As a patent attorney, I do not often see books about patents that are likely to be interesting to the general public. The Invisible Edge: Taking your Strategy to the Next Level Using Intellectual Property by Mark Blaxill and Ralph Eckardt is an exception. It contains some very interesting and engaging stories, and at the same time it makes a convincing case for the use of intellectual property as a central tool in gaining a competitive edge.
The book starts with a Tiger Woods story on the first page. Mark O’Meara had a good but not spectacular golfing career until 1998 when at the age of 41 he won the Masters and the British Open. His sudden form improvement was attributable to a new type of golf ball. O’Meara’s friend Tiger Woods started using the new type of ball, and then everyone else followed. The main ball manufacturer then started making the new type of ball, but they ran into trouble because the new ball was patented. I suspect that this story and others like it are tweaked for dramatic effect, but they certainly help to make the book interesting.
The authors say that you can determine the strength of a company’s patent position by the number of times that company’s patents have been cited by other patents; in my view the usefulness of information derived from patent citations is marginal at best. The authors deny that there is any problem with patent trolls; in my view the purpose of the patent system, to encourage innovation which creates economic growth and ultimately benefits everyone, is not assisted by someone who buys up old patents from a bankrupt company at a bargain price and then uses them to extract unreasonable royalties from others.
The book’s central thrust is about the importance of intellectual property, with particular emphasis on patents. I think that this message is a vital one. Almost all economic growth over the last 200 years has been attributable to technological improvements, and future economic growth will depend on more innovation. Patents have been important in encouraging innovation. The book does not acknowledge the many failings of the current patents system, but it is still a great read.
A video review of this book is available at my new site, BusinessLessons.org.