IP is a key part of programing obsolescence
Moyse, 21 - Associate Professor at the McGill Faculty of Law and the Director of the Center for Intellectual Property Policy. (Pierre-Emmanuel, "The Uneasy Case of Programmed Obsolescence," Law Journal Library, https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3804451) //LP
Veblen's contention that the common stock of technical or pragmatic knowledge must be preserved, developed, and shared also remains particularly relevant to the current discourse on programmed obsolescence. Interestingly, Veblen does not favorably view the use and expansion of intellectual property. For him, the joint stock of knowledge cannot be reserved for private interests:
The state of the industrial art is a joint stock of knowledge derived from past experience, and is held and passed on as an indivisible possession of the community at large. It is the indispensable foundation of all productive industry, of course, but except for certain minute fragments covered by patent rights or trade secrets, this joint stock is no man's individual propery. 53
As we will see, Veblen's call for knowledge sharing and transparency in the industrial process challenges some of the key ingredients required to implement programmed obsolescence: the lack of information regarding product design and durability and the control of knowledge and technology through private property regimes, such as intellectual property rights. In Veblen's opinion, only a policy focused on industrial knowledge could improve the overall living conditions in modern society: