Joseph Sinclair wrote:
> Sorry to nitpick, but there's a critical misunderstanding in the below:
>
> 1) The original purpose of patents (and copyright) was to foster innovation
> by offering a *TRADE* in that the patent/copyright holder is permitted a
> very *LIMITED* time monopoly on an idea or expression in return for
> full publication (so that others can build on the idea)*. Patents are
> absolutely NOT (NO NOT EVER!) *intended* to provide financial incentive, that's a side-effect.
> The writers of the US constitution realized that the greatest financial
> incentive in a free market is to keep an invention secret (like the Coke recipe)
> and they created the patent and copyright systems in an effort to move
> ideas from the realm of trade-secret into the public domain. This was done
> through a very clever trade, the holder gets a clear and simple monopoly
> that they don't have to struggle to keep (the courts will help), but only
> for a limited time (it's hard to keep a secret forever anyway)
> and society gets the benefit of others creating even more inventions
> deriving from the patented one, and full access to the patented invention
> once the term lapses (which is why everyone seems to be creating smart-cards
> these days, the original patents mostly lapsed a few years ago).
>
> IMO, the critical problem with the term "intellectual property" is that it implies
> a right to profit from the use of said "IP". There is no right to profit from an
> idea or innovation. If you can, that's great, but don't expect the larger society
> to help. It's in society's best interests to actually limit how much one may
> profit from an idea, because the greatest value in ideas is when they're shared,
> and the more one entity profits from an idea, the less widely it can be shared
> due to cost barriers. Ideas are a public good, not private property, and the ONLY
> proper role of government in this arena is exactly what the US constitution permits,
> to offer the minimum required temporary incentives to overcome the selfish desire
> to keep ideas a secret. Our current system goes so far beyond that goal that it's
> a national shame.
>
> * http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/cgi-bin/getcase.pl?navby=case&court=US&vol=489&invol=141&pageno=150
Well said. The bottom line is that the patent system (not to mention
Copyright) is broken -- no doubt the founding fathers would have a fit over
how it's being applied today. I don't hear anyone arguing that it is working
as intended. Frankly, I'm pretty sure I can't write a single line of code
without violating someone's patents -- yet more laws we have to ignore to live
reasonably.
Sadly, there's no outrage from our the citizens of the US to their
representatives so that something would get done. I guess they're too worried
about a women wound up dead in FL or some other silliness....
Jeff
---------------------------------------------------
PLUG-discuss mailing list -
PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us
To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change you mail settings:
http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss
(text/plain)