A new way of understanding the high but elusive worth of intellectual property
A group of 65 people have each achieved inventions worth $1bn
IT IS TESTAMENT to human inventiveness that 50m patents are estimated to have been granted globally. But in aggregate much of the collection resembles an intellectual junkyard. Included are plausible ideas that no firm ever wanted to pay for, plausible ideas that fell short, and absurdities. A patent on the crust-less peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich, for example, failed to be renewed in 2007.
This article appeared in the Business section of the print edition under the headline “Billion-dollar blueprints”
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