Obviously I have no way of knowing, but I suspect they aren't selling any copies at $180, and that that price was chosen just to be a slight discount off the physical version. Even researchers with book budgets are going to think hard before spending that kind of money on a book. If that's the case, then bringing the price out of the stratospheric range might increase profits.

In five years, the book will be 5 more years out of date, and I will have moved on to different research projects, making it far less valuable to me than it would be now. Because of its limited shelf life, in my case no sale now likely means no sale forever.

It seems like some publishers/content owners do this, but others don't. You gave the example of games (I myself have picked up $5 and $10 specials on Steam); it also happens with books (paperbacks are released later and cost significantly less).

Thing is, I doubt it will happen with the book I gave as an example. It's too limited an audience to justify doing a paperback version. Yet the book was published in 2008. It's five years old, and the e-book price is still $180. I'd imagine they've probably sold most of the physical library copies they're ever going to. Why not reduce the e-book price so that people might actually buy it?

Or, what I'd really like to see is an agreement between publishers and print-on-demand services, so that I can buy a deeply discounted electronic version, and have it printed cheaply elsewhere and mailed to me.

The problem is, that logic runs into pricing issues. Take this book for example. At the time I wrote this post, the new price was $218, the Kindle edition was $180, and used copies also sold for $180. I would be happy to pay for that book, but not $180, and certainly not $218. I might pay $30.

In reality, I'll pay nothing, since it's so expensive that I'll just have to rely on the library's copy.

Now you can argue that this is a special case since it's a limited run academic book, but the point is that when there is a gap between what someone is willing to pay, and the actual price of the item, you have a lost sale. With respect to physical goods, maybe that's a sale you don't want, since you'd have to take a loss. But with respect to copyrighted goods, in many cases any price is going to net you a profit.

You're definitely right with respect to patents. However, I'm not sure the R&D Active/Inactive distinction matters as much for trademarks and copyrights.

Trademarks are valuable to all kinds of companies, so for trademarks I think the relevant category probably is "all companies", not "R&D active" companies.

Copyrights are more complicated. The survey explicitly excludes the development of most copyrighted products from the definition of R&D: "R&D also does not include literary, artistic, or historical projects, such as films, music, or books and other publications" (pg. 399). So there will be plenty of non-R&D active companies that stand to benefit significantly from copyright.

But, their definition of R&D would include software development, which falls under copyright (and possibly patent as well). So with respect to copyright, it's not obvious which category of company (All, R&D Active, or non-R&D active) would be best to use.

I looked more closely, and I think GP is right. I was misled by the initial description in the survey, but in the data tables they note that R&D active company statistic "are representative of companies located in United States that performed or funded R&D," and the sample does in fact include some companies that have reported zero R&D.

The survey is by definition confined to the target population of companies with 5+ employees and that "perform" R&D. However, they break down results and report by "all companies" as well as those that are especially R&D active versus those that still "perform" R&D, but not are not particularly R&D active. But "not active" does not mean not performing R&D at all.

I'm actually planning on merging this survey data by NAICS codes with other data from the Statistics of US Businesses and Economic Census surveys to look at precisely these questions. It's not a huge amount of work to do this, but it's not trivial, either.

FWIW, I was still surprised at the survey data in isolation... e.g., TFA notes that even if you look at a sector in which you'd expect people to say that IP is important (like software), only about half say that is important.

Yes, I've take several IP law courses. The problem with this logic in my mind, however, is that there is no way to directly trace the effects of formal protection to the empirical outcomes we witness in the world.

E.g., you could say the same exact thing about copyright. Copyright applies whether you register or not, but registration confers important advantages. Does this mean that everyone who creates anything copyrightable "relies" on copyright?

That's obviously true, but it assumes that trademark law is the only thing providing exclusivity. Or to put it another way, it assumes that every competitor is waiting to jump in and rip off someone's name and image, and the only thing preventing them is trademark law. I don't buy into that logic for tangible property: I don't assume that everyone is planning to steal from me, and the only thing restraining them is the law.

Thing is, this survey probably suggests that your scenario doesn't happen that often. In your example, I'd suspect laundromats tend not to open up right next to each other unless there's adequate demand (e.g., next to a university). And even if they do, washing clothes is not a particularly differentiable product. Sure, maybe one laundromat has machines that always work and a change machine that is well stocked, and the competitor wants to trade on the good name of Quickie Laundromat... but that ruse is only going to work one time, if that.

TFA states that when directly asked about trademarks, "87.2% of businesses reported that trademarks were 'not important' to them." Perhaps most business owners don't know what trademarks are (though that seems a bit unlikely), or perhaps they just don't see value in the formal protection offered by trademark law. Instead they're probably relying on informal branding, reputation, word of mouth, the community, etc. There are certainly intangible aspects here, but they don't require trademark law to function. Trademark law helps deal with disputes, but perhaps those disputes are less likely than we might think.

The article doesn't claim that IP doesn't matter to grocery stores. It just points out that it doesn't make sense to attribute the entire employment figures of all grocery stores across the U.S. to intellectual property. Which is precisely what the Patent Office's report did.

It may be fair to call grocery stores an IP-intensive industry, but if it is, that's a definition of "IP intensive" that most people aren't thinking of when they talk about patent and copyright policy.

No, no one believes that. However, apparently this isn't a big enough concern for most businesses to get them to respond that trademarks are "somewhat" or "very" important. I wonder how realistic the "You've Got Mail" scenario of theft of goodwill for the Shop Around The Corner bookstore actually is.

Well, their reputation may be everything, but I'm guessing many businesses don't even bother filing a trademark registration. I think one of the takeaways from the survey may be that formal intellectual property protection isn't always valuable to most businesses, even though intangible things like reputation may be very valuable.

From TFA:

It is logical... unless you're the U.S. Patent Office, which claims that IP is responsible for 40 million jobs and 35% of the U.S. GDP.

The survey results throw a wrench in the narrative that IP is critical to "the economy." It's clearly critical in certain industries, or for certain companies, but if 90% of businesses say its not important, blanket statements about how IP an economic "engine", etc. need to go.

The problem with this logic is that the survey specifically targets businesses performing R&D. From TFA:

But IP also includes trademarks, which in theory are relevant to virtually every business... unless maybe you supply a purely fungible commodity.

That said, I think you're right. When I considered my experiences with small businesses (a cabinet shop and a veterinary hospital), I realized that not even trademarks were particularly relevant. There was simple no real danger of someone ripping off the name of the business... it wouldn't really make sense to do so.

I'd love to see how politicians and government officials react when confronted with this kind of survey data.