Assignment 11- Part 3

TED Talks Kirby Ferguson

Hi Everyone,

This post will be a summary and discussion of Kirby Ferguson’s TED Talk on creativity and the patent system. He discusses how patents, which are supposed to protect intellectual property and help incentive the continued creativity needed for invention, may in fact stifle creativity.

He specifically looks at examples of songs and shows how many of the greatest hits are clearly based on earlier works by different artists. He looks at examples by Elvis and Bob Dylan to show how some of their songs are extremely similar to older songs to the extent that the older song must have clearly played a part in the newer version.

He also looks at Steve Jobs, specifically his “invention” of the multi touch on the IPhone. He showed a later example of “multi touch” or in other words extremely similar technology so that one could easily argue that Steve Job’s invention was anticipated.

He doesn’t bring up these examples to discredit Steve Jobs, Elvis, or Bob Dylan. Rather he brings these up to show that some of the greatest “inventions” are rather improvements that are directly based on the work of others. This in turn begins the argument over whether anything is ever really created as everything to some extent is based on the work of others done earlier. So I guess the question that then arises is where do you draw the line between invention and obvious or anticipated improvement.

Overall Kirby Ferguson argues that whether something is anticipated or obvious it is still a valuable contribution to society and thus should not be limited or discredited because there is a prior art that proves the obviousness or anticipation of a certain improvement.