Episode 4: Intellectual Property in Tech – Owning the Intangible

Can you own an idea?

The ancient’s believed knowledge was a gift of the gods. Fire belonged to Prometheus, poetry to the Muses, geometry to Euclid. To share knowledge was divine; to hoard it was hubris. For centuries, ideas were seen as part of the commons of the mind “owned by none, shared by all”.

But with the printing press, the Renaissance birthed a new question: if a man’s invention fuels commerce, should not law reward him with ownership? The Venetian Statute (1474) often called the world’s first patent law, declared inventors could enjoy exclusive rights over their creations. From there, the modern edifice of Intellectual Property (IP) began.

Fast forward to today: in the digital era, IP no longer governs just books or machines. It governs algorithms, software, designs, even genetic code. The

intangible has become the most valuable commodity of all.

Most people see IP as “copyrights and patents.” But here is what lies beneath:

◻️ Copyright: Protects creative expression (code, art, software). Yet the idea itself remains free, only its form is protected.

◻️ Patents: Grant exclusive rights over inventions. Controversially, software patents exist in some jurisdictions but remain restricted in others.

◻️ Trademarks: Words, symbols, and logos that shape brand identity.

Trade Secrets: Knowledge that thrives not by registration, but by secrecy (think: Coca-Cola’s formula or Google’s algorithms).

And the hidden tension: IP law struggles in cyberspace. A song, once shared, multiplies infinitely. A line of code can be copied across continents in seconds. Law, designed for scarcity, now confronts abundance.

The philosophy is stark: IP seeks to balance two forces—the need to reward creation and the need to share knowledge. Too much exclusivity stifles progress; too little protection erodes incentive.

💡 Why it matters today:

◻️ For innovators: IP secures not just ideas, but livelihoods.

◻️ For societies: It tests how much of imagination can be fenced without strangling its flow.

◻️ For jurisprudence: It is the most human struggle, how to own the intangible without killing its spirit.

Perhaps it is closer to Hegel than to Plato: the idea is never a private possession but part of the “World Spirit,” moving through us, shaping history. Law tries to capture it, to crystallize it into rights. Yet in doing so, it raises the deepest question of all “do we master ideas, or are we merely vessels through which ideas master us”.