Knowledge and Intellectual Property Rights: An Economics Perspective

The role and importance of knowledge in economic development is a theme that can be traced back to writers such as Adam Smith, Karl Marx and Joseph Schumpeter. These authors dealt with how knowledge was created, its various uses and how to capture knowledge for gain. Later, writers such as Friedrich Hayek developed this field into areas such as the use of knowledge in society and the role of information in markets. In the economics literature, a critical distinction is made between information and knowledge. Information is seen as data that is out there for most, if not all, to see, whereas knowledge is the use and (unique) interpretation of this data. With the development of the World Wide Web, access to information and the cost of collecting information has changed dramatically. This has implications for its value. Anything that is easy to collect is less valuable than something that is more difficult to collect. Furthermore, something that is valuable will be sought by others and therefore needs to be protected against theft.