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IPRIA and the Melbourne Business School have an event coming up which would be of interest to readers of this blog: David Levine and Eric Von Hippel will be giving a seminar on Intellectual Property and Innovation: A Different Perspective. It’s all happening on 11 August. More details over the fold.

David Levine is is Professor of Economics at Washington University in St. Louis. He is known in IP circles for his work with Michele Boldrin, ‘Against Intellectual Monopoly’. It generated a bit of controversy when it came out, and when you read the abstract, I’m sure you can see why:

‘t is common to argue that intellectual property in the form of copyright and patent is necessary for the innovation and creation of ideas and inventions such as machines, drugs, computer software, books, music, literature and movies. In fact intellectual property is not like ordinary property at all, but constitutes a government grant of a costly and dangerous private monopoly over ideas. We show through theory and example that intellectual monopoly is not neccesary for innovation and as a practical matter is damaging to growth, prosperity and liberty’

To read the whole thing, click here.

Eric Von Hippel is also pretty significant. He is Professor and Head of the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Group at the MIT Sloan School of Management. His 2005 book, Democratizing Innovation, is all about end-user innovation in all kinds of different fields: in other words, it emphasises the importance of users being able to tinker and alter and add to the tools and products that they buy. And you know what else? you can download his book from his homepage, here.

So, if you’re interested in innovation; and in different perspectives on innovation; if you’re interested in open source and creative commons type stuff, or just innovation more generally – looks like a pretty amazing opportunity to hear some pretty significant thinkers in the field.

So here are the details:
Title: Intellectual Property and Innovation: A Different Perspective
Speakers: David Levine and Eric von Hippel
Date: Friday, 11 August
Time: 4-6pm
Place: Melbourne Business School, Rio Tinto Theatre
To Regsister: Click Here.