someone walked up to you and gave you $2 trillion. That could never
happen, right?
In fact, that is exactly what has just happened.
While the patent system has been around since the 17th century when it was
developed by nobles in Italy and England, it may surprise you that the
system was designed to benefit you. Patents were supposed to be a public
disclosure to advance science and useful knowledge. If someone shared
sufficient information to teach the public about a novel development or
useful technology, they would have a limited time (about 20 years) to
decide who could use that idea.
There's some bad news and some good news. First, the bad news: For the
past 30 years, patents have been abused. Rather than serving the public's
expansion of knowledge, they've been used as business and legal weapons.
Over 50,000,000 patents covering everything you do have served to keep you
from benefiting in many aspects of your life. Many life-saving treatments
have been kept from the market because they threaten established business
interests. The world's ecosystem has been severely damaged because
efficiencies have been kept from entereing the market.
In the face of all this, however, there is the good news: The thirty year
"cold war" of innovation is over. Today, you now have access to it all. In
the Global Innovation Commons, we have assembled hundreds of thousands of
innovations - most in the form of patents - which are either expired,
no-longer maintained (meaning that the fees to keep the patents in force
have lapsed), disallowed, or unprotected in most, if not all, relevant
markets. This means that, as of right now, you can take a step into a
world full of possibilities, not roadblocks. You want clean water for
China or Sudan - it's in here. You want carbon-free energy - it's in here.
You want food production for Asia or South America - it's in here.
But here's the catch. We're sharing this under a license. The license is
really simple. If you use this information, you must share what you're
doing with everyone else. If you improve upon it, you must share your
improvements with everyone else. And finally, if you use any of this
information, you must reference the "Global Innovation Commons." That's
it. When you take the next step, turn the possibilities into realities.
