Irving Wladawsky-Berger

Software Patents

At the risk of stepping into waters that are way over my head, I would like to offer some comments on software patents, an area where many people with a lot more expertise than I have been weighing in. 

The National Innovation Initiative (NII) in its December 2004 report declared that "intellectual property protection is a cornerstone of the innovation economy", and called for the creation of a 21st century IP regime that would "build quality into all phases of the patent process."   Books like "Innovation and its Discontents” by Adam Jaffe and Josh Lerner have concluded that patents are being issued irresponsibly and at an unreasonable rate, and that the patent system, especially in the US, is now creating litigation and uncertainty that could have a terribly negative impact on innovation and economic productivity.

Enabling the Next Generation of Applications

I recently wrote a blog on the emerging innovations in user interfaces that are being inspired by video game players.  I called them 3rd Generation User Interfaces or 3GUI.  I ended the blog by observing that while these innovations are enabled by advanced technologies, like the Cell processor jointly developed by IBM, Sony and Toshiba for the PlayStation 3, their real impact will be in the many different kinds of new applications that will be created based on the visual interfaces, real- time interactivity and massive collaboration found in the gaming world.

Anticipating the Future by Looking at the Past

A few weeks ago I attended a remarkable lecture by Carlota Perez on technology revolutions and their economic and social impact.

Mountains of words have been written and spoken in the last 10 years to attempt to explain all the commotion around the Internet, "new economy", the dot-com boom, the bursting of the "bubble",  the aftermath, and many related topics.  But no one I've read or heard has put these turbulent times into a historical perspective as clearly as Perez did in her presentation, and as she has been doing in her various publications, in particular her book Technological Revolutions and Financial Capital:  The Dynamics of Bubbles and Golden Ages.  A good introduction to her work can be found in these excerpts from her book.

Blogging, the Web and the Emergence of Collaborative Knowledge

I posted my first blog just about 3 months ago.  I said in it that I was anticipating an exciting journey, so let me spend a little time reviewing the journey so far.

I was honestly taken by surprise by the rise of blogging.  My friend John Patrick, with whom I worked very closely at IBM in organizing our Internet initiative, had been telling me for years that blogging was one of the major next big directions for the Internet, right up there with ubiquitous wireless access.

The Economic and Social Foundations of Collaborative Innovation

Ever since the Internet hit the mainstream in the mid 1990s, we have seen more and more innovation coming from people working together in open communities, something we have been calling Collaborative Innovation.  This is no accident, as the Internet and everything around it have proven to be a wonderful platform for people to come together from all over the world and collaborate on whatever problem they all agree to work on.

Little Movies

Summer is usually the season for blockbuster movies, which usually feature lots of action, special effects, heroic characters, superstar actors, huge budgets, and so on.  I watch my share of these movies, enjoying some a lot (e.g., Batman Begins), others less so.

But, in the last few years, I have increasingly enjoyed watching what are often referred to as "Little Movies."

Turning Unstructured Information into Useful Knowledge

Years ago, artificial intelligence (AI) was one of the hottest areas in computer science.  In the mid 1970s I managed a small team in our Watson Research Center  doing work in AI (my first management job in IBM).  When you look back, all the efforts from those days to create computers with AI capabilities pretty much fizzled, including a massive project launched in Japan in the 1980s called The Fifth Generation Computer Project.  For a variety of reasons we got it all wrong, were way off base in thinking that we could program computers to act intelligently, and naively underestimated the kind of computing power and storage needed for such problems.

China's Fifth Generation Film Directors

I recently attended a very interesting lecture on Chinese-American relations by Steven Weber, professor of political science and director of the Institute of International Studies at UC Berkeley.  Professor Weber's central point is that the Sino-American relationship is now central to the health of the global political economy, but it is not a healthy relationship and needs to be carefully managed, especially when it comes to three critical areas:  currency, energy, and property rights.  You can read what Steve Weber says on Chinese-American relations in his new blog.

America and Innovation in the 21st Century

For over 20 years, I have been actively involved in US public policy matters in a variety of roles.  In the mid 1980s, for example, I helped found the Computer Science and Telecommunications Board (CSTB) which is part of the National Academies, and served as a member of the board until 1989.  From 1997 to 2001 I was a member of PITAC, the President's Information Technology Advisory Committee, and served as its co-chair from 1999 to 2001.  From time to time, I like to go to Washington to meet with people in various parts of government and discuss a variety of issues.