it).
- Peter Rost's Question Authority - Ego the size of a planet, ex-Pharmacia, ex-Pfizer executive whistleblower, with challenging ideas about (my) industry. He just stopped blogging because he want to focus on his movie - about his book - no, latest news, he's on again: claims to be addicted. That's what he says now. Let's see tomorrow.

Thursday, March 01, 2007

Patent and IP rights or wrongs

Intellectual property and patents rights may indeed encourage creativity and innovation : rather than keeping your wisdom secret (hermeneutic alchemy like Coca-Cola), you publish what you know, and a bigger force (the state, the legal system...) grants you exclusivity in return for a certain period - not too long, not too short. And then it belongs to the commons.
It gets tricky in the details. See Novartis' case for Glivec in India. (disclaimer: I work for Novartis)
However, it's reported that the head of the World Intellectual Property Organisation WIPO , the responsible UN agency behaves in an irresponsible way by lying about his age . Looks like this was the way to get a job which he would otherwise not have qualified for.
More blows to the credibility of the IP and patents system - as exemplified by their leaders - and we might want to go back to the old days of the alchemists, the guilds and the Mafia.

Oops - I should not have said that ... ?