Comments of Public Knowledge on Strategy for American Innovation

Comments of Public Knowledge on Strategy for American Innovation

Comments of Public Knowledge on Strategy for American Innovation

IN THE OFFICE OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY POLICY
AND THE NATIONAL ECONOMIC COUNCIL

COMMENTS OF PUBLIC KNOWLEDGE

Public Knowledge respectfully submits the following comments in response to the Notice of Request for Information on the Strategy for American Innovation dated July 29, 2014. These comments specifically respond to the Intellectual Property/Antitrust issue number 21, which relates to “new challenges and opportunities for intellectual property and competition policy are posed by the increasing diversity of models of innovation.”

Public Knowledge is a nonprofit organization dedicated to preserving the openness of the Internet and the public’s access to knowledge. As part of that mission, Public Knowledge often looks closely at the precise question posed by the Request for Information, namely how the “increasing diversity of models of innovation” can pose “new challenges and opportunities for intellectual property.”

As discussed in detail in the comments below, Public Knowledge believes that a careful rebalancing of intellectual property rights, particularly with respect to copyright and patent law, is warranted and necessitated by the rapid development of new technologies and their attendant business and innovation models. Incumbent rightsholders have historically sought to enlarge the scope of their intellectual property rights in order to monopolize their entrenched business models, to the detriment of new technological development. Thus, we urge the Office of Science and Technology Policy and National Economic Council to strongly support innovative growth over monopolistic power, and call for balanced intellectual property policy as a major part of the strategy for American innovation.