timelets

“It was by marrying nonrivalry to the concept of excludability, and applying the distinction where it had not been employed before, that Romer cast a new light on the “ubiquitous role of ideas in the economics of everyday life—meaning trade secrets, formulas, trademarks, algorithms, mechanisms, patents, scientific laws, designs, maps, recipes, procedures, business methods, copyrights, bootleg copies; collectively, that is, the economics of knowledge. He illuminated an inescapable tension between creating incentives for the production of new ideas and maintaining incentives for the efficient distribution and use of existing knowledge—the social choice that creates what we call intellectual property."

-- David Warsh. “Knowledge and the Wealth of Nations.”