With an unusual gusto I took the pleasure I participating in an old-fashioned “intellectual” polemic  regarding the otherwise supremely important topic of copyright and IPRs reform: Not an academic question — but an Abstract one. Old-fashioned? Think the clash of idle all-smart titans of yesteryears.

The situation might have been exacerbated here by the caricatural intercultural incomprehension between the Central European belief  that thinking is doing, and the Anglo-Saxon scepticism towards anything that is not pragmatic to the bitter core. As it was pointed out at the discussions to the post already, the incomprehension was further exacerbated by the gap between the “practitioners” v. “academics” attitude that not only are completely counterproductive but are completely humiliating to both sides. If practitioners cannot think but can only observe, and if the academics cannot act but only think we might all go to sleep for a hundred years.

Why would I be ironic about the exchange of thought between the thinking people? Only because, in this case at least, the willingness to listen is unusually low and the willingness to flame is consistent with the low level of preparedness for a serious rethinking of our society. This seems to prove the low level of discussion capacity on behal of the IP professionals who, apparently, do not wish to engage with the conventional doctrines on IP. Folks, wake up it has been two hundred years since this structure has been devised, and it is not only showing the strain of social forces,it is falling apart! Let’s start rebuilding it, and please let’s leave the old gas hinted flaming behind and let’s start listening to each other!

We are moving beyond the Paris and Berne Conventions on all fronts. We have started undoing the territoriality principle by redifining sovereignty in the EU and have already introduced the supraterritorial IPRs. In an smalltalk professioanl conversation at an INTA Governmental Luncheon a couple of years ago I’ve learned that some Korean government related experts were engaged in speculations on how could we redifine the concepts of copyrights, patents and trademarks by introducing a different type of rights. When I have tole about these to a friend, a past President of INTA, that person has stared at me and said: what makes you believe we will use rights to regulate the intangible assets at all? Full steam ahead!