ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines the major changes in the economy in knowledge societies and their consequences for society, especially as a result of the emergence of knowledge as an immediate productive force. It emphasizes the socio-economic consequences of patents and patent portfolios; less the ideology and politics of patent systems. Patents and their rigid enforcement are not merely economic phenomena, patents distribute power and wealth and impact political relations. The new language that becomes necessary should also, in contrast to the orthodox image of modern society, emphasize above all, however, the newly acquired capacities of actors to act, the flexibility, heterogeneity, volatility of social structures, and the possibility that a greater number of individuals and groups have the capacity to influence and reproduce these structures in their own sense. Trigger and amplifier of this future social development, this much can be said, is a multiple and manifold extension of the capacities for action of individuals and small social groups.
