Yesterday's column by Steven Pearlstein in the Washington Post ( The Road to a Bailout They Don't Deserve) about the pending loan to the automakers contained a suggestion that echoed my earlier call for technology sharing:
The government should insist that its loans get first priority and be used only for investment in new technology that can be shared with competitors, or in new plants and equipment that could be sold to other car companies in the event of a bankruptcy.
I also liked Pearlstein's answer to the question of how to do this during yesterday's online discussion:
Washington, D.C.: Steven, I really like your idea that any technology coming out of the program should be shared. But given the current state of intellectual property rights and government rules on IP, how can this be done? Should there be an automatic patent pool, for example?
Steven Pearlstein: Yeah, something like that. There is already such an agreement among the Big three, which have received technology grants under programs dating to the Clinton administration. They formed a joint venture called US Car or something like that, and it morphed into something like Freedom Car under a subsequent Bush program. So there are mechanisms to do this, if the will is there.
I was around when US Car was formed, so Steven is right: we have the mechanisms, we just need the will.
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