As the fruits of ever-changing technology play an increasing role in the U.S. economy, the country must strike the right balance in developing legal protections for innovative ideas or “intellectual property,” Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said Friday.



“Are the protections sufficiently broad to encourage innovation but not so broad as to shut down follow-on innovation?” Greenspan asked in remarks prepared for delivery via a satellite video link to a Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta conference in Sea Island, Ga.



“How appropriate is our current system — developed for a world in which physical assets predominated — for an economy in which value increasingly is embodied in ideas rather than tangible capital?” Greenspan asked.
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