Francis, Clinton W. --- "Language System (LS) 3.0: An Agenda for a Model of Innovation Valuation" [2009] ELECD 489; in Castle, David (ed), "The Role of Intellectual Property Rights in Biotechnology Innovation" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2009)

Book Title: The Role of Intellectual Property Rights in Biotechnology Innovation

Editor(s): Castle, David

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781847209801

Section: Chapter 8

Section Title: Language System (LS) 3.0: An Agenda for a Model of Innovation Valuation

Author(s): Francis, Clinton W.

Number of pages: 24

Extract:

8. Language system (LS) 3.0:
an agenda for a model of
innovation valuation
Clinton W. Francis

INTRODUCTION

The task of `measuring' innovation presents us with the uneasy sense of
confronting a paradox ­ the valuation of modes of valuation and the
seemingly infinite regression that this suggests. The increasing rate and
complexity of change in our information society highlights the need for
business and society to tackle this paradox and adequately value compet-
ing sources of innovation. How we value innovation influences the incen-
tives we provide for creativity and thereby affects the things we produce,
the world that produces us, and ultimately affects the quality of our lives.
Yet we persist in our obedience to older methods of valuing innovation
that are less creative than the underlying innovation they measure and
that potentially produce a series of paradoxical inversions of dependent
hierarchies.
A good part of the task of valuing innovation in our society is relegated
to reliance on data concerning intellectual property rights (IPRs), such as
density of IPRs and IPR citations levels, supplemented by market-based
analyses. While these are useful sources of information, it is important
for us to assess the risks associated with their deployment. Our system
of property relations and the mechanisms of the marketplace have per-
formed, and will continue to perform, the vital function of social regula-
tion. But this chapter argues that their referential systems increasingly fail
to match the complexity of the high-tech and bio-tech `ecologies', which
they ...