Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Where you stand - on patent protection?

I hope it works out for ya, Terry8.

Probably all that will happen, though, is feed a bunch of starving lawyers...

A lot of guys are hammering Barak, but he is right. The arguments being made for patent protection are not the same reasons he's against it. There's no doubt that people benefit from patent protection. Some on this very forum have personal experience. There's also no doubt that patent protection stifles innovation in other circumstances, as Barak mentioned.

I sometimes ask myself how would have mankind evolved if intellectual property rights would hav� been used to protect th� first concepts leading to th� design of th� wheel, fire lighting methods... or the first stone tools.

Maybe our technology is stagnating by lack of emulation and creativity thanks to law walls.

Excellent audio essay from "This American Life" on patent trolls in the Silicon Valley.

When Patents Attack!

Maybe your problem is that you didn't look at your phone carefully enough with respect for apples patents. I played some with an S3 and it is nearly identical to an iPhone in most respect. Sorta like two of GMs cars with different bodies and everything else identical.

Its Constitutional!

Article I, Section 8, Clause 8 of the United States Constitution, known as the Copyright Clause, empowers the United States Congress:
To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.

Sure, but just because it's constitutional doesn't mean it's a good idea.

Look at taxes and voting, for example.

Barak - it sounds like the author you quote doesn't understand patents are only good for 20 years

BTW not to be harsh but if you have no experience with IPR law (patents) other than " I want to be" academia you might want to do more practical research before jumpin folks

The existence of countries like China make patents, at least internationally, not worth much. But conceptually, yes they are a good idea. Unless you think there is a world of difference between a better mouse trap and the idea/plans for the better mouse trap.

There is no such thing as an universal international patent, you have to file in each country where you may have to enforce them

Intellectual property should be protected, now spinning off a minuscule improvement and patenting it is absurd.

Thanks for "minuscule." Most folks spell it "miniscule." Makes me itch.

"Intellectual property" isn't property. It can't be. Trying to treat it like property is a futile effort doomed to failure from the start.

The concept of property is founded on the attribute of scarcity. Only scarce things can be property.

Where clean water is plentiful, and everyone can have as much as he wants simply for the taking, nobody worries about property rights in water. In more arid climates where water is scarce, systems of property rights naturally grow up around it, and if you transgress those rights you can find yourself heavily fined, imprisoned, or even killed.

An idea, once made public, cannot be scarce. It's available to everyone simply for the copying, which costs something between very, very little and nothing at all.

That is a profound, fundamental, irreconcilable qualitative difference between "intellectual property" and real property, and trying to treat the two as if they were the same thing--or even vaguely similar--can't possibly succeed; it's like trying to treat an electric blender as if it were a bird.

You want to try providing legal protections for the thoughts in people's heads? I think it's a lousy, dangerous idea; but if you're going to do it anyway, at least treat them like thoughts in people's heads, not like property--because they're not property.

Property in this case refers to ownership of rights ( Intellectual Property Rights ) when building upon a foundational concept or Idea aka Invention.

Nothing more, nothing less

I wouldn't advise getting to distracted by fancy language or the lack there of, its a barriers to communication that can easily impair one ability to focus on elements of any logical argument / discussion

Barak do you have a patent?

BTW - a single patent isn't worth a whole hell of a lot when it comes to things like the IPhone. Typically there is an group of 10's to hundreds required to cover something like that.

Keep in mind patents are only good for twenty years - after that the Ideas are free to produce.

So you're defining property in terms of rights and rights in terms of property?


Of course not. Nor any copyrights either. And if I did, I certainly wouldn't admit to it in this thread.

That's like asking Chuck Schumer if he has any assault weapons.

But according to legal definition, I create inventions every day as a software developer. (Yes, the language is a little overly dramatic, but that's what they call it.)

The only time I've ever been upset about how others used my work was when I found out that some embedded code I had written for a telecomm company had been sold to the feds and had made it into the B-2 stealth bomber. I write code to make lives more convenient and occasionally to preserve or save them, not to destroy them.

Well, okay, one other time I was working for a company that produced data-mining software for people like private investigators and insurance companies, and suddenly we started to get some new not-quite-right-seeming clients who looked an awful lot like covers for national intelligence agencies. So I left and got another job--writing inventory-control and shipping software, if I remember correctly.

In my current job as a consultant, most of the time I'm not working for software companies, but in clients' IT departments writing software for internal use--that is, a couple of manufacturing firms, a bank, a publishing company, a health-care clearinghouse, an insurance company, a large retailer, stuff like that. Copyrights and patents don't really apply, because there'd be no point in stealing the stuff unless you had precisely identical business processes, networks, and server farms, which you won't, and I don't have to worry about my work being sold to the government.

Intellectual rights or patents is what your thread is about, but it's the governments naming convention, not mine. And Yes it's treated like property - both of which involve rights of use.

Can you Patent code - nope - written software is not sufficient for issuing a patent. The "legal" criteria for a patent is that it must be "new" and "novel" writing software code hardly meets that criteria. You could copy write it but not patent it unless you create a system that does things in a new way that is fundamentally different from all else that exists today.

Intellectual property protection is a fundamental concept that allows capitalism to work. Look at third world countries that have no functional protections. Investment in the those countries has been limited, thus keeping them third world countries. Businesses that invest in China go in eyes wide open.
Are there abuses of patent laws? Sure. But on balance, having those protections do far more good than harm.
One can find books to support any position one wants to take, on almost anything.
This argument almost boils down to the socialist/collectivist vs the conservative/free market philosophy our country was founded on.
Samsung could have hundreds of unique ideas in their phones, if they copied/stole one protected feature from Apple and incorporated it, then they can be prevented from profiting from that feature. A court trial just determines the facts and the remedies if indicated.