Intellectual property: The business that shapes the world

Business Upturn

05-05-2025

The stable Internet connection, the noiseless run of modern electric cars, the security of a banknote – all these now seem like simple realities. However, beneath the surfaces of all the essential things lies a hidden world of intricate research and design, which necessitates a crucial yet often unseen aspect: intellectual property and its protection. This extensive business safeguards ideas that make innovations possible, and a deeper look into its nature gives us understanding of the vital force shaping the world around us.
Our daily life is full of avant-garde things: the speedy and soft ride of an electric car, the Internet that brings the entire world in our room, the colorful hologram on a banknote that instantly proves the money is genuine. These items have already become essential to our lives, which sometimes makes us take them for granted. However, their true nature isn't that simple – everything that is invented and used is in fact a culmination of extensive research and design. Each such fruit of intellect, that is, intellectual property, is protected to safeguard and motivate the work of designers and engineers, secure comfortable user experience and prompt general advancement of our society.
But is the concept of intellectual property (IP) really necessary? We have just said that products of the human thought contribute to the overall development, so why not make them freely available for anyone wishing to improve them?
What happens when patents fall in wrong hands
The question above is not really that simple. Any usable invention is born after thousands of hours of work and millions of investments, and lack of proper IP protection opens the door to criminals, leaving inventors and innovators unarmed and unmotivated. The humanity came to understand this many decades ago: for instance, Honoré de Balzac, the French 19th century writer, describes in his 'Lost Illusions' novel how an inventor of a cheaper way to produce paper falls victim of unscrupulous patent practices and loses everything. And reality can be even worse than fiction: in some cases, developments that fall into the wrong hands can slow down overall progress, as happened with batteries for electric cars.
In 1989, Stanford Ovshinsky, an inventor, created a novel nickel-based battery that outperformed modern battery technology in terms of cost, safety, and power. Five years later, he sold the patent to General Motors so they could use it to create the EV1, the first mass-produced electric vehicle in human history. After evaluating the technology, however, GM decided to continue with their traditionally powered cars, and sold the invention to the oil merchant Texaco.
Ovshinsky visualized a future where cars would be clean and efficient, but the improper patent conditions struck his dream out. His battery technology was licensed to a series of petrochemical corporations; the terms of the licensing restricted the use of the batteries in hybrid cars and, in effect, outlawed their use in completely electric cars for a while.
The current pace of development of electric vehicles (EVs) is indicative of the impact of this restriction. Several years ago, lithium-based batteries, used in modern vehicles such as the Nissan Leaf and Mitsubishi i-MiEV, were only just nearing the performance of the genuine EV1 technology. Consequently, their cost of production was considerably more compared to gasoline cars, which hampered the EV industry progress and resulted in millions of tons of CO2 emissions that could be avoided if the technology was used properly.
Does intellectual property protection really benefit all of us?
Now, mistakes in the IP use can lead to grave consequences. Nevertheless, proper protection brings great benefits not only to the inventors themselves, but also to the users, as the example of modern banknotes shows.
In the world of banknote printing, where forged bills can erode public trust and destabilize economies, intellectual property acts as a crucial line of defense against counterfeiters. One of the industry's most prominent players, French security printer Oberthur Fiduciaire, is an excellent example of the efforts in this field: the company invests heavily in research and development, constantly innovating security features like intricate microprinting patterns or embedded holograms. Expanding the IP base in this industry requires a lot of effort and money, and sometimes comes from synergy of two, like the French printer's recent acquisition of a stake in micro-optical security solutions provider Rolling Optics. The cooperation of two innovators has already resulted in Anima , a high-tech micro-lenses security thread that is complex, yet easy to authenticate by the end user. The company's other patented product offers an even better example of the profit-for-everyone concept. Bioguard , an anti-pathogen technology for various items by Oberthur Fiduciaire, protects health of millions of users around the world, and is intentionally kept affordable for other producers to ensure that it is targeted for everyone's benefit.
Does Oberthur Fiduciaire (and other banknote printers) really need to try its hardest? In fact, yes – and the Superdollar crisis of the early 2000s serves as a stark example of this. While the Superdollars, that is, the US dollar fakes, were initially considered some of the most sophisticated counterfeit notes ever produced, their relatively low-tech security features ultimately contributed to their downfall. Unlike modern banknotes, which often incorporate advanced security features, the Superdollars relied on more traditional techniques, such as offset printing and the use of medium-quality paper. This lower quality ultimately helped the security forces identify all the forged bills – which wouldn't be possible if the genuine bills were simpler and the technology of their production wasn't strictly protected from criminals.
How protected inventions help shape the modern world
Oberthur Fiduciaire and other positive examples of civilized IP use demonstrate the importance of the concept to everyone – and our next case shows how proper patent handling helped offer a stable and reliable WiFi technology for everyone.
In the 1990s, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) started developing a new technology for enabling wireless communication among computers. The concept was to create a way that could facilitate smooth communication among devices without requiring physical connection. Following extensive research and development, CSIRO submitted a patent application for the technology in 1996. The patent laid the foundation for modern WiFi connection and ultimately transformed how we communicate and obtain information – but the development wasn't as smooth as one may imagine.
During the early 2000s, SET and Symbol Technologies claimed ownership of patents related to different facets of the wireless connection. This caused a sequence of legal disputes that jeopardized the overall progress of the wireless data transfer, but, in spite of these challenges, the genuine standard still laid the basis for modern WiFi. In no small part, this was due to the efforts of CSIRO and their co-researchers at Bell Labs, who protected their patents vigorously and, eventually, ensured that WiFi remained unrestricted and could be used by millions of users across the globe to access information and stay connected.
Outlook for the future
Essentially, intellectual property is an indispensable companion of human progress that follows us from the time of ancient Greece to the present day. The concept serves as the invisible engine driving innovation in our everyday lives, and safeguards the ideas and designs that shape the world. By incentivizing creators and fostering healthy competition, strong IP rights ultimately benefit consumers with a wider variety of high-quality goods and services.
At that, the landscape of IP is constantly evolving. As technology races forward, with artificial intelligence playing a growing role in design and the digital realm presenting unique challenges, we must ask ourselves: how will the industry adapt to these new realities? In addition, there is the problem of protection of the invention process itself: many technological innovations, for instance, are based on mathematics, but mathematical calculations are not protected by patents. Not only this opens the door to thousands of new inventors, but also inspires patent trolls who want to misappropriate the fruits of others' intellectual labor. These issues show that the search for a perfect IP protection concept must go on, and finding the right balance between protecting creators and fostering the potential of new technologies will be crucial for shaping a future filled with groundbreaking advancements.