“Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit; wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad”
The quotation is attributed to the late English author and humourist, Miles Kington.
I am not sure if there is a justification behind keeping tomatoes separate from fruit salads (none, judging by the multitude of tomato fruit salad recipes to be harvested on the internet). Nevertheless, Miles Kington’s succinct statement of taste preferences indirectly describes the purpose behind intellectual property rights: not to protect knowledge per se, but to identify specialist knowhow and the application of that knowledge.
In an ideal world IP rights should not limit our search for knowledge, but rather encourage it. Research & development contracts are part of that search; they deal with parties working together in researching and developing ways to produce IP fruit salads.
I’ll be online looking at IP rights in R&D contracts in a few days and would look forward to seeing you there. In the meantime, remember that knowledge is knowing that there is a webinar; wisdom is registering and logging in!