 Hello, everyone. I'd like to welcome you today to the 10th annual undergraduate economics debate presented by the Department of Economics and the Undergraduate Economics Club. I'm Zach Bares, a junior political science and economics major, and I will be your moderator today. I hope you find the debate engaging and the evidence convincing and informative. This afternoon, these students will be debating the motion. Intellectual property is necessary to promote the progress of science and the useful arts. In support of the motion is the team of Mel Abdul Mutalib, Class of 2017, Aaron Cooper, Class of 2015, Victor Padachak, Class of 2014, and Stephanie Staudenmeier, Class of 2015. Against the motion is the team of Martin Gall, Class of 2016, Jonathan Lab, Class of 2015, Keith Malott, Class of 2015, and Andrew Randall, Class of 2016. I'd also like to introduce our judges. We have returning Bill Troy, Class of 1976, Lisa Deforge, Class of 1987, James Santucci, Class of 2013, and James Keller, Class of 1985. The rules of the debate are as follows. First, the team in support of the motion arguing in favor of intellectual property protection will have 15 minutes to present their argument followed by the team in opposition. This time is divided equally among the three members of the team. We will have a five-minute period of deliberation for each team followed by rebuttals. During the rebuttals, the team in opposition will send up members first, three members for three minutes each, followed by the team in support. Then the judges will be able to ask questions. For each question, the teams will have two to three minutes to deliberate, and then a member of the team in support will give a two-minute answer followed by the team in opposition, reversing the order for each question. The judges will then have five minutes to deliberate, followed by the announcement of the winner and closing remarks. Without further ado, we can begin with the team in support. Good afternoon to the judges and fellow audience. For today's debate, under the motion of intellectual property, the protection of intellectual property is necessary to promote the progress of science and useful arts. We in the affirmative argue in the advocacy of the motion under three premises, which is number one, reasoning under Pralani's perspective, number two, economic impact of intellectual property, and number three, the practicality of intellectual property. Before we move on to my first point, which is reasoning under intellectual property, I would like to define the motion word by word. And the two terms that I feel needs to be stressed on in this debate is intellectual property and science and useful arts. We define intellectual property as a work or invention that is the result of creativity, such as manuscript or design, to which one has rights and may apply for a patent, a trademark, copyright or trade secrets. Essentially, it is the ownership of ideas and control over tangible or visual representation of the aforementioned ideas. And science and useful arts, we believe as a 19th century term, and we acknowledge its constitutional origins. For this, we follow the Supreme Court's definition of science and useful arts, of which under Golan Russell Holder, we have defined it as a form of knowledge or learning and manufactured craft. Therefore, ladies and gentlemen, as whole, we define this motion as a legal or any form with one measure with intention of preserving any creative work of which one has applied for copyright, trademark, trade secrets, or patents to help support and encourage a continued qualitative improvement of knowledge and manufacturing craft. Now, beloved audience, I believe we should move on to my point, which is reasoning under Kalpalani's perspective. As the basis for my argument, I believe change under Kalpalani's perspective is initiated under the state to produce a competitive capitalist economy. This implies economically, fictitious commodities such as land, labor and money will subordinate the subsistence and substance of the economy into the market. This therefore establishes a market society, which occurs when society decides to maximize their own utility as well as when price is adjusted according to the market. Kalpalani believes that this creates unsustainability as the market society causes dislocations in the market. Under the double movement where the economy tries to separate from society, we see social protectionism to be necessary in the state society. Therefore, historically, since we know that this industrial revolution has shown downsides where the poor have been transgressed in terms of their health, their financial stature and their abilities, we know historically that social protectionism is necessary as the capitalist economy and the free economy will cause others without protectionism to be marginalized. Now similarly, since intellectual property is seen as a fictitious commodity and is highly regarded as a fictitious commodity, which can be defined as any non-labor produced goods that are bought and sold similar to any other commodities, we believe intellectual property is necessary in this theory of embeddedness, which we could see that the economy is not separate from political institutions and any other institution. We know intellectual property must be protected to avoid repercussions of the industrial revolution for two factors, morality and utility. And under this, we could see the John Lockean assertion that morality is important to help us in providing and promoting the science and useful in promoting science and useful arts, which will at the end of the day help us in our progress. On top of that, protection is necessary for the basis of utility as people will be more satisfied with the production of goods. We understand that intellectual property as the pattern of office, as the U.S. pattern and trademark office has shown us allows for greater production. And without intellectual property, we understand that there will be under production of goods. For this, we believe that monetarily and socially intellectual property is important to be protected. Thank you. My predecessor had spoken of. I will be talking about how the intellectual property rights are necessary for the growth and sustainability of mankind. Over the past two centuries, according to Wolf, world population has grown sixfold since before that. During this time, world GDP has also grown almost 50 fold and GDP per head has grown almost 10 times. In these two centuries alone, we have had growth that has been exponential and it's been faster than any other growth that we have ever seen in human kind. In numbers, as you can see here, in 1800 years, world GDP only increased several hundred billion dollars from year one BCE to 1800. However, in the past two centuries, world GDP has increased from 175 billion to well over 70 trillion in today's dollars. So the question that we're left with here is how is this growth to be accounted for? How is it possible that in two centuries, we are able to produce so much capital and have so much so many gains? And the answer is one simple world, capitalism. The introduction of Enlightenment era thinking during the 1700s served as the moral basis under which capitalism was able to be constructed as an economic system. This basis also prompted the introduction and the growth of the Industrial Revolution. The Industrial Revolution helped to bring a world production to an alarming speed, hitherto unseen anywhere. And through this, it helped raise the standard of living by providing new jobs and new forms of income for people throughout the entirety of the world. In these past two centuries, humankind has made more scientific, technological and intellectual breakthroughs than ever before. Capitalism and the underlying idea of intellectual property rights on which capitalism is based serve as the primary causes for all of the growth that we have experienced. Capitalism is a system that rewards people via profit. You are able to market the ideas that you come up with, and you have the potential to turn them into money. People are incentivized to produce because of this profit motive. People work for their own benefit. This incentive that is given to people under this capitalist system is only protected because of intellectual property rights. People are inherently rationally selfish, and they will seek to do work that is of greatest utility to them. Whatever maximizes their own utility and their own happiness is the work that they will engage in. And if they cannot work for their own benefit, they will not work. Under intellectual property rights, people are able to come up with ideas and use them and claim them as their own and then make the and retain the highest utility possible from these ideas. It is the protection of these rights that guarantees that the ideas that a person is able to come up with is theirs, and that they can use it to make a profit. Without intellectual property rights, there is no profit motive to be had. And without profit motive, that means that the entirety of the capitalistic system is doomed to failure. And the lack of a capitalistic system essentially calls for a vastly de-accelerated process and motion of human advancement. So in summary, intellectual property rights have brought wealth and prosperity to all of mankind at different rates, but nonetheless, the prosperity is undeniable. And the rate at which we have increased prosperity levels over these past two centuries have been far greater than any other rate that we have ever seen in the entirety of human history. Without intellectual property rights, none of this could have been possible. And if intellectual property rights were to be taken away, the growth of human progress would be lost entirely. Thank you. Welcome again. My name is Stephanie. Now that my partners have clearly demonstrated and performed the, now that my partners have clearly demonstrated the usefulness and importance of IP for growth in our American economy, I would like to get right into the statistics and IP's placement in this US economy. So recently, a study was published by the US Patent and Trademark Office and the Economic and Statistics Administration that resulted in some really interesting facts about US relationship with IP. What they discovered was that in 2010, 40 million jobs were reliant on IP protection. These IP intensive industries made up 25% of the US workforce. These people, oh, I'm sorry, these jobs actually accounted for 35% of that year's total GDP, I mean total GDP for a domestic product. Now, what is the difference between a non IP intensive worker and an IP intensive worker? IP intensive workers make on average $300 more a week than the IP, the non IP intensive worker. Now this statistic comes because these people are blossoming in innovation. The, as Obama himself put it, IP is representative of the leading edge of the US economy and the ingenuity of the American people. It is creating something instead of just copycatting. I'd like to talk about one of the most important IP intensive industries, US e-commerce. e-commerce touched over $230 billion this past years with a 15% growth rate. Now, the internet is a business war hog. Without nowadays and stuff, the consumer is not restrained to the store. We can Google and compare. Location doesn't matter anymore. This is an incredible force for competition. But even Google would not be, even Google would not exist without IP protection. Because internet based businesses, if you try to create a website and make an internet based business, what is protected under IP? Well, your web content, your name, your logo, everything. So without IP, what would happen to this giant economy? Well, we would have a million people ripping each other's content consistently. And this would result in a lack of organic filter for Google search engines or anything like that. So what you have then is that a million people are copying each other's websites. And then this will result in a horrible difference between the barriers to competition with the rich and the poor. Because if you think about it, then without an organic filter, trying to create an internet business, competitively, you would only have the amount of money you put in the sponsors. This is incredibly detrimental for the poor in this economy. Now, many argue for, many argue against IP, because they say that without IP, it would be a free market. But I'd like to reiterate this fact. Logically, this doesn't make sense. And for example, many of the people use as an example against IP, the fashion industry. This is an ever-changing industry. But if you think about it, how hard is it to become a stylist because this is ever changing? Leading named brands are taking these stylist ideas and running with it. So we have these crazy things like game shows like Project Runway and all this other stuff to become a stylist. It's a barrier to competition that is that you can't get over if you are not a named brand. So what would happen to each of these economies that are based off IP, this 35% of global domestic product? Without IP, what would happen to it? Well, I would say that there are many mistakes with IP, many examples of misuse and all of that. But the majority is protected under it. And it protects the majority of the businesses. And I'm not really sure if there's a better option. I'm not as tall. I'm Keith and today our team is going to be arguing the side of the opposition. When the founding fathers crafted our country's constitution, one of their goals was to set the foundation for an economy that would be both innovative and dominant. One of the ways they set out to achieve this goal was Article 1, Section A, Clause 8. It gives Congress the power to promote the progress of science and useful arts by granting authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective works for a limited period of time. The intentions of the men who signed the constitution and therefore approved this clause were honorable. They wanted to ensure that inventors would have a period of time to monetize their original ideas. The thinking was that if inventors were not granted this right, other people could simply take their ideas and reap the benefits of their use without incurring the cost of their creation. This would reduce the incentive to invent and therefore less people would do so. As a result, the rate of innovation would lower, productivity would be dampened and the country's full potential for economic growth would not be realized. This was the thinking of the crafters of our constitution and it was the basic outline, argument outlined by the opposition today. Today, we must look at the patent paradox. Is this system that is great at rewarding individuals simultaneously helping add to the entirety of our human intelligence? Is the notion that granting somebody exclusive rights to knowledge warranted by its supposed benefits? We argue that it is not. I would first like to demonstrate that intellectual property rights are not only unnecessary to promote progress, but that sometimes by willfully declining the legal protections patents guarantee you, innovation can actually be driven. Sometimes patent holders voluntarily share their ideas as a form of market research, an interesting trend that is being employed by large American shoe manufacturers. Designs for shoe models are being deliberately released into the black market. If Reeboks and Adidas are being pirated and Nike's new model is not, they know that it requires further development before they release it into the legal marketplace. Now this benefits both the company and consumers and drives innovation in the footwear industry. And it may seem trivial to discover consumer preferences towards sneakers, but it is not outlandish to imagine the same strategy being used in industries with more of a scientific focus. If this is the case, intellectual property rights are not only unnecessary to promote scientific innovation, but their absence can actually encourage it. The American patent system as we know it today has repeatedly created economic inequalities and inefficiencies. Intellectual property rights incentivize rent seeking, which is the process of manipulating political situations and regulatory institutions to increase one share of already existing wealth without actually creating any new wealth. This is inefficient because it entails devoting resources to an outcome that does not increase the overall size of our country's economy. One example of this is patent trolling, which is the process of purchasing patents at low cost and either selling them for high prices or using them to launch legal claims against infringing firms. Institutions that participate in trolling do not develop technology or sell products, but instead they derive most of their revenue from filing legal claims. The reality is that patent trolling happens all the time. Over the past few years, the number of patent trolling cases has increased in both absolute terms and as a percentage of total patent cases filed. Since 2012, litigation with patent trolls has accounted for over half of the total patent cases. When there is rampant patent trolling, it both undermines the purpose of intellectual property rights and creates economic inefficiency. Based on research conducted by professors at the Boston University School of Law, in 2011, American businesses incurred $29 billion in direct costs from patent trolling litigation. To put this into perspective, American businesses spend about $250 billion annually on research and development. This means that the cost of defending against patent trolls is equal to over 10 percent of annual investments in R&D. There's a huge opportunity cost here. The money that is being devoted to these frivolous lawsuits can instead be spent in ways that actually add value to a business, such as product creation and improvement, bettering customer experiences and building new factories or more efficient machinery. In today's business world, patents have become coveted financial assets. Corporations participate in bidding wars on key patents that will drive revenue growth and increase profitability. Small companies do not have the resources to make attractive offers to patent trolls, so all of the most valuable patents end up under the control of companies such as IBM and Apple. This is creating monopoly situations, as the biggest companies are the only ones who have the patents they need to make the best products. The reward is the right to block out competitors, lower output, and overcharge consumers. The downfalls of the current patent system were not unforeseen by the men who created the infrastructure for it. Thomas Jefferson warned that grants of this sort can be justified in very peculiar cases only, if at all. The danger of being very great that the good resulting from the operation of the monopoly will be overbalanced by the evil effect of the precedent, and it being not impossible that the monopoly itself in its original operation may produce more evil than good. It seems as if the fears harbored by our founding fathers have become a reality. Good afternoon. My name is Andrew Randall. Forgive me if this gets a little loud. Today the United States is in the think of an era of patent extremism. With this extremism comes an increasing trend toward longer lasting patents, protection of abstract ideas, and an increasing effort by corporate conglomerates to keep small innovators out of competition. As there is no substantial evidence that increasing intellectual property rights proves direct causation to increased innovation, we must come to the realization that intellectual property rights are not necessary. Rather they have facilitated a system so robust and nebulous that patents have surpassed their threshold of effectiveness and have entered a downward slower trend toward a failed system. Barry Schwartz and Adam Grant of the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania elaborate on this idea explaining that there is a point where positive and phenomenon reach inflection points that watch their effects turn negative. What Schwartz and Grant discovered is that every beneficial input or resource or advantage, whether it be money, happiness, justice, or protection of intellectual property eventually becomes problematic and ineffective. Schwartz and Grant simplify this idea to the elementary statement entitled their work too much of a good thing. This is precisely with the protection of intellectual property rights has become too much of a good thing. Throughout this debate is imperative that we understand that my partners and I are here today to articulate the fact that the status quo is not a be all end all solution to promoting the sciences and useful arts. Rather patents have become the bane of the United States economic advancement. Derek Conner Forbes elaborated stating Madison omnously warned that all monopolies including copyright must be guarded with strictness angst abuse. Abuse is precisely what we have seen. The estimated total number of defendants sued by patent trolls more than tripled from 834 in 2007 to 3401 in 2011. Furthermore, according to a study by the United States Government Accountability Office regarding infringement lawsuits, the overall number of defendants increased from 2007 to 2011 by an astonishing 129%. Look no further than Silicon Valley to see patent extremism at its finest. According to William F. Miller of the Silicon Valley Edge, during the 1990s, the portion of the Valley's workforce in the research and design was 10%, a full two and a half times the national average. Logically, with the future of job creation resting many of these startup companies, the United States ought to uphold the system to protect these companies. Ironically, the system that we've created has done the opposite. The intellectual property rights that we put in place to promote innovation for small companies has shown little success. In fact, increased intellectual property loss have not spurred a surge in innovation or research and design. Rather, many large firms have decided to harvest patents as a defensive strategy. An empirical study of patenting in the U.S. semiconductor industry showed that many firms use patents more as a horizontal strategy rather than to gain market value from rival firms and assist them in obtaining favorable terms in cross licensing negotiations. Lester C. Thurlow, Harvard Business Law Review, explains why this is problematic for software-related companies, many of which reside in Silicon Valley. He writes, companies such as Intel have big legal budgets to defend what they think is their property, but they also are accused of aggressively attacking what others think is theirs in order to create uncertainties, time delays, and high startup costs for their competitors. The end goal of companies like Intel is to keep disruptive innovation out, and they do so by abusing intellectual property rights and using law as an instrument of destruction for startup companies. The GEO explains that the cost of defending one patent infringement lawsuit, which excludes any damages awarded, was from $650,000 to $5 million in 2011. PMEs are more willing to bring lawsuits based on broad interpretation of their patent claims because they cannot be countersued for patent infringement since they do not produce a product. Essentially, intellectual property rights have become a win-win for large corporations who work with PMEs and a Berlin wall for small companies. A company named V-Lingo epitomizes this story. Mr. Phillips, the head of V-Lingo, worked for three decades to program a speech recognition software similar to what we've seen with Apple's Siri feature. Unfortunately, Mr. Phillips was brought to court and he won. Yet, regardless, according to the New York Times, the suit had cost $3 million and the financial damage was done. Mr. Phillips' small company was crushed by this and, as he explains, we are on the brink of changing the world and before we go stuck in this legal muck. If we look to the GEO's analysis of where the most patent infringement claims are filed, we see that most cases occur on the west coast of California, more specifically Silicon Valley. Mr. Phillips' story is not anomaly. The same story is happening for all sorts of startups across the country. Disruptive innovation is the touchstone of economic advancement in regards to today's economy. Unfortunately, due to intellectual property rights, companies similar to Mr. Phillips are being crushed by patent protections from PMEs and the glomerates that work with them. Our focus on intellectual property rights has become so rooted in protecting everything under the sun that it has manifested itself into a broken system that keeps the powerful on top and the innovators out of the question. So much so that startups companies typically stay as far away from patents as possible. Michael J. and New York's fans are saying just 24% of patent startups, 24% of venture-backed startups had any patents within five years of receiving financial. Judges, today we must look at the overarching goal of this resolution. Please make a vote today for future V-lingos and more importantly, the future of America's economy. Thank you. Good afternoon. Today we are grappling with the idea of intellectual property rights and whether the purpose is still relevant in modern society. Some may say we have touched upon the most conceivable outcomes of a world with such laws, but I offer that we have yet to truly ask ourselves the largest and most fundamental question that is the keystone to this entire discussion. The question is what type of civilization do we want to become? Are we merely profiteers who are blinded by our own ambitions or are we a group of beings who together can build a truly wonderful world? I argue that we strive to be the latter, but through action we are the former. The pharmaceutical industry is a strong example of this particular reality. The pharmaceutical industry is understandably tied to the discussion about intellectual property rights. Patents have traditionally been a way to incentivize companies to find research and development. However, intellectual property protection in the pharmaceutical industry has repeatedly created negative outcomes for the people who are supposed to be beneficiaries of medical research. Pharmaceutical companies regularly report huge profit margins regardless of their claims that patents are absolutely necessary to ensure their survival. What intellectual property rights in the pharmaceutical industry have brought about is a monopolistic market that effectively prevents financially strained individuals from receiving the care that they deserve. In April of 2013, the Supreme Court heard a case brought against the molecular diagnostic company Myriad Genetics. The association molecular pathology filed suit challenging the validity of Myriad's patenting of two genes they had isolated. The genes sometimes contain mutations that predispose women who carry them to breast cancer. Information contained within these genes can be used to improve breast cancer detection prevention techniques. Since Myriad had patented the genes, other companies cannot test their patents or patients for them. Before the case was brought to the Supreme Court intellectual property rights created a situation that prioritized corporate profits over the health of our country's citizens. Myriad ended up losing the case and numerous medical providers now offer the genetic test. Sometimes though, the negative outcomes brought about by intellectual property rights have a longer lasting effect. In 1980, the court case Diamond versus Chakrabarty ruled that genetically modified organisms could be patented. Shortly thereafter, a Harvard University biologist was granted a patent for a mouse that had been genetically modified to be susceptible to breast cancer. The mouse proved to be a useful way to examine the effects of breast cancer and test different treatment options. Any other private researcher who wants to use the genetically modified mouse of his or her own research must first pay large royalties to Harvard. These royalties are often in the millions of dollars. Even though these patents were issued in the late 80s, Harvard continues to garner payments from researchers who wish to improve the quality of breast care cancer patients receive. This is undoubtedly stymying the progress of medical research. Pharmaceutical companies downplay the negative externalities that are brought about by their intellectual property rights while at the same time overstating the importance of patents as assets. Is it so far-fetched to imagine a world in which medical research is driven not by promises of executive compensation, but by working towards the goal of bettering the lives of our fellow human beings? Research funded by the National Institute of Health has led to huge advancements in the fight against cancer, heart disease, and other illnesses. NIH-funded research has led to nearly 100 Nobel Prizes. This type of scientific research was not incentivized by promises of executive rights over their findings. In fact, the incentive was just the opposite. The men and women who have made these advances in the field of medicine hope that their ideas are not proprietary. They hope that their ideas are copied as much as possible so that their positive effects can be far-reaching. Time and time again, the legal protection of intellectual property rights has created economic inequalities and inefficiencies, dampening economic innovation. Is it possible that the concepts on which the edifice of intellectual property rights was built need to be reconsidered? Based on the repetitive failures of the current system, it is evident that the intellectual property rights are not necessary to promote the progress of science and the useful arts. Thank you. Hi again. At this point, both teams will have five minutes to deliberate and then the team in opposition will send up three members for three minutes each for rebuttals. And the team in opposition will have nine minutes to rebutt. Thank you. Okay. The first thing I'd like to address is when you put up a chart of GDP growth in America over time and there was an exponential growth at one point. And