Intellectual property is not a crucial part of this movie and as such, there is little discussion of it directly. A theme related to intellectual property throughout this movie is who has the rights to decide what time is shared amongst the people. When Weis and the Timekeeper are being blackmailed by Will Salas and Weis, they demand that time be redistributed and they discuss who actually has the rights to do that.
Similarly, if we look at intellectual property, we see many issues regarding who has the rights to distribute the information. Intellectual property in the medical fields is extremely similar to what we see here as the time is what ultimately keeps people alive. Having Intellectual Property in the medical field is extremely important because it allows the creators of the medicines, treatments and procedures to make up for the amount of money that clinical trials cost [1]. Arguments against IP, claim that when IP prevents people with less access to health care from receiving life saving treatments, that it has gone too far [1]. Allowing people to have access to the information needed to produce these treatments and technologies is crucial as it allows the market to stabilize, promotes further development and will lower the cost of treatments.
We also see that companies that own Intellectual Property Rights to their products display “68% more revenue per employee” [2]. Intellectual property rights are crucial in the development stage, allowing smaller companies to try things out without the risk of larger companies stealing the Ideas and having easier access to develop the products due to better access to resources [2]. Having access to other people's resources and ideas legally allows for major developments to be made, although this is a barrier to entry for smaller companies. The pro-con analysis of the pricing and availability of intellectual property is crucial and when the technologies are potentially able to alter people’s lives, the stakes are even higher. This movie calls to attention the harms of limiting access to technologies that result in people's deaths and wants us to think of the harms of that vs the benefits that few receive from the limitations. Is there other forms of funding that will stimulate research, development while allowing companies to monetize their products, without fear of larger companies stealing them. Would the lack of IP laws help the consumer or result in even stronger monopolies?
A lack of abusing intellectual property laws to gain extreme financial gain is unethical. Accoring to a virtue ethics evaluaiton of the situation, gaining excessive amounts of money while you allow people to suffer and possible die is not a good charactaristic and is something a virtuous person would not do. While every individual deserves the right to make money and get compensated for their work, when the situation is resulting in the harming of thousands of people, the excessive gain of money by individuals is not ethical [3].
[1] - Antole Krattiger, "Promoting access to medical innovation", (WIPO, September 2013) https://www.wipo.int/wipo_magazine/en/2013/05/article_0002.html , Accessed 27 April 2023
[2] - Maria del Coro Guitierez Pla and Lynn Burtchaell, "Managing intellectual Property rights in innovation: the key to reaching the market", (WIPO, March 2021), https://www.wipo.int/wipo_magazine/en/2021/01/article_0009.html, Accessed 27 April 2023
[3] - Micael J. Quinn, "Ethics for the Information Age 8th Edition", (Pearson, 2019)