A well-known economist and entrepreneur, whose work has been cited more than 120,000 times as tracked by Google Scholar, says that businesses and managers who fail to properly acknowledge the contribution of intellectual capital, including IP rights like patents and trade secrets, are dangerously short-sighted. 

David Teece, Director of the Tusher Center for the Management of Intellectual Capital, at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, says “We are at a critical junction in the evolution of our society and the economy. If we continue to protect and reward just the production of tangible goods (objects), while short-changing intangibles (ideas, inventions, creative-works, know-how, relationships, etc.), we will be out of step with technological progress and the march of civilization.

“Economies will eventually stutter if the creation of intangibles is compromised through poorly designed and weakly enforced intellectual property rules.”

Brief and Keynote

These remarks were part of a brief he wrote for the Tusher Center, which can be found here. He delivered more detailed remarks as the keynote at the first IP Awareness Summit in Chicago in November. The title of his talk was “IP Rights Erosion: A Growing Threat to U.S. Economic Leadership.” For the complete Intangible Investor column, “Short-changing intangibles – is risky business,” in the January IAM magazine, out this week, go here.

Dr. Teece believes that improving awareness of and attitudes towards intangible assets ought be part of industrial and innovation policy debates. “Nations that rely on creativity,” he says, “must be vigilante in maintaining systems that permit innovation, authorship and creativity to thrive.”

For the outline of Dr. Teece’s talk, go “IP Rights Erosion: A Growing Threat to U.S. Economic Leadership.”

Image source: berkeley.edu; understandingip.org