Comments

• Jose_X

  2010-01-04 11:53:04

  It's not really that copyrights are sufficient so that "patent protections aren't needed", as it is that patents can be very disruptive and simply put control out of the hands of those trying to advance the industry and society.
  
  Patents are too broad; they have scope over many inventions which simply resemble the patent author's invention like the body resembles its shadow. Patents are too biased in favor of wealthy competitors; they are not automatic and are too expensive to take out and maintain. They are too stifling; they grant an absolute monopoly and for too long of a period of time (this is especially true for intangible creations and in the Internet collaboration/instant sharing era). They don't recognize independent inventions; hence, they are quite unfair and disruptive to honest hard-working individual inventors and by extension to society (since honest inventors -- who are as capable as dishonest inventors if not more -- are much more likely to participate within society under fair terms).
  
  The result of all of this is that they clearly damage society and innovation. But then again their point is to allow some (trolls) to leeching off innovation, to allow others (titan companies) to control innovation, and/or to allow still others (lawyers) to make lots of money supporting them.
  
  [A recent rebuttal covering the above in more detail is in the comments section of http://www.againstmonopoly.org/index.php?limit=10&chunk=0&perm=593056000000002130 ]

• Roy Schestowitz

  2010-01-04 12:17:06

  Copyrights are "cheap". You can earn them as soon as you code. Patents, on the other hands, are unfair barriers that only the rich can afford.

• your_friend

  2010-01-04 15:59:37

  Patents are a form of tax farming, a backdoor private tax. Governments create monopolies under the assumption that it will be easier to extract taxes from a small number of easy to control companies that are able to price gouge everyone else. At their best, as in the case of the early US, governments will claim they grant temporary monopolies for the public good, the advancement of the art or some other noble cause that outweighs odious exclusion and market interference. Regardless of justification, price gouging by the owner is the intended result.
  
  Patents on ideas are the most odious form of exclusion governments can make. It would be more honest and practical for government to grant outright manufacturing monopolies, as Kings and Communists once did, than it is for them to grant monopolies on concepts that mutually exclude all from doing anything. The US system has stagnated one of the richest economies in the world to the point where it seems practical to have all manufacturing done by Communist China.

• Roy Schestowitz

  2010-01-04 17:54:12

  Things will be getting more complicated if the patent system keeps retarding local production. At the moment, the debt keeps growing.
  
  http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=16749

• Jose_X

  2010-01-04 18:59:27

  >> to allow others (titan companies) to control innovation
  
  What I meant was "to throttle (slow down) innovation"

• Jose_X

  2010-01-04 12:02:58

  The judge appears to be trying to improve upon a broken system.
  
  Here is a lawyer (Neil Schulman) that is gung-ho for creating as many types of ownerships as one can contrive. http://www.againstmonopoly.org/index.php?limit=10&chunk=0&perm=593056000000002112
  
  The reply form Stephan Kinsella:
  
  >> Your mistake is in assuming that any "thing" can be owned. There are an infinite number of "things" out there--the human mind can conceptually understand the world in any number of ways. My love for my poodle "exists". The fact-that-the-earth-rotated-today exists. My ability-to-jog exists. Poems exist. Crime exists. There "are" facts. I "have" memories. Perfume scents "exist." Physics equations and mathematical algorithms "exist." The method of long division is a "thing". It is obviously ludicrous to assert that just because I can define or name or conceptualize a "thing" that it does, or even can, have an owner. We do not even get to the question of "who owns that thing?" unless the thing is an ownable thing. Not all things are ownable things. What is ownable? Only scarce resources. Information is not a scarce resource. You and I can both use the transistor-idea at the same time.

• Jose_X

  2010-01-04 12:04:52

  The judge appears to be trying to improve upon a broken system.. without first fixing the broken axioms.

• Roy Schestowitz

  2010-01-04 12:21:11

  All of our output -- whether we like it or not -- is just a combination of inputs. In other words, we put together things that we learn to make up "new" things. If we claim "ownership" of our "output", who "owns" the "inputs"? Should all "inputs" carry a fee and/or a penalty? Does this transfer of imaginary wealth (liabilities) advance research in any way? Or is it an unnecessary inconvenience?

• Yuhong Bao

  2010-01-04 16:22:40

  In fact, it was exactly about the definition of the word "patent troll" that caused MS to be charged for misconduct in the MS/i4i case.

• Roy Schestowitz

  2010-01-04 17:56:07

  Not quite.
  
  'The judge cited a particular incident in which a Microsoft lawyer compared plaintiff i4i, Inc. to banks that sought bailout money from the federal government under the Troubled Asset Relief Program.'
  
  '"He further persisted in improperly trying to equate i4i's infringement case with the current national banking crisis implying that i4i was a banker seeking a 'bailout'," Davis said.'
  
  http://www.informationweek.com/news/software/enterpriseapps/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=219400044
  
  It's a different analogy.