Profits obtained under the protection of an IPR should be taxed higher than when obtained competing naked.

Sir, Martin Wolf discusses the vital topic of how intellectual property rights could, simultaneously, be agents that help promote the ideas and inventions needed for a better future, and an obstacle to competition. “Let knowledge spread around the world” April 25.

I have also grappled with this issue and although it might surely not be the only option, for a long time I have thought that placing a special tax on profits obtained under the coverage of an IPR, could help to bring forward that moment when sharing out freely the rights, instead of exploiting these up to the tilt, would make more business sense.

Also what justice is it in that those who have to compete completely naked in the market, should be taxed at the same rate as those who the society defends by defending their IPRs?

By the way, that special tax on IPR profits should go to partially fund, by means of a Universal Basic Income what could be considered as a Human Heritage Dividend.

@PerKurowski

I am the grandfather of two Torontonian girls. Do I like Alphabet’s Sidewalk Labs? I love it… as long as

Sir, as a father of two Torontonians, and grandfather of other two Torontonians, it is of course with much interest I read Leslie Hook’s “Toronto offers Alphabet downtown land to practice designs for cities of future” October 19.

I do love that "Quayside" project… subject to:

It shoots for the most intelligent artificial intelligence and the smartest robots, as I would hate my granddaughters to have to surround themselves with half-baked artificial intelligence and 2nd class robots.

It allows for some here-you-can-totally-lose-yourself free from artificial recognition space to my granddaughters, in order for them to be able to find themselves, and all is not Big-Brother-watches you space.

It provides some absolutely-nothing-spots that guarantee my granddaughters to be able to experience, quite often, that boredom so essential for creativity and thinking.

It does not leave in its wake a huge Torontonian debt to be serviced by the grandchildren of my granddaughters.

Alphabet splits, at least 50% 50%, with Toronto, all profits that could be generated by all patents resulting from inventions and experiences obtained during the Sidewalk Labs project.

PS. And of course as long as it duly considers the possibility or rising water levels.

@PerKurowski

The marginal cost for others than my friends to connect and bother me on the web, should not be zero.

Sir, Rana Foroohar, with respect our lives and adventures on the web advises us “to think much more carefully about three things. First, the extent of information that we reveal and all the myriad ways in which it can be used. Second, whether the products and services we receive in exchange for our data are worth it, or whether the terms of the exchange should be reconsidered. And third, how governments may shift the rules of the new digital playing field, and what it will mean for capitalism in the 21st century.” “Tech’s fight for the upper hand on open data” October 9.

She might be right, but boy that is a big task. I get tired of even thinking I must get through all that.

My current day-to-day concerns are much more mundane, like that of being able to get the most of what I want out of the web, with my very limited attention span. Let us say out of the 180 minutes I might be on the web each day, I would be happy if I were not rudely interrupted more than 50% by distractions; like those fake-news that require so much self-discipline not to click. But the truth is that, for the time being, the robocalls I get on my cell and on my landline are much worse. These demand an immediate attention that the web does not.

There is though one aspect of this all that I have given a lot of thought; and that is on how all revenues generated by exploiting our own preferences should be distributed.

If I, as the owner of the intellectual property rights on my own preferences, cannot be duly paid a royalty for these, at least I do not want others to be able to exploit them for their own causes.

If 50% of all web revenues went to help fund a Universal Basic Income, perhaps that could be an acceptable compromise for me.

But back to our limited attention span, the major problem is that the marginal bothering cost for social media or other service providers to connect with us is zero. If each connection that does not originate from someone directly authorized by us is taxed with US$ one cent… then I am sure those connecting would at least think a bit more before bothering me.

And, of course, those taxes should also help feed a Universal Basic Income. The last thing we need is social media and redistribution profiteers teaming up in order to engage in mutually profitable crony statism. 

@PerKurowski

The numbers of ads on Facebook and Google need to be limited, and those clicking these should also be paid something.

Sir, Rana Foroohar, with respect to those services we supposedly receive free from Goggle, Facebook and similar for free, correctly writes “free is not free when you consider that we are not paying for these services in dollars, but in data, including everything from our credit card numbers to shopping records, to political choices and medical histories. How valuable is that personal data?” "Big tech makes vast gains at our expense", September 18

Indeed, more than 10 years ago I wrote you a letter in which I said: “Clearly a search engine should mostly be valued in terms of the services it offers to the searchers but in this case it is actually the searchers that become the searched and this leads to some very strange signalling effects”.

And since then I have been all over the web promoting among others the possibility that we should be able to get an intellectual property right over our own preferences, in order to have sometRhing to negotiate with… and then on how we could enter into agreements with ad-blockers that could help us exploit those IPRs.

But lately what has also come to concern me, is how our very limited attention span is being overexploited, leaving us too little time for reflection on our own realities.

Would it not be great if Google or Facebook, or any such similar social media service we get hooked on, and which has over a million members, could only send each member ten adds per day, and that these would receive 50% of any ad revenues collected as a result of having clicked on the ad?

Under no circumstances should we humans allow the marginal cost of bothering us to be zero.

I believe that could benefit all parties involved. Even Google, Facebook and alike would be less harassed by the besserwisser. Don’t you think so Sir?

@PerKurowski

Profits obtained under cover of patents should be taxed higher than those obtained when competing in the nude

Sir, Rana Foroohar writes about the clear ‘you can’t have the cookie and eat it too’ conflicts present in the area of protection of intellectual rights. “A better patent system will spur innovation” September 4.

In 2008, trying to build a bridge that could resolve some issues, I ended an Op-Ed with a proposal of introducing a special tax on all profits generated under the cover of any IPR, for instance a patent.

As I have since repeated many times, it is not logical the same tax rate applies to profits obtained when competing naked in the market, than when the profits are obtained under the cover of a protection.

Such tax should, as a minimum minimorum, at least cover all costs for society of awarding and enforcing IPR protections.

Nowadays I would also argue that tax should also be a source of funding for a Universal Basic Income. That because, most or even all of these protections, truth be told, are sort of unfairly awarded to whoever runs the last leg of a relay that has been run, with ingenuity, creativity and strenuous efforts, by generations of humans.

@PerKurowski

Why should profits made with IPR protection, patents, be taxed the same as profits made in the nude?

Sir, I refer to Andrew Ward’s “FT’s Big Read on Drug Prices: Tweaking the formula” April 26.

First of all I did not know of Nice and I must admit I am impressed that some formal rulings exist on whether to fund the use or not of some medicines. That certainly must help to put a lid on some bureaucrats’ “flexibility”.

That said, the article reminds me of a question I have posed many times before, including in Op-Eds in my country Venezuela, and in letters to you.

Why on earth should profits derived from operations under the protection of an Intellectual Property Right (IPR), patents, be taxed at the same rate than profits obtained fighting it out in the markets, naked, with no protection at all?

Surely the revenues of a special IPR/Patent profit tax could be ploughed back into some type of insurance scheme that could help cover some medicine costs the society can in general not afford to cover.

@PerKurowski ©

Tax profits obtained under the umbrella of patents higher, and plough those revenues back lowering medicine prices.

Sir, I refer to Jonathan Ford’s “Pricing of life-saving drugs is put under the microscope” Monday 17.

It is for sure a very difficult and delicate topic that of harmonizing the incentives needed for research to be carried out, with the need of the results of that research ending up being accessible for the general market.

Since open ended (no profit limits) intellectual property rights is the source of much current income inequalities, I have for some time now been suggesting those profits generated under the umbrella of patents, should be taxed at a higher rate than profits obtained when competing completely naked in the markets. 

Perhaps the revenues obtained with such taxes could be ploughed back in exchange for lower prices and thereby help to bridge somewhat the divide between the two objectives.

http://perkurowski.blogspot.com/2014/08/my-current-list-of-prominent-inequality.html

http://perkurowski.blogspot.com/2006/05/human-genetics-made-inhuman.html

@PerKurowski

“Regression to the mean”, if allowed by politicians and regulators, will take care of the plutocrats, in due time.

Sir, Paul Marshall in “Blame the rise of the plutocrats on politics not capitalism”, January 9, holds that we need Schumpeter much more than Marx.

As you could deduct from my letter “Long-term benefits of hard landing” and which you kindly published, before you decided to name me a persona non-grata at FT, I totally agree with him

I have never been too much concerned by the rise of plutocrats, since I have always figured that, mostly, it was the result of something good… and I have always counted on the “regression toward the mean” theory, aka “reversion to the mean”, or aka “reversion to mediocrity”, to take care of the problem of the same plutocrats reigning into eternity.

But for that “regression to the mean” to happen, anyone that has that in him to be a plutocrat needs to be able to become a plutocrat… and that requires not only fair access to education as Marshall rightly puts forward, but almost foremost fair access to bank credit. And credit-risk weighted capital requirements for banks which operate in favor of those who have made it; and against those risky who have yet not made it, and who probably most of them will fail while trying to make it; blocks that fair access to bank credit.

And then of course, for the “regression to the mean” to happen, losses need to flow freely, and not be contained by QE dams, which quite often help to make the plutocrats even more plutocrats.

PS. There are some other issues related to the rise of plutocrats that need to be more closely looked into. One is intellectual property right. Why should income from a shielded property right be taxed at the same rate than those profits coming from competing bare-naked in the market?

Does Le Pen want a patent?

Sir, once when reading an analysis of the cash flows derived from the sale of a music CD went, I was surprised to see how much went to the record company, how much to the taxman and how relatively little to the musicians and composer, being these last ones those you really think of in terms of being defended by the intellectual property rights. I mention this because when reading Krishna Guha’s “IMF says workers’ share of income pie is shrinking” April 5, we are presented with only two possible culprits, globalization (in terms of placing productions where salaries are lower) or technological change, while perhaps the intensified award and enforcement of intellectual property rights that has lead to the creation of so many non-regulated monopolies might have a lot to do with the salaries being less and less of the cake. Hearing about the possibility that patents could be awarded on such exotics as tax saving strategies and also reading, in the same FT, a headline that states “Rivals are stealing my ideas, says Le Pen”, I guess that we who live on salaries better have a much closer look on this issue than what the IMF has done.

Sir, excuse me! I just read your editorial of today “Capital versus labour” where you as the cause for the growing share of profits also mention “globalization and technological innovation” and where you with globalization limit yourself to "competition in labour markets” and so I guess my previous comments of intellectual property rights that might have gone berserk, applies to your editorial too.

Should there be resurrection fees?

Sir, Thomas Rubin is very right in that “Copyright must be respected as culture goes online” March 6, but he sure does sound excruciatingly rightful, when instead humility is much called for in this difficult issue. Perhaps he needs to be reminded that all the new protected culture is genetically a descendant of previous culture, in the same vein that Microsoft would not be able to pay for Rubin’s services had not the computers existed. Society should respect copyrights and similar but the copyrighters should also respect the society, not only because it invests copious resources defending their intellectual properties, but because it has every right to expect it.

There are currently hundred of thousand books, movies, photos and other copyrightable matter out there, that were it not for the power of the web they would be condemned to eternal darkness. Shall now the saviors that bring them to life and light again have to pay for the resurrections? I am not sure, but then again I am no expert as Mr Rubin.