Public Interest IP

ariesathena
Thu, 07 Mar 2013 13:11:06 +0000

Just a random thought, but public interest and IP are a bit at odds. Normally, public interest work would be for the government, a non-profit, or something like the ACLU. But I’m trying to wrap my mind around the theory of non-profit IP - “Hey, write up this patent that will never make any money”? “Copyright this work that will never sell a single copy”? Most of the point of IP is to protect a right so that you can, ideally, make gigantic piles of money off of it. Or small piles of money, if that’s your goal, but that doesn’t leave much left over to pay lawyers.

(Full disclosure: I am part of Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts, but it either does not pay at all or pays on a very reduced-fee sliding scale. It is emphatically NOT what you would do for a full-time job, nor should it be.)