Elon Musk, CEO, Tesla Motors was in the news some time back for announcing that his company is going to hand over the keys to hundreds of its patents so as to help the electric vehicle technology develop faster, globally.
This is reminiscent of Tim Berners-Lee who refused to patent the World Wide Web. Or before him, Linus.
And even before that Alexander Fleming who, when asked why he didn’t want to patent penicillin, asked, “Can you patent the sun?”
This note is in a way a continuation of one of my previous posts which revolves around using and controlling knowledge for personal wealth augmentation.
The debate around patents isn’t new. Patenting incentivises research, believes the pro-group. It prevents the development of knowledge that can help humanity at large, says the anti-group.
While we comprehend the patenting of newer, modern technologies in India, we stop agreeing with the concept when a western entity wants to patent say, turmeric. We believe that that is ridiculous because the benefits of turmeric have always been in the public knowledge domain. At this moment we could sit for a moment and think – what if those ‘vedic’ people had laws that helped binding their knowledge into arrangements whereby their future generations would be paid every time someone used a turmeric paste to heal a wound or cure a bad cough.
And as a colleague- a vociferous believer of a non-patented world argues- what of the alphabet you use to write this blog was patented? And you had to pay a fee every time you wrote? Or you paid every time you used numbers? It seems ludicrous when we think of paying for everything we use simply because when this was high technology or higher learning, no one thought of ‘owning’ this knowledge.
The concept of knowledge belonging to the world at large comes from older civilizations where society was above the individual. I recall reading the lines in the book, My Name is Red where it is said- to paraphrase loosely- the ancient cultures have left behind unmatched art because the artist was nameless and egoless. It was the art he created, mostly in the name of his God that made it so spiritual and pure. Individualism, a concept that was incubated in Western societies, he indicates, has lessened the sheen of the nameless beauty in art. The character says that art will no longer be as great if it is recognised by the name of the artist because it involves the individual ego.
There is enough material to read on older, tribal societies that yet follow ancient norms of living as a community above living as individual. The joys and benefits of that living are easy to understand. But of course, it is impossible for us living as we are today to imagine changing our surroundings on their head.
So is there a way to incorporate these ideas in our lives? A simple suggestion was made by a 92-year old Japanese doctor when he was asked the secret of his active and happy life. He said simply: Before the age of 60, work for yourself; after that work for society. The element of looking away from the self and focusing on the greater, common good is suggested one way or the other by all these wise men and civilizations. Maybe it’s time we bring in the element of community service in small ways in our lives. Ironically, this would serve a greater selfish end of probably locating happiness and peace.
This is reminiscent of Tim Berners-Lee who refused to patent the World Wide Web. Or before him, Linus.
And even before that Alexander Fleming who, when asked why he didn’t want to patent penicillin, asked, “Can you patent the sun?”
This note is in a way a continuation of one of my previous posts which revolves around using and controlling knowledge for personal wealth augmentation.
The debate around patents isn’t new. Patenting incentivises research, believes the pro-group. It prevents the development of knowledge that can help humanity at large, says the anti-group.
While we comprehend the patenting of newer, modern technologies in India, we stop agreeing with the concept when a western entity wants to patent say, turmeric. We believe that that is ridiculous because the benefits of turmeric have always been in the public knowledge domain. At this moment we could sit for a moment and think – what if those ‘vedic’ people had laws that helped binding their knowledge into arrangements whereby their future generations would be paid every time someone used a turmeric paste to heal a wound or cure a bad cough.
And as a colleague- a vociferous believer of a non-patented world argues- what of the alphabet you use to write this blog was patented? And you had to pay a fee every time you wrote? Or you paid every time you used numbers? It seems ludicrous when we think of paying for everything we use simply because when this was high technology or higher learning, no one thought of ‘owning’ this knowledge.
The concept of knowledge belonging to the world at large comes from older civilizations where society was above the individual. I recall reading the lines in the book, My Name is Red where it is said- to paraphrase loosely- the ancient cultures have left behind unmatched art because the artist was nameless and egoless. It was the art he created, mostly in the name of his God that made it so spiritual and pure. Individualism, a concept that was incubated in Western societies, he indicates, has lessened the sheen of the nameless beauty in art. The character says that art will no longer be as great if it is recognised by the name of the artist because it involves the individual ego.
There is enough material to read on older, tribal societies that yet follow ancient norms of living as a community above living as individual. The joys and benefits of that living are easy to understand. But of course, it is impossible for us living as we are today to imagine changing our surroundings on their head.
So is there a way to incorporate these ideas in our lives? A simple suggestion was made by a 92-year old Japanese doctor when he was asked the secret of his active and happy life. He said simply: Before the age of 60, work for yourself; after that work for society. The element of looking away from the self and focusing on the greater, common good is suggested one way or the other by all these wise men and civilizations. Maybe it’s time we bring in the element of community service in small ways in our lives. Ironically, this would serve a greater selfish end of probably locating happiness and peace.
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