"Intellectual Property" has been behind the scenes in years past but has now become a front and center issue. Some argue "IP" is what makes the world go round and is a great American strength and some argue that anything anything anyone invents should belong to everyone. I believe most would agree that the truth is somewhere in between. If a company spends millions of dollars on capital equipment they should be able to expect to get a return on the things they invent as a result of the investment without fearing that another company will take the invention and profit by producing the product with no development investment. At the other extreme if someone gets a patent for "e-commerce involving left-handed people who buy things online on Tuesday afternoons", most people would agree that this is an abuse of the patent concept and it surely doesn’t represent "Intellectual Property". Most of the IP world is somewhere in between these extremes and the issues are diverse and complicated.
The largest patent producer in the world (for well over a decade) is IBM Corporation and it seems reasonable for the company to take a point of view on the subject of "IP". To widely share their views, IBM has launched a new podcast series, "The New Intellectual Property (IP) Marketplace," which is now airing on ibm.com The first episode in the series features my former colleague Irving Wladawsky-Berger, IBM vice president of technology strategy and innovation. Dr. Wladawsky-Berger (he goes by Irving) explains the importance of patent quality and how the ability to share ideas stimulates innovation. He also gets into some of the heavier issues such as transparency, integrity, and mechanisms for establishing fair prices for IP..
I look forward to the future episodes of the series. In the meantime, I can highly recommend Irving’s blog.

• Patents
• Intellectual Property
• Patent Commons
• IBM Intellectual Property Licensing