Een gezamenlijke vijand

Steven Chu deed zijn uitspraken over het belang van het vrij delen op nationaal en internationaal niveau van kennisontwikkelingen op energiegebied tegenover reporters van de New York Times. It’s like all countries becoming allies against this common foe, which is the energy problem”, zo schetste hij hen. “There’s no reason why it has to be compartmentalized.”

“Developing technologies for much more efficient buildings is something that can be shared in each country. If countries actively helped each other, they would also reap the home benefits of using less energy. So any area like that I think is where we should work very hard in a very collaborative way — by very collaborative I mean share all intellectual property as much as possible. And in my meetings with my counterparts in other countries, when we talk about this they say, yes, we really should do this.

Maar als het aan het Republikeinse congreslid van Wisconsin Jim Senbrenner ligt, is dit niet de juiste manier om innovatie op dit gebied te stimuleren. Hij meent dat dit zelfs het tegenovergestelde teweeg zal brengen.

Hij schrijft aan Chu: ‘sharing intellectual property rights is exactly the wrong approach. Not surprisingly, business leaders are already alarmed. The New York Times reported that Steve Fludder, the head of the “Ecomagination” division of General Electric, “aggressively refuted” the suggestion that waiving IPR would spread technology. Mr. Fludder asked, “I mean, why would anybody invest in anything that they would have to just give away?” New technologies absolutely must reach developing countries, but if IPR protections are waived, there will be no technologies to share. Left unexplained, your statements could already work to stifle innovation.’

Lees de volledige brief van Sensenbrenner aan Chu. Hier meer over Chu en zijn debat over het vrij delen van nieuwe ideeën.