Patent Nonsense

ziriyab writes: "This article from The Guardian, after a few paragraphs of corporation bashing, gives an interesting history of two countries (Switzerland and the Netherlands) who flourished without IP laws. The article, while not necessarily suggesting that the abandonment of patent protection is an essential precondition for development, seems to indicate that it can, in the right circumstances, be an effective tool."

Comments

Small scale...

[cliffy2000]

Although such things can work in a small nation... one really wonders whether or not such findings can translate to the larger scale of the United States. Interesting, nevertheless.

Re:Small scale...

[Anonymous Coward]

small nation? scale?

do you think something like in the netherlands, there are just living some happy freaks? big traders ever been, colonists, seafarers. highest population per area in europe. caused by that, best infrastructure in the world, I guess.

Placed between london and switzerland, at the river rhine which comes through a "few" other cities. which is a quite small area, but this is the economic and overpopulated heart of the whole EU (and switzerland, of course).

This "small nation" is in the middle of one of the largest scales on earth. And scales very well.

And no, I'm not an orange one.

but much of this bullshit in the world is just not needed. and the netherlands are very pracmatic in those cases, IMHO.

Re:Small scale...

[optikSmoke]

I think, perhaps, that size is not necessarily the issue, as much as mentality. From what I can see, Americans are more rule-bound than many other nations. A quick example: in Canada (yes, I'm Canadian), our highway-level speed limit is 100km/h (a few miles faster than 60mph, to put it in perspective). However, its generally understood (in an unspoken type of way) that 120km/h is an acceptable speed. When you drive down to the States (or when Americans drive up here), they seem to drive very slowly. What am I getting at? The American psyche seems to be based around rules and boundaries. I personally don't know if this would work in the US, simply because the culture there isn't right for it. It seems that there is this idea that you must protect what you have, and if the current system doesn't work to do that, more rules must be created. Obviously, there is a point (which we are fast approaching, if not already at) where few but those able to pay for expensive lawyers will be able to benefit from such a rule-bound society.

Re:Small scale...

[Psmylie]

Good Lord, where you been driving in the US? I go 80 on the freeway, and I'm in the fricken' "slow" lane, getting passed by people going waaay faster.

Re:Small scale...

[HiThere]

It doesn't seem to me that there is much evidence that the patent system has been generally advantageous to the United States, unless you consider large corporations and expensive lawyers to be and advantage.

It also seems to me that there is considerable evidence that patents have been harmful to the citizens of the United States (on the average, rather than weighted by disposable income). And that they have been since the 1950's. (I first started hearing patent lawyers talk about how bad the patent system was in articles that I read from around 1952, though it's clearly gotten much worse since then.)

Stupid patents/patent laws and "everlasting" copyrights are two of the major blocks forces centrallizing economic control and blocking economic growth in this country.

I wouldn't claim that patents and copyrights are inherently bad. But I would claim that they are inherently dangerous. They are government approved monopolies, and those who have monopolies always try to extend them to cover more turf. As has happened with both the copyright laws and the patent laws. At this point I feel that we'd be better off without any such laws than with having the ones that we have. I also don't feel that this was true in 1950. In between ... I wasn't watching most of the time, but I'm rather sure that the transition was gradual.
.

Re:Small scale...

[davecb]

There is a famous, recent parallell case, involving the United States. Copyright. As you may recollect, The Lord of the Rings was "pirated" in the U.S. by a major publisher, because the U.S. copyright system did not at that time honor British copyright. It had not since the revolution (although for a number of years it was claimed to, although the exceptions functioned in such a way as to allow it to be avoidd at will). As a result, copies from the lawfull U.S. publisher carried prominent notices on the endpapers that purchasers of the other publisher's books were denying the author his royalties. This was publically defended in the U.S. Senate as a necessary means to the establishment and maintenance of a national publishing industry, and a necessary and proper reduction in the rights of the author, a foreigner.

This, then, gives a case quite parallel to the cited patent cases, involving a large and relatively well-to-do country (;-)).

Not impressed

[bob_clippy]

This article tells us what we already knew, that in the mid- to late stages of a technological wave a General Motors or Dell Computer can flourish because of operational excellence instead of fundamental innovation. But who's going to do the innovating?

Re:Not impressed

[ragmana]

Whoever feels like innovating will innovate. Read paragraph 8 of the article.

Re:Not impressed

[Baki]

Who? R&D should be done where it belongs: at universities and independant research institutions. These should be funded only by tax money, so they can remain independant (no contract research serving commercial interests of small groups, but objective research for the benefit of all).

Where does the tax money come from? By no longer recognizing patents, the price of many products (such as medicines) shall drop massively. The people save large amounts of money, which can be spent on taxes instead, to fund R&D. The companies are "freed" of doing fundamental R&D (they still need to develop an efficient production process of course, but without expensive R&D they can survive much lower product prices) and the outcome of all R&D is open and free to use for everyone.

Maybe this sounds like utopia, but it sure would be interesting to try; I am convinced it would work, but alas companies with vested interests are blocking this, and bribe politicians/governments to prevent a change.

This is the way science has developed in Europe during the renaissance and later, free exchange of information and knowledge. I cannot believe that blocking free exchange of knowledge in the end can be good for the advance of mankind.

The current state of affairs makes me really sad and depressed. It is a disgrace for our generation that information that can benefit many (such as how to produce cheap medicines that can save many lives) is hidden only because of a supposed need to protect the current economic system.

Re:Not impressed

[Anonymous Coward]

So instead of private companies funding research, government beaurocrats should fund research?

Worked great for the Russians, didn't it?

Re:Not impressed

[bob_clippy]

OK, I missed that the first time. The incentives for innovation aren't the same for manufacturing and software, though. Manufacturers try to ride the e- (experience) curve so they will be a high volume, lowest cost producer by the time their competitors have copied their innovation. Software seems to be dominated by the network effects of the platform owners, obviously Microsoft but also Sun for Java, Oracle for RDBMS, Intel for PC hardware, etc. It is fairly straightforward for platform owners to push aside the software innovators.

Not saying that patents are the answer, just that the incentives for software innovation have to be thought out.

Re:Not impressed

[Mr Windows]

No; the things mentioned in the article (eg Milk Chocolate, cereals) were invented by people who started their own companies, not by large GM/Dell-a-likes. Nestle, for example, are large now, but they weren't always.

Re:Not impressed

[Spamuel]

I agree, it does sound like utopia, and it would be interesting to try. But what happens when the experiment blows up in your face?

Re:Not impressed

[bob_clippy]

Most companies I've worked at have been less than 20% "R" and over 80 percent "D", so maybe you've gotten your wish already. Look at the ACM and IEEE journal articles - most of them seem to come out of universities and government labs. But I still like the profit motive as an incentive for technological innovation. University researchers (not all, but some) tend to be conference-oriented, focusing on stuff that will lead to an interesting lecture at next year's conference in Europe, as opposed to things which will satisfy customer wants/needs.

Re:Not impressed

[MoneyT]

You forget though, Profit comes from selling a product that people want for a price that is beyond the actual production cost. It does not come from eliminating competition. By effectively patenting everything in site, you eliminate the ability to have competition, and since the only way to succeed in a purely competative market is to either (A) slash your prices, thus killing profits (B) or innovate.

Think about it, if Ian Flemming was able to patent the spy novel, the only spy stories we would have would be james bond. No Austin Powers, no Mission Impossible. I know it's a lousy example, but the point remains the same. Patents have a tendency to kill capitalism rather than protect it.

Re:Not impressed

[bob_clippy]

Think about it, if Ian Flemming was able to patent the spy novel, the only spy stories we would have would be james bond. No Austin Powers, no Mission Impossible.

Too bad no one patented the popup browser ad.

Re:Not impressed

[MoneyT]

I wonder if I can patent the method that I use to make funny noises with my mouth. I could collect a paycheck every time someone uses my method!!!!

(cue dollar signs for eyeballs)

Re:Not impressed

[the eric conspiracy]

This is the way science has developed in Europe during the renaissance and later, free exchange of information and knowledge.

The industrial revolution, however, did not occur until after England adopted a patent system.

Re:Not impressed

[HalfFlat]

As the comment above languishing above at -1 says, it did work great for the Russians.

In spite of a terrible economy and poor infrastructure, Russian technology was on par with or (in some areas) exceeded that of the United States. The USSR produced some of the finest mathematicians, engineers and scientists the world has seen.

When private companies fund and own research, it benefits directly only a small group of people. When research is publicly funded, it not only benefits the public at large directly, it also indirectly raises the power and efficiency of further research, as all the researches can draw upon this public body of knowledge. The efficiency gain scales super-linearly.

Re:Not impressed

[ragmana]

Again, read paragraph 8 of the article. I'm not talking about Commu-Facist rhetoric, I'm talking about paragraph 8 of the article - examples of people innovating without the patent "carrot." In the real world.

Also, if you would have read the rest of the thread, you would see the manufacturing sector as an area where innovation occurs and would occur independantly of everlasting patents. Also in the thread is the idea of patents as they were originally created - temporary patents. The real question now, as brought up in the thread, is how do we deal with categories that are typically standardized - areas where those doing the standardization (MS in this case, read the thread) prevent innovation (software, read the thread).

What's really amazing is how fast people post - how fast they start talking with authority about things they haven't even read yet.

Re:Not impressed

[nerdlyone]

Where does the tax money come from? By no longer recognizing patents, the price of many products (such as medicines) shall drop massively. The people save large amounts of money, which can be spent on taxes instead, to fund R&D. ..

Maybe this sounds like utopia, ...

Utopia? Hardly. You suggest increasing taxes on people so the GOVERNMENT can fund research that is currently paid for by corporations. Your "Utopia" plan also sounds like government controlled and directed research, with none in the private sector. Instead of providing incentive for investors to volunatarily give their money to the kind of research they think will work or which they want to support, you seem to think that compulsory investment (that is what taxes are--compulsory) by everyone, controlled by the government, will be better.

Hey, why have corporations at all? Wouldn't a structured economy work much better?

The article itself makes points against its own thesis. They claim they are showing us how you can fluorish without patents, but the companies who "flourished without patent protection" only flourished because THERE WERE NO LAWS TO PREVENT THEM FROM STEALING OTHER PEOPLE'S IDEAS. Ever heard of a free rider? Ever heard of recouping investment cost? OF COURSE THOSE THIEVES MADE MONEY! THEY PAID NOTHING TO DEVELOP THEIR PRODUCTS, THEY JUST STOLE THEM FROM THE PEOPLE WHO DID DEVELOP THEM. When you get to sell something you got for free, it's easy to make a profit. Basically, the article shows that its profitable to be a thief. I already knew that, thanks.

The current state of affairs makes me really sad and depressed. It is a disgrace for our generation that information that can benefit many (such as how to produce cheap medicines that can save many lives) is hidden only because of a supposed need to protect the current economic system.

Protect the current economic system? Have you heard of the goose that laid the golden eggs? Well, some fool decided he's gut the goose to get all the gold out of it. Problem was that the goose wasn't just full of gold, IT MADE THE GOLD. He destroyed his means of production.

This is what you suggest. Hey, why provide incentive to create? The gubbament will take care of us.

Patents are not copyrights. Copyright law is seriously screwed up right now, because technology has advanced much more quickly than the law has reacted. But patents are a good thing. It lets you invest literally millions of dollars with the assurance that whatever you end up developing won't be stolen by your competitor, who paid nothing to develop it. If you do away with this protection, you do away with the incentive to create. The IC in your computer has lots and lots of patented technology in it. You wouldn't have that IC were it not for patent laws. Sure, we could do away with patent law now, and we'd still have ICs for a while. But we would stop growing, and in forty years our technology would be significantly less than it would were there property rights for ideas.

Sorry for the rant, I don't mean to attack anyone personally. But some people on these boards are missing the point of IP law. There are abuses, of course, but the system is robust and generates more wealth for society than any of the socialist systems that have been advocated here.

Re:Not impressed

[nerdlyone]

Again, read paragraph 8 of the article. I'm not talking about Commu-Facist rhetoric, I'm talking about paragraph 8 of the article - examples of people innovating without the patent "carrot." In the real world.

They just had a different carrot. I would be willing to bet that they kept their recipes as trade secrets. That is another way to protect your IP. This example--para 8--bypasses the real issue: how to protect ideas that are evident in the product. I can drink innovative chocolate milk and not know how to make it. So it doesn't need patent protection.

Not everything can be protected by keeping it secret. Reverse engineering is a fine art. Also, under your idea, the recipes of those foodstuffs would never ever come into the public domain. They would remain secret forever, like the Coke formula. At least patents are fully disclosed to the public before they are granted, and they go into the public domain after a term. You suggest a system where it is in business's best interest not to publish their results. And they would most definitely want to keep their research secret, for fear of others appropriating their ideas without having invested in them.

Re:Not impressed

[Baki]

No, not government controlled and directed research, but (free) academic research, as used to exist until the 1980s, and as partly still exists.

More and more however, the universities get budget cuts and are forced to revert to contract research and to serving commercial interests instead of scientific interests.

Noone would forbid corporations to do research or development. And they can use others research for free and develop interesting products; because of less investiments necessary, those products can be cheaper.

For thousands of years, human civilisation has built upon knowledge of others, thus advancing general knowledge, science and culture. How come that in this time people call that "stealing of ideas" or "freeriding"? IMO this is a horrible perversion to look at things. It is a scandal, destructive, inefficient and disgraceful.

What incentive did michelangelo have to create, or Newton, or Pascal, Einstein? Do you really need patents for that?

Edison by the way, stole ideas from someone else, then patented them and got rich through that.

Re:Not impressed

[nerdlyone]

No, not government controlled and directed research, but (free) academic research, as used to exist until the 1980s, and as partly still exists.

Free? I thought you wanted taxpayers to pay for it. Which means the government controls where the money goes. Which means government controlled. Who do you think runs state universities?

Not that State universities are bad at all, that is not what I am trying to say. But trying to gut corporate research and force it all into the university setting is bad. Lots of good research is done in universities, but lots is also done by the private sector. Which universities will be producing the constant upgrades on semiconductor manufacturing processes? That is just an example. Most of the technology we rely on is developed by private companies, because they have incentive to improve the products--so they can stay competitive. You sound like you want to do away with this competition. I could have misinterpreted you though. Not trying to mischaracterize you.

Noone would forbid corporations to do research or development. And they can use others research for free and develop interesting products; because of less investiments necessary, those products can be cheaper.

Why would less investment be necessary? To improve products, research must still be done. Just having access to other information will do nothing, because there is already access. Patents don't prevent access to research, they PROMOTE it. Without patent protection, a company must keep their research secret to protect it. With patent protection, you MUST DISCLOSE your innovation to even get a patent, which puts it out there for others to work with (research with patented ideas is not infringement, so patents don't limit access or research on patented ideas).

What incentive did michelangelo have to create, or Newton, or Pascal, Einstein? Do you really need patents for that?

No, not for basic scientific research. But to constantly improve products, as the public demands, you have to invest lots of money. THAT DOES REQUIRE INCENTIVE. Profit incentive from investors, which is what patents are all about--not to get a scientist to decide he wants to investigate, but to get investors to pay him the money he needs in order to do that investigating.

And if Edison didn't actually conceive the ideas he patented, he broke the law. Don't blame the law for being broken.

What about manufacturing vs producing ideas?

[kingdon]

It is a good article. One issue which they didn't mention is the recent trend towards companies which just produce intellectual property, and don't actually make anything (for example, who license chip designs to manufacturers). This is mostly a recent trend (say, last 10-20 years). Not that I'm saying this is a good trend - I'd be hard pressed to say that the world is bettter of with Rambus than without it. Maybe it comes down to: is there a shortage of ideas? Or is there a shortage of people who actually put those ideas into production use and hone off the fine edges? For the most part, intellectual property protection addresses the former and not the latter.

Re:What about manufacturing vs producing ideas?

[forii]

One issue which they didn't mention is the recent trend towards companies which just produce intellectual property, and don't actually make anything (for example, who license chip designs to manufacturers). This is mostly a recent trend (say, last 10-20 years). Not that I'm saying this is a good trend - I'd be hard pressed to say that the world is bettter of with Rambus than without it.

You just pointed out WHY this is a good trend. Developing new chip designs (or any new Intellectual activity) is risky. Most big companies are wary of too much risk, and for good reason, as a major flop can cause a lot of damage to the company, even if it is a relatively minor part of the company as a whole.

A small, new, company, though, has less to lose. So they often are the ones that make the big advances in technology. The problem is, by being small, they do not have the resources that are necessary to bring a design into being. By licensing their designs, however, they can allow a bigger company to do what they do best (bring a design into production), which insulating the larger corporation from the risk of the basic design.

Let me put it this way: You may not like Rambus's technology, (or the way the company acts), but what if Intel had been developing it? As it is, Intel tried to force RAMBUS on the industry, and they only had a (relatively) small investment in the company. Imagine if they had been developing that baby since the beginning! The investment would have been MUCH greater, and so Intel would have been using every resource at their disposal to recoup their investment, rather than seeing the writing on the wall and giving people the option to not use it at all.

Re:What about manufacturing vs producing ideas?

[Znork]

Small companies who do design dont _have_ to have the resources to bring the design into being. Most large companies dont even do that. That's why you _buy_ the manufacturing. Pretty much every chip design company outsources manufacturing; it just isnt worthwhile to have your own plants for most companies.

Intel did use pretty much every resource at their disposal. Fortunately, Intel does not have a monopoly marketshare, and they had no choice but to give people an option when some segments just about quit buying Intel and turned to AMD instead. Had they been even more hardline and not sold ordinary SDRAM systems, they would have priced themselves completely out of the desktop segments.

KaZaa?

[DickPhallus]

Isn't kazaa a dutch company? Look at how evil they are! Barbarians... tsk tsk

Re:KaZaa?

[subgeek]

started in the Netherlands, KaZaA is now Australian. The Dutch sold it. all of the fun with shutting Morpheus down was around the same time that the company changed hands.

The Patents Occur in the U.S.

[isa-kuruption]

Although a patent system does not exist in Finland or Sweden, all Finnish companies who sell their product do so internationally and will file patents with the U.S. Patent Office (e.g. Nokia). Since countries that want to trade with the U.S. must obey U.S. patent laws, a patent given in the U.S. is still good in Finland. This means that the Finnish government gives assistance to the U.S. if they believe there is a patent violation from someone in Finland.

Re:The Patents Occur in the U.S.

[greenrd]

Since countries that want to trade with the U.S. must obey U.S. patent laws

Rubbish. Britain doesn't have (many) software patents, and therefore almost all US software patents are null and void over here.

Re:The Patents Occur in the U.S.

[geekoid]

Not true anymore.
recent treaties state that signing countries will support patent and copyright laws of other countries that sign.

Re:The Patents Occur in the U.S.

[eddy]

Although a patent system does not exist in Finland or Sweden [...]

There is a patent system in Sweden, unless 'patent system' means something highly specific/technical of which I'm not aware. Patents in Sweden are handled by Patent och Registreringsverket.

Re:The Patents Occur in the U.S.

[Chuut-Riit]

Finland DOES have a patent system (I know because I lectured to a room full of Finnish patent agents in 1995, who were worried that because Finland was becoming part of the European Patent system (you file once in Europe and designate a bunch of European countries, and once the EP patent is issued, you file translations in each country where you want protection INCLUDING SWITZERLAND, THE NETHERLANDS AND SWEDEN).

I found it interesting that the two companies mentioned in the article (CIBA and Unilever) are not at all shy of obtaining and enforcing patent rights throughout the world (including in their home countries), although their existence is, in some measure, due to their ability to knock off the innovations of others with impunity.

I guess it helps to have a sense of irony when dealing with large corporations.

Re:The Patents Occur in the U.S.

[haggar]

Please get your act straight: a patent system DOES indeed exist in Finland, and is very much like the USA one. I have attended an intellectual property and patent application session in Nokia, in Finland, and this point was very clearly emphasized.

Re:The Patents Occur in the U.S.

[OpenGLFan]

The Swiss do have a patent system.

Or at least, they did when Albert Einstein worked as a patent examiner in Bern, Switzerland. Did some nifty physics in his spare time, too.

This is just stupid...

[gartogg]

are they advocating the abandonment of copyright laws? This is stupid. People will not develop proprietary software if there is no way to make money off of it.

Linux works, but try selling software to commercial firms that don't have to abide by copyright. 1 per world software purchases.

Re:This is just stupid...

[alan_d_post]

Eben Moglen is

Re:This is just stupid...

[pknoll]

From the article:

"These examples do not necessarily suggest that the abandonment of patent protection is an essential precondition for development."

So, no. They're not suggesting that.

Re:This is just stupid...

[Mr Windows]

No, the article is about patents, which are very different from copyright.

Patents require disclosure of an invention (in full detail), have to be applied for, and are time-limited (they last for 17 years after being granted, IIRC). Copyright applies to the expression of ideas (actually, to any tangible expression of anything; writing, sheet music, musical performances, etc.), are automatic and last until 70 years (YMMV) after the author's death (different rules apply to companies, of course).

Most software doesn't have patents applicable to it (about the only examples I can think of are MP3s (Fraunhofer own the compression algorithm) and GIFs (Compuserve, now Unisys, I think, own the compression algorithm), but all software is subject to copyright, unless explicitly made public domain (very different from open source, but you knew that). So doing away with (eg) software patents would have next to no effect on the software industry. Some would say that doing away with copyright would have similar impact, but that's more contentious :)

Re:This is just stupid...

[rusty0101]

Actually two other software pattents do show the effectiveness of pattenting software. PKZip and the RSA public key encryption process were pattented. I suspect that Phil Katz got a pattent for PKZip as a result of the headaches he went through with his ARC compression process.

As a result of the pattents on RSA encryption, there was an added expense if you wanted to market a product in the US that used RSA encryption, up until the pattent expired recently. The problem for a lot of people was the fact that the libraires for the freeware PGP products in the US could not include any of the code for RSA. There was not licencing agreement that would have been reachable.

-Rusty

No easy answers...

[Yoda2]

This is such a tough call because both sides have merit. If you invent something, you don't want someone in a 3rd world country (or anyone else for that matter) taking it from you and marketing it at cut-rate prices. On the other hand, if you're in a 3rd world country how can you ever expect to get your foot in the door when you're competing with big business?

Sorry, no cool links an no easy answers on this one.

Re:No easy answers...

[JabberWokky]

if you're in a 3rd world country how can you ever expect to get your foot in the door when you're competing with big business?

Sell it to yourself. Plenty of packaged food is seized at the borders of countries for failing or violating labeling laws. Does that mean that Chum-flavoured Crisps can't be sold in, say, America? Yes. Does that mean that the company can't sell a whole bunch of them in their own country and make quite a profit? No.

--
Evan

A bit idealistic

[ari{Dal}]

I find this author's view to be a rather idealistic one. After all, the situations he's mentioning are two isolated cases, founded on the success stories of a few very specific companies.
What about all the companies that have flourished because of patents? And all the other countries that seem to be doing quite well WITH the systems in place?
I'm the first to admit that some patents are just plain silly (one-click, anyone?), and that the system needs a serious overhaul, especially in the US. But to totally do away with it?
I don't think a few isolated examples from the last century makes a good case for doing away with patent laws.
In one place he says:
This tool has been denied to poor nations, partly as a result of energetic lobbying by the very companies which once made use of it. .
While i'm all for helping developing nations (and I think cheap medical supplies, drugs, and genetically enhanced food crops should be available to anyone, patents be damned), I don't see patents as being the cause of all their troubles. I find it very unlikely that a lifting of patent laws on underprivileged countries would fix all their problems. It may alleviate some issues, but it won't fix much in the long run.
He could better spend his time focusing on how to get these countries the cheap food and medical sources they need, rather than putting forth examples of 'patentless society'.

Re:A bit idealistic

[ryants]

What about all the companies that have flourished because of patents? And all the other countries that seem to be doing quite well WITH the systems in place?

Well, sure... these companies were given government granted monopolies. I guess some companies can do well under Statism, but I'd rather live without governmnet granted mononpolies, thanks.

Re:A bit idealistic

[Wintersmute]

Please allow me to pile on to idealism attack. While I'll be the first to line up against IP laws that don't produce benefits for the public, the mere fact that two nations prospered without patent statutes doesn't mean nations without patent statutes do better.

Note, for example, that some of the progress came from "borrowing" ideas from nations that *did* have patent statutes.

What's more, the author's argument carries little weight unless he can prove the counterfactual - that these nations would not have done even better if they *had* employed IP laws.

I'm inclined to believe that the late 1800s and early 1900s were fruitful eras in these nations for reasons other than the state of the patent law.

Just adding my inflation-adjusted $.02.

Re:A bit idealistic

[jonricketson]

But the point is that with no need to worry about patents they could produce their own drugs, and they could produce their own crops. Various seed companies (Syngenta -was Novartis- and others) have patented the basic crops that these countries grow, or genetically modified versions of them, and forced them to grow them and pay for them because now these companies also own 90% of the seed distribution companies around the world. These countries have very few options.

This author is not suggesting that the US, UK or Australia do away with its patent laws, but is suggesting instead that they not be forced on countries that would do better without them. Like South Africa, who recently had a three year battle in the courtroom to develop cheap AIDS drugs, so that they could medicate their population. Patents and free trade could very well be the cause of all their troubles.

Re:A bit idealistic

[gammoth]

The author is giving counter examples to disprove the assertion that IP laws are necessary for economic growth.

Big corporations argue for IP laws by suggesting they need them to protect their investment in R & D.

The article gives a couple of examples where plenty of R & D occured without IP laws. It then shows how IP laws are used to stifle development.

So, in one sense, the author's view is pragmatic because he exposes the big corporations arguments as hollow ideals.

Re:A bit idealistic

[michael_cain]

Various seed companies (Syngenta -was Novartis- and others) have patented the basic crops that these countries grow, or genetically modified versions of them, and forced them to grow them and pay for them because now these companies also own 90% of the seed distribution companies around the world.

I think this is an excellent point. The problem is not necessarily the patents themselves, but that the industry is controlled by a handful of very large corporations. Once those companies all decide, "We will only sell patented genetically-modified seeds," everyone is SOL. There is no realistic chance for a new competitor to enter the business and succeed. New companies that appear to be succeeding can be purchased by said large corporations (would you turn down $100M for your small business?), knowing that the relatively small expense of the purchase will be covered by selling the expensive product.

Antitrust laws are supposed to protect us from predatory behavior, but don't seem to be doing very well. An interesting alternative might be a rule that says once you're big enough (say, $1B in annual sales), you aren't allowed to merge with or buy other companies.

Re:A bit idealistic

[urbazewski]

The author's point is not that the lack of patent protection is a necessary condition for economic growth but rather that patent protection is not a necessary condition for economic growth.

The contrast between the historical record and current rhetoric shows that it's "Do as I say, Not as I did" for both large corporations and industrialized nations.

Noam Chomsky has been making this point for years with regards to industrialized nation's support of "free trade".

Re:A bit idealistic

[demus]

A ban on mergers would not alleviate the problem of patents for developing countries.

An alternative solution would be to grant patents for the recovery of development and implementation costs plus some markup, a present value of say 20%.

That way the very successful patents would expires quickly, giving others with newer ideas a chance to develop them further.

A problem with fx. software patents is that the length of the patent is designed for manufacturing processes and such where it takes a much longer time to recover costs, but the innovation is still actually useful after the patent expires. This cannot be said of software algorithms.

Re:A bit idealistic

[michael_cain]

I agree with you in the case where there is no alternative to the patented item-- in the case of various AIDS treatments, for example. This particular thread of the discussion dealt with the situation where there are non-patented alternatives, but the industry is dominated by a handful of very large corporations that have all decided they will only sell high-margin patented items. The seed case seems to be one where the patents are incidental, the real problem being that the large corporations are driving conventional (multigenerational) seed out of the marketplace.

IP laws, at least their foundations, were written in an era before the extremely large multinational corporations had such a dominating position, and in an era where the pace of technology was slower. It is not surprising that the current laws have problems dealing with both of those recent developments.

Careful...

[axlrosen]

This doesn't even suggest that the world might be better off if we got rid of patents. It says that smaller and/or less developed countries might be better off without patents, because they can "borrow" inventions made elsewhere. In other words, good for the country, not necessarily good for people in general. If you think that patents encourage invention, then you can't have very many countries being the "leeches" for patents to do their job.

Re:Careful...

[mochan_s]

Good point there, as the article says But the history of patent protection suggests that that is not the only means by which the rich nations have raised the drawbridge after entering the castle.

But, the problem is that this is not just a between nations thing. The same dynamics works inside nations. The rich will want to protect what they have using laws. Patents are great if you just invented something that will make you lots of money for a long time and you would want it to be valid for a long time. But, it may not be as great for the whole society because it kills the motivation for innovation. So, the whole idea is that excessive intellectual property laws will be harmful for everyone as a whole but only beneficial to a small group.

Re:Careful...

[Mr Windows]

You can't be suggesting that it's the rich who make the laws, and the poor that have to obey them?

\end{sarcasm}

Re:Careful...

[Stonehand]

Kills the motivation for innovation? Not really -- after all, it won't stop somebody else from making your idea obsolete if they come up with something better, which means that simply resting on your laurels is a Bad Idea; and if there aren't patents at all, it might be a lot cheaper to simply sit back, wait for others to spend millions or billions on research, and then to reverse-engineer what they've done and mass-produce it.

Re:Careful...

[Atzanteol]

Patents protect the 'little guy' from the 'big guy.' If I develop a new product 'foo' and get a patent granted for it, it stops a large corporation from producing it at half my cost (because they can afford the hit) and running me out of business before I can get started.

Re:Careful...

[davecb]

"The law, in its August Majesty, prohibits the rich as well as the poor from sleeping under bridges."

Re:Careful...

[Znork]

Oh, sure. Instead they'll drive you out of buisness before you get started by suing you up your ears for violating _their_ patents (which may be close, or the _SAME_ as yours (the GIF compression algorithms are patented by at least 3 companies IIRC, altho only Unisys has been bitching about it)). On, and then they'll throw a bunch of lawyers on getting your patents overturned. Good luck surviving that.

What patents do today has nothing to do with protecting the 'little guy'. The 'big guy' will win either way, but the patent system also protects the 'big guy' from getting undercut or outinvented by the 'little guy' by giving them a perfect legal leverage for killing the 'little guy'.

Switzerland, bah

[tiltowait]

"In Italy for thirty years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love; they had five hundred years of democracy and peace and what did they produce? The cuckoo clock."
- Orson Welles (1915-1985)

Re:Switzerland, bah

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't forget that when the Knights Templar founded Switzerland, they also began their quest to control the world, eventually controlling the papal seat, the world economy via the swiss bank and, of course, world governments by secretly being the true creators of the NWO. Or something. Grumble.

Re:Switzerland, bah

[PinkStainlessTail]

Isn't this quote technically by Graham Greene, who wrote the screenplay for The Third Man? Not entirely sure, as rumors abound that Welles "added" quite a bit to the film (both in terms of script and direction).

Re:Switzerland, bah

[remou]

those bloody clocks are made in the
black forest for cuckoo's sake.....:-)

Re:Switzerland, bah

[DickPhallus]

In the same line as this quote, it's interesting to note the Dutch produced such painters as Van Gogh and Rembrandt and M.C. Escher

Albeit the dutch also had plenty of wars, conflicts, and even pirates, both in the true, historical sense and in the modern sense of the word.

So, in context, were the patent laws a major factor in each countries development?

Re:Switzerland, bah

[mblase]

Well, that and the most stable and widely-used banking system on the planet. Gotta give 'em credit for that.

Good quote, though. ;-)

Re:Switzerland, bah

[President Chimp Toe]

They produced chocolate, goddamnit.
You know? The frigging eight wonder of the modern world...

Re:Switzerland, bah

[dgroskind]

Isn't this quote technically by Graham Greene...

According to Ebert, Greene credited Wells with this speech.

Re:Switzerland, bah

[dgroskind]

...the most stable and widely-used banking system on the planet...

But the accounts in those banks are generally in U.S. dollars. It's not the banking system, but the currency that's important. Swiss law strictly limits use of its currency because it's economy is not large enough to support a large float.

I believe in all the world The U.S. has the only one national treasury bond that is rated as having zero risk.

Re:Switzerland, bah

[Zed_Balcab]

yep, but swiss chocolate is still among the best. dang, another stolen idea! :)

Re:Switzerland, bah

[jafac]

The only reason it's the most widely used is because it allows for anonymous accounts. Which generally are used by mobsters, terrorists, tax dodgers, drug dealers, and anyone else seeking a way to enjoy the ill-gotten fruits of their labors.

Re:Switzerland, bah

[Lars T.]

Van Gogh died insane, bacause nobody wanted his art when he was alive. Rembrandt became famous and rich - and AFAIK had others working in his name (similar to Disney). And all Escher sites I checked give detailed Copyright information.

Re:Switzerland, bah

[nctysagoon.com]

And they produced SnakeMe : http://www.ysagoon.com/snakeme/ Seriously, I'm a Swiss citizen and I'm very happy about the law that allows reverse engeneering. I'm also convinced it is good for scientific and economic development, because it allows competition between products and disallow monopolist positions.

Re:Switzerland, bah

[Nephrite]

I think 'brotherly love' and 'five centuries of peace' is more valuable than any Renaissance. I'd like them all combined, though.

Re:Switzerland, bah

[anonymous cupboard]

If anything, Italy has the world's oldest bank (about 600 years old) and more or less founded banking and corporate finance. It is also the home of double entry book keeping and the corporation as a legal entity.

Swiss banks won out by promising an absolutely stable environment at home. The biggest issue was the unofficial linkage between the CHF and the DEM. Now the latter is part of the Euro, the swiss are somewhat concerned. If they could join the Euro without joining the EU, they probably would.

Re:Switzerland, bah

[mirko]

Gruezi !
I am a French guy living in Bern and I would not sell my place !
(10th most pleasant town in the World, Zuerich being the first, and Geneva the 4th, the others being non-Swiss)

Re:Switzerland, bah

[mgblst]

Reminds me of this quote:

"Man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than
dolphins because he had achieved so much... the wheel, New York,
wars, and so on, whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck
about in the water having a good time. But conversely the
dolphins believed themselves to be more intelligent than man for
precisely the same reasons."

Re:Switzerland, bah

[Captain Large Face]

It's a good quote, but I can't believe it took 70 years for him to come up with it.

Re:Switzerland, bah

[mblase]

It's not the banking system, but the currency that's important.

The banks are the ones that get the interest; the Swiss government is the one that gets income tax from the banks. So, yes, it is the banking system that's important, since they can always support another currency.

Copyright???

[sterno]

Did the word "copyright" appear once in that article? Because I swear it was talking about patent law but maybe I clicked the wrong link.

Nice reading

[mirabilos]

But is the way back possible? Anyhow, any way?

I think, no at least for the netherlands, because
once we have a EU frame for law, it must be set in
national law.
Because CH is not in the EU (although they aren't
neutral any more either) there this would be few
issue.

But can other countries learn from this?

Hm, difficult to say, but I'd say forward this to
your favourite politician, especially the one who
heard to gen patent lobbying of the company named.

Re:Nice reading

[swissmonkey]

Switzerland is STILL neutral.

And it ain't changing anytime soon.

Population of Switzerland will fight to the last before it lets Switzerland lose its neutrality.

You could make a votation tomorrow on this subject, you would get 90% "stay neutral" 5% "don't stay neutral", 5% blank

Re:Nice reading

[squiggleslash]

Well, there you go. They can't really be neutral then. True neutrality would mean not wanting to come down on either side when it comes to whether the country should remain neutral or not.

I'd also talk about apathy here, but I can't be bothered.

I'm not against IP laws, but...

[RealTime]

I think the existing laws are being abused by corporations who take advantage of back-logged and under-educated patent offices. I would support the exclusion of certain categories of intellectual property from the patent process. For example, I think the trend of patenting human genome sequences is a bad idea. I don't think you should be able to patent things that exist in nature, nor should you be able to patent mathematical or physical laws.

The patent process wasn't originally this dysfunctional. There was a time when it provided legitimate protection to inventors for a limited period of time. Now, I'm not so sure that the public is well-served by patent mechanisms (as was the original intent), given the short-lived nature of today's inventions.

Is the solution totally eliminating the patent system? I'm not sure. I would suggest that, in the time period discussed in the article, there was less up-front investment needed to produce a new invention or process. These days, in the drug industry, at least, the research costs are so high that I think some form of short-duration monopoly protection is required, just to insure that they can recoup their investment. We certainly wouldn't want research on things like cancer and AIDS drugs to slow just because of the risk of not recovering the research investment.

Re:I'm not against IP laws, but...

[pliny3]

The patent process wasn't originally this dysfunctional. There was a time when it provided legitimate protection to inventors for a limited period of time.

the patent process also provided the public with information about the invention in exchange for that protection.

patents also must provide sufficient information for someone "skilled in the art" to reproduce the work. this reduction to practice provides some justification for granting a limited monopoly on the product, even in the case of inventions that people in the field know are possible but have not successfully reduced to practice.

Software patents fail this argument when they fail to provide source (and may not pass it even if they do).

Re:I'm not against IP laws, but...

[cholokoy]

The high cost of drugs is not due to the investment costs. I saw an investigation on one of the TV networks that the cost was basically due to the HUGE profits taken by the drug companies and the marketing costs-junikets for doctors, salesmen, etc. I tend to agree with this as I come from a third-world country and I am always wondering why many drugs are at least five times as much here in the US than in the country where I came from for exactly the same product. And there, it already costs an arm and a leg for the ordinary Joe, and don't tell me that they sell them at a loss because that would be contrary to their corporate goals.

I can only say its corporate greed because they have to pay fat bonuses to their executives and big returns to their stockholders as well. It somehow goes back to the people who invest in them which could be your or my retirement fund. Who gets to be blamed then?

Re:I'm not against IP laws, but...

[nerdlyone]

The high cost of drugs is not due to the investment costs. I saw an investigation on one of the TV networks that the cost was basically due to the HUGE profits taken by the drug companies and the marketing costs-junikets for doctors, salesmen, etc

Right, it's cheap to develop drugs. That's why everyone is doing it. That's why third world countries are developing AIDS treatment drugs.

I tend to agree with this as I come from a third-world country and I am always wondering why many drugs are at least five times as much here in the US than in the country where I came from for exactly the same product.

This should indicate the problem to you. Those drugs are cheaper in countries who ignore patent rights because they don't have to recoup investment cost. Companies can infringe patents and sell the drugs generically for much less than they are sold in the US becasue patent laws are obeyed in the US, licenses must be paid, etc. But notice that those same companies manufacturing knock-offs are not themselves developing these drugs. This should tell you something. It is not easy to develop them.

We could and are ignoring patent laws in favor of humanitarian purposes, but this is a dangerous area, and a balance must be struck. If I am an investor, and I know that a company develops drugs that are not protectable, then I am not going to invest in them, plain and simple, because I won't be making much return on my money. I'd rather invest in technology or companies that are doing soemthing less speculative.

Copyrights

[kb3edk]

Wow, it's shocking! "Intellectual property" violations have been going on for many years...

1859: Ciba steals aniline dye process from the British

Well, then not much has changed:
1984: Compaq duplicates IBM BIOS and clones the PC

And I'm sure you could come up with even more compelling examples since then. The whole concept and exploitation of "intellectual property" is just a rational concept that companies employ to increase profit. Can you imagine the bonuses that get passed around when a pharmaceutical company wins a big patent decision?

Re:Copyrights

[flying_triguy]

I thought that Compaq had reverse engineered the process in accordance with patent law

ie)
person A takes apart BIOS, documents the standards of how it works, how it reacts, effectively the specs.

person B takes specs and rebuilds the BIOS. Because no code was ever duplicated, it was completely rebuilt to conform to the same standards. it wasn't a violation of patent or copyright

If I am mistaken, please let me know.

Re:Copyrights

[jejones]

How about a compelling example from before then? Everyone remember Samuel Slater from their American history class? He came to the US, having learned about the English mechanized mills, to set one up of his own. The English were rather particular about intellectual property as well; he had to sneak out of the country in disguise.

Re:Copyrights

[Znork]

You are mistaken.

Not duplicating anything clears you from copyright violation.

But nothing, ever, saves you from patent violations. You can live under a rock on Mars and invent something without even knowing of the existence of intelligent species on earth, and if it's patented, you're _still_ violating the patent. A patent forbids anyone else from even having the idea.

The BIOS, needless to say, wasnt patented, and you couldnt patent software anyway in those days. Much to the annoyance of IBM, I suppose, but much to the benefit of the rest of humanity (and economy).

Re:BS

[Silver222]

Yeah ummm okay. By that token, where are most of the dot bombs?

*SIGH*

[flying_triguy]

As is the case in many of these debates, there are two extremes, and both are equally likely to have problems.

1. Eternal Patent and Copyright: This means that there is tremendous stability in development, very little "new directions" as a new direction would have to come from the company with the copyright or patent (or a company paying money to them). The downside is the cost of doing this if there is failure. Very high. --> Little change or innovation

2. No Patent or Copyright: Very dynamic creative possibilities because everything can be used to create new things. Everyone who has a different direction or idea can develop that, there are no barriers (cost) associated. Just time. This is also very chaotic... you can't have standards when everything is always changing. Stability of anything here... not good. As well, it ends up making things extra cmplicated as the only way to make money is to do it from services (installation, customization etc) so it is in the best interests of the creator to make it as difficult as possible to implement making sure that someone has to install it for you.

Seems to me that there is a happy medium. My personal preference is for the happy medium to be less restrictive than now, but that is for society to judge (which is why I have problems with where things are now, I don't believe society has decided, I think that society has abdicated that decision to corporate interests.

Re:*SIGH*

[Mr Windows]

You're making the mistake of bundling patents and copyright up as one and the same: they're not! Copyright is about protecting your work, patents about protecting your ideas, more or less.

Re:*SIGH*

[Doomdark]

you can't have standards when everything is always changing. Stability of anything here... not good.

No. "Real" standards are not results of patents -- sometimes it seems it's exactly opposite. De facto standards ("Windows") may be a result of patents or copyrights, but the actual de jure standards are almost always result of a leading period of chaotic development. And usually this seems to be a good way to go. Premature creation of patents often leads to unusable bloated paper standards (ISO OSI model anyone? full X509?).

As well, it ends up making things extra cmplicated as the only way to make money is to do it from services

I don't think this is true either. Many big pharmaceutical companies make money manufacturing aspirin (or, rather, generic versions... name itself is trademarked? or was it?). So, patents are not a requirement for being able to sell a physical product -- you just need either a strong brand or best version of the product (cheapest, best, in some way better than competitors).

It may make it more difficult to make money with a completely new product, but right now it seems that there are 2 main lifecycles for innovative new products:

• Try to protect the idea and/or implementation as closely as possible. End up being proprietary thing no one wants (rambus, various wavelet packing algorithms, most new closed audio/video formats)
• Share and enjoy; product itself becomes a hit, but not necessarily version you produce (mp3 is a good example... there's no real "leader" that creates most mp3 appliances).

Re:*SIGH*

[MoneyT]

It appears to me that the best thing to do would be to simply allow for some "patent anarchy". The best inventions and discoveries were never finished by one person, and unless you allow for other people to use/develop/compete with your work, you have no incentive to make your work better because people can't buy anything else.

Re:*SIGH*

[wilhelm]

The way the software industry is going right now, even 5 years seems overly generous. 3 years sounds more reasonable; about enough time for the average company to release a major update.

Re:*SIGH*

[pardonne]

> 1. Eternal Patent and Copyright: ...

Hmmm, a global corporation with some juicy patent portfolio would argue against this. In fact, by typical arguments in favor of patents, eternal patents should be great for innovation. If you innovate then you are guaranteed revenues while your innovation remains valid for civilization. Who wouldn't want that payoff? So everyone will try to innovate and get eternal protection. Imagine the possibilities.

If someone wants to further innovate on what I have done, they can do so. If there is a NEW market for this further innovation, then we can get together do a licensing deal with one another and all is well.

As a big (maybe greedy corp.) with lots of patents I don't see why a "happy medium" should be chosen. Screw the regulated middle ground and get the government out of the way. The intermediate ground will be chosen by how much others contribute to an eternal patent in the form of further innovations, and whether there is a market for that contribution. If there is a market, the shareholders of the respective companies will make sure that the companies get together to cross-license or whatever and bring the advanced product to market.

Innovation will thus continue on and the middle ground that you talk about will be chosen on a case by case basis by the parties who stand to benefit from it.

I think the main problem with patents is not duration but rather scope.

Pardonne

Re:*SIGH*

[Gabrill]

Society has not abdicated its ruling rights to corporations. American society has simply fallen victim to the shortsightedness of unchecked capitalism. The very fact that corporations have more lobbying power than ANY individual concerned with basic rights is causing America to be run almost exclusively by self-interested corporations. America's laws follow suit. The only check that corporations have right now is lawsuit liability. Thank God for the Bill of Rights!

Re:*SIGH*

[abe ferlman]

As is the case in many of these debates, there are two extremes, and both are equally likely to have problems.


"1 + 1 is 2!"

"1 + 1 is 3! (this message paid for by 3com)"

Oh, the truth must be somewhere in between these two extremes. Hence 1 + 1 is approximately 2.5.

Re:*SIGH*

[pardonne]

I'll be damned if I can make a point in two minutes but I originally was trying to argue from the viewpoint of a greedy corporation with a huge patent portfolio (perhaps only with a huge patent portfolio). Corporate propaganda that typically ends with "... and all of this is actually for your protection."

Sorry the argument did not meet your high standards.

Re:*SIGH*

[nerdlyone]

The best inventions and discoveries were never finished by one person, and unless you allow for other people to use/develop/compete with your work, you have no incentive to make your work better because people can't buy anything else.

But you can patent an improvement on anything, even if the original invention is already patented. True, you would have to license the original invention to sell the improved invention, but you would also be able to prevent the original maker from manufacturing the improvement. There is still incentive to create even in heavily patented fields. It's all about licensing.

Re:BS

[pknoll]

Switzerland also does a lively business in the banking field.

I'm reasonably certain thier GNP doesn't rest on the fate of Rolex's bottom line.

Somewhere in the middle, please

[Fiver-rah]

The point here is not that we should completely scrap patent laws. The point is that we should be wary about what we start labelling "intellectual property". There are two extremes. One has no protection whatsoever. So people lose a major incentive (profit) to produce new works. This is bad for society. But the other extreme is one in which everything is so tightly controlled that the great new works which are invented can't be disseminated to the people who need them (case in point: as mentioned in the article, the countries that really need it--African nations with 20-30% HIV positive rates can't use the AIDS drugs).

There's no point in creating a multitude of useful and interesting things if nobody ever gets to use them. Somwhere between these two extremes is something that approaches sanity. Unfortunately, we seem to be cheerfully careening down the path towards over-control.

Stealing other countrys ideas

[Kizzle]

That gets me thinking, is there something keeping me from patenting an idea from say, Japan?

Re:Stealing other countrys ideas

[Stonehand]

Intellectual property treaties. WIPO isn't exactly just a forum for wining and dining, after all.

Re:Stealing other countrys ideas

[bugnuts]

Yes. Most patents are enforced by treaty. That means that those that agree to the treaty will enforce patents from foreign countries. AFAIK, china and certain eastern countries have not signed the similar patent treaties that the US, most NATO countries, and hundreds of others have signed. I'm pretty sure that Japan and the US have a reciprocal treaty in place.

Re:Stealing other countrys ideas

[Mr Windows]

Japan? I assume that they're signed up to WIPO. How about patenting in, say Australia? It's easy to patent the wheel, for example (though this was a joke, just to prove how daft patent offices can be).

Good job my bike fell to bits; I don't think I could afford the licencing fees!

Re:Stealing other countrys ideas

[IP, Daily]

If you mean getting a U.S. patent on an idea that is known in Japan, yes. U.S. patent law, specifically 35 USC section 102, will deny you a patent for an invention if it was described by someone else in a printed publication (such as a patent or a published patent application) in a foreign country before you "invented" it. In other words, the fact that it is known in the other country makes it prior art against you.

Re:Stealing other countrys ideas

[IP, Daily]

WIPO has no say in how U.S. patents are enforced. WIPO is a harminizing body that makes it easier for patent applicants to apply for patent rights in member countries and regions.

Re:Stealing other countrys ideas

[IP, Daily]

Countries have signed bi-lateral and multi-lateral treaties to harmonize laws for filing patent applications. The U.S. and Japan are both parties to the largest treaty, the Patent Cooperation Treaty, which is administered by WIPO and has over 100 signatory nations and regions. However, this is not a pact to enorce each other's patents. The U.S., for example, will not enforce a Japanese patent, which is why so many Japanese companies file U.S. patent applications and obtain U. S. patent rights for their inventions. BTW, PRC and ROC are both signatories, as are Korea, Indonesia, and other Eastern countries.

The corporation bashing isn't COMPLETE nonsense

[ragmana]

Don't skip those first few paragraphs. While there is a bit of a bias, the article talks about the sale of cheap medicines to third world countries. It's true that large, highly profitable companies are outpricing these nations on things they need.

When will some people recognize that some rights - like food and medicine, i.e., basic health and survival - trump capitalism, intellectual property, and other protections which are fine to call "rights" in prosperous nations but do not deserve that designation in the Third World?

Re:The corporation bashing isn't COMPLETE nonsense

[Mr Windows]

Funny how selling cheap "generic" versions of AIDS treatments to African nations was regarded as a Bad Thing, but that buying cheap generic versions of anthrax treatments is a Good Thing. Whoops! There goes that drawbridge again!

Re:The corporation bashing isn't COMPLETE nonsense

[charon_on_acheron]

So where would those third-world inhabitants get their life-saving medicines if all the drug companies stop looking for cures for diseases? Many of the currently-patented medicines only work for selected things, such as the latest viral infections, and will be useless in a few years as the viruses/bacteria mutate.

If you want the drug companies to stop investing in new research, keep saying they don't deserve to profit from human misery. They will oblige your sincere concern by concentrating on diseases that only affect rich old Americans. (Plenty of money, they can't take it with them, and don't want to leave it to their spoiled kids.) Then you will know you're responsible for all the third-world deaths.

By the way, if my message isn't clear, medicine is not a 'right'. 'Human rights' aren't even well standardized to begin with. For you to tell a company they "do not deserve" their profit because someone's poor, but it's ok if someone else is rich, is such a crock. Do you freely give your time and possessions to the poor people in your city? Every month, week, day? Do you offer to pay for someone's lunch if they are hungrier than you? Do you even put a penny in the dish beside the cash-register at the gas station?

But you expect companies to be forced to. Maybe we should just have higher taxes so we can all pay for medicine for the whole world. Or force McDonald's to have to feed the third world, since they are one of those "highly profitable companies" you talk about.

Re:The corporation bashing isn't COMPLETE nonsense

[jejones]

Sorry; so-called "positive rights" are not rights at all. We may think it's good to be generous to the needy, and even think less of someone who isn't--but that doesn't give anyone or any group the right to be generous with other peoples' money.

Re:The corporation bashing isn't COMPLETE nonsense

[ragmana]

If you want the drug companies to stop investing in new research, keep saying they don't deserve to profit from human misery.

This is addressed here. The pharm. companies would not lose a dime.

Then you will know you're responsible for all the third-world deaths.

Don't be an ass. The arguments I'll listen to, the jokes I'll just laugh at. Let's stick to the former.

By the way, if my message isn't clear, medicine is not a 'right'. 'Human rights' aren't even well standardized to begin with.

A fair philosphical point, but I would argue first that what is 'standard' has nothing to do with objective truth. I would also argue that survival is indeed a right, and if medicine = survival, then medicine = a right, or at least a right that trumps other rights (like additional profit). But, let us assume you are correct. Would you then be discussing the finer points of the right to survival to soemone trying to kill you? I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm just saying you're on very shaky philosophical ground. OK, so if pressed I guess I am saying you are wrong.

Also, if survival is not a right, how does intellectual property qualify? To deny rights undermines the very basis of your main point, of capitalism, and of any reason for people to NOT steal and profit from other's innovations. Neither of us want that.

For you to tell a company they "do not deserve" their profit because someone's poor, but it's ok if someone else is rich, is such a crock.

Why? They deserve their profit, clearly. Read the link above, I shouldn't be redundant in posts.

Do you freely give your time and possessions to the poor people in your city? Every month, week, day? Do you offer to pay for someone's lunch if they are hungrier than you? Do you even put a penny in the dish beside the cash-register at the gas station?

Yeah, although some of the examples do not pertain. If the hungry person can afford food themselves, then I'm not advocating they mooch, nor that you let them. If they can't afford food, yes. And, yes - week, month, day - because I can. Hopefully, if you can, you do too.

I just do the cash-register pennies because I'm a nice guy. I use them sometimes too.

But you expect companies to be forced to.

Yup, given the conditions described above and in the linked post.

Maybe we should just have higher taxes so we can all pay for medicine for the whole world.

See linked post.

Or force McDonald's to have to feed the third world, since they are one of those "highly profitable companies" you talk about.

I wouldn't wish McDonalds on anyone, Third or First World. But, if you like it and are hungry, I've listed nothing above that would give me reason to want to prevent you.

Arguments talk, rhetoric walks. Just for future reference.

Re:The corporation bashing isn't COMPLETE nonsense

[ragmana]

Again, they would not need to lose a dime, and the denial of positive rights justifies theft of intellectual property - since rights theory (especially of positive rights) is intrinsic to the idea of property. I cover this in more detail in response to other posts, and don't want to post redundantly. You will also find many very articulate posts that support your position.

Also, I don't advocate "thinking less" of those who do not. People can be mistaken without being wrong, especially on such a difficult topic as ethics.

Re:The corporation bashing isn't COMPLETE nonsense

[charon_on_acheron]

You obviously have thought about this topic before. I figured you original post was just a knee-jerk reaction to corporate greed. But your statements are clear, reasoned, and most of all, consistent. (Are we still on Slashdot here?)

That being said, I disagree with much of your arguments, and feel others are not relevent.

First, saying that drug companies won't lose a dime means nothing to drug companies, or almost any other company. They expect a profit for their product and effort. They expect more profit for more product and more effort. This is to cover their earnings statements for stock prices, and to make it worthwhile from the "can we get sued for anything" standpoint. These two concerns alone will keep companies from voluntarily giving drugs/medicines without proper profit.

So my solution to this predicament isn't to force them to give away their product for low prices. It is to revamp the stock market and litigation process. Then when these two stumbling blocks are gone, strongly encourage companies to be more giving of cheap drugs.

Second, you are right, that was a bad joke. But if the end-result of your plan is more deaths in the third world, would you accept the blame? You don't think that would happen, but what if it did? All too often, people with your viewpoint never even think about this. But it is a possibility, it should be mentioned, debated, and talked about.

Third point, No, medicine is not a right. Why do you think it is everyone's right to have an artificial chemical made halfway around the world? Was it their right before the drug was invented? Of course not. But just because the drug _is_ invented, people have an inate right to it? I don't follow the reasoning. (Notice, I do agree that you have reasoned this out, as I mentioned above. But I just can't see the link you do.)

And as far as "medicine=survival", I don't accept that as a reason for anything else you suggest. Have you seen the trailers for that new movie "John Q", about a boy who needs a heart transplant, but the family can't afford it? Are you willing to pay for every heart transplant in the world? Because "heart=survival" is certainly more definite that "medicine=survival". But if you want every medical need to be given to everyone who can't afford it, who will pay for it? You are talking about a social health system, which won't work for long. Just ask the French who had the privilege of having a Doctor's Strike a couple months ago. Check this link.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/euro pe/news id_1777000/1777952.stm
The US may not have everything right, but at least I can count on doctors to be at their office, waiting to take my money.

Now for the kicker. I personally don't believe there are 'inalienable human rights'. For anyone. You have the right to that which you would fight for if pressed. I have the right to own land, because I will fight to defend it. I have the right to my my books and toys for the same reason. The government doesn't have the power to give me this right, only I do. I don't have the right to live, (which some people have told me very clearly) nor the right to liberty, nor the pursuit of happiness. That is just so much paternal mumbo-jumbo from a group that was trying to throw off tyranny. The Bill of Rights enshrines certain ideals that are termed "rights", but the government tramples those rights all the time. The concept of human rights is used by anyone who has an agenda they need to force on someone else. The universal cry is "But it's my/his/her/their right."

I like Heinlein's take on it in the novel "Starship Troopers". If you are floating in the middle of the ocean, slowly sinking under the waves, where is your 'right' to live? Will the waves not drown you, because you have a right to life? Of course the waves don't care about your concept of a 'right to life'.

Furthermore, the only right I recognize is the right to a chance. You have a chance to live. If medicine is needed to live, and you can't get it, you won't live. But you had the chance. You did live for a while. I feel this applies not only to humans, but to everything else. Every animal and plant has the right to a chance to do something. If someone or something eats them first, tough luck. If they get trampled by a herd of buffalo, so be it. That's the chance you take.

The same applies to business and other pursuits. You have the right to a chance to be the president, an olymian, business-owner, etc. If you don't make it, well, you still had a chance. Even if someone takes an active interest in keeping you from succeeding, you had a chance. If someone kills me on my way home today, I still had a chance of living tomorrow. Just my dumb luck to get killed before then.

Now as for companies helping the poor third-world people with free or low-cost drugs, if they don't want to, you can't make them. Because they will fight for their "right" to run a business how they see proper. And they have the law on their side. And yes, they have many politicians in their pocket as well. But until you can change the laws, and require them to give the stuff away, they won't. And if you can change the laws like that, you better make them immune from lawsuits, or they still won't do it.

My final point is one I have stated before, but noone ever agrees with me. For all the actions which companies do, that you disagree with, do you evaluate your patronage of that company? Do you buy one brand of product because its maker is more concerned with helping others? Do you refuse to buy paper from a company because they are cutting down the rain forest, and buy from another company that isn't? Or do you just buy whatever brand you want, or what's on sale, with no deeper consideration than convenience and price?

Oh, and I also toss a penny in the cup now and then. Cheers.

Re:The corporation bashing isn't COMPLETE nonsense

[ragmana]

I don't want you to think I'm ignoring this post, but it's very well written, well argued, and long - it will take me awhile to give every point due consideration. It deserves a response, and it will eventually have one.

(Damn philosophers taking so damn long in everything they do... )You obviously have thought about this topic before . . . (Are we still on Slashdot here?) Yeah, it's kind my job. I'm a logician, so I'm a bit OCD about this kind of thing.

Thanks for the discussion, friend. We'll talk again.

Re:The corporation bashing isn't COMPLETE nonsense

[mpe]

By the way, if my message isn't clear, medicine is not a 'right'. 'Human rights' aren't even well standardized to begin with. For you to tell a company they "do not deserve" their profit because someone's poor, but it's ok if someone else is rich, is such a crock.

Making a profit isn't a "right" either. When corporate profits are placed before human lives there must be one twisted value system involved.
Patents are intended to create specific ends, if they are not currently doing it then it's time to reform them.

Re:The corporation bashing isn't COMPLETE nonsense

[sgtrock]

Heinlein said it best many times. Mother Nature is a bitch, and the human species is subject to her laws. Forget that fact at your peril.

Overpopulation in central Africa has been a problem for over a century. Poor to nonexistent government makes the problem much, much worse.

For example, has anyone else watching what's happening in Zimbabwe lately? You're about to see a country go right down the tubes. For months (maybe a couple of years) the legally elected president has been acting in a more and more despotic fashion. Now, in spite of every attempt to destroy a free election, he may still lose. If he does, you can count on him using his army of thugs to try to stay in power.

Zimbabwe has been a shining example of democracy and well run government compared to many of its neighbors. We're supposed to try to send food and medicine in to the mess that describes the rest? No roads to speak of across most of central Africa, heavily armed bandits everywhere who rob food convoys and shoot aid workers, cultures that encourage prostitutes to bathe their genitals in chlorine to provide a dry fuck for idiots who refuse to use condoms EVEN WHEN THEY ARE PROVIDED FREE OF CHARGE, and on and on and on.

Sorry, I don't believe that we can ask the various agencies to send in unarmed workers to feed the helpless, educate the children, and provide medicine to the idiots without some sort of stable society in place. Yet if anyone suggests that the UN spend money on soldiers, bombs, and bullets to eliminate the worst of the problems, weakminded individuals start crying and companies who thrive on the chaos start protesting.

Democracy is the best form of government we've been able to invent. Was it Churchill who said, "Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the rest."? Sometimes, though, we need to remind ourselves that not everyone believes that. Some people really are so selfish that they will use any means possible to stay in power. Others hate anyone who doesn't look or think like them.

Most of the time, we have just let them stew in their own misery. If you're serious about your belief that "...basic health and survival - trump capitalism, intellectual property, and other protections..." you'd better be prepared to pay the price in dead UN soldiers. If you're young enough, you'd better be prepared to enlist or be drafted to serve this cause.

Re:The corporation bashing isn't COMPLETE nonsense

[sql*kitten]

When will some people recognize that some rights - like food and medicine, i.e., basic health and survival - trump capitalism, intellectual property, and other protections which are fine to call "rights" in prosperous nations but do not deserve that designation in the Third World?

Why is always "evil corporations putting profits before lives in the third world"? It would be more accurate to criticize "evil governments for putting corruption and war before the lives of their own citizens".

You may criticize Big Pharma, but without them, there would be no drugs to buy, at all, at any price. You see, a "right" to medicine presupposes that the medicine exists. If it doesn't exist, your "right" doesn't amount to much. Stealing pharma IP works in one generation, but the next disease comes along, and you find Big Pharma is devoting its energies to Viagra and Prozac drugs, that are profitable and aren't likely to be appropriated by corrupt third world governments.

It's in everyone's best interest that patents on drugs to treat serious illnesses are protected - particularly the people who are or may suffer from those illnesses.

Am I missing something?

[Registered Coward v2]

What the story really says is people in countries without IP protection "borrow" ideas created elsewhere and build companies on them. Then they lobby for protection (even years later - once they have IP they find valuable) when fear losing control over their inventions. It's no different than what developing countries are trying to do today.

If Switzerland really felt that patents were unnecessary, why not pass a law saying any Swiss company *must* give *anyone* a free license to make anything they have patented - no matter where the patent is registered. Then we would see if a lack of IP protection fosters or hinders a countries long-term economic growth.

Slashdot Reply Button Patent (pending)

[snowpuppy]

I can't wait for my Slashdot Reply Button
"One-Click Patent" gets approved.

Then you will all have to pay me to reply to these messages.

Sweet...

Sean
--
perl -e 'print pack("H*","736e6f77646f6740626967666f6f742e636f6d0 a")'

Re:BS

[Mr Windows]

Switzerland is one of the richest countries in Europe. When you think of anonymous numbered bank accounts, which country springs to mind? Of course, the reality is more prosaic, but Swiss banks are among the most successful in the world.

If you read the article, you'll notice that the periods in question were over 90 years ago, so arguing about what's happening in the computing field is kind of irrelevant.

For that matter, where are any billion dollar tech startups, these days? How many of the companies you mentioned will still be going in 100 years time and be the same size as Nestle?

Two Types Of Invention?

[istartedi]

Perhaps there are two types of invention: Those that will occur without protection, and those that won't occur without it.

Obviously, not having protection won't hinder all invention, as the "inventive spirit" is something that most of us believe exists.

Also, while there may have been invention during that time, there was probably also more trade secrecy, something the article doesn't explore at all.

If the patent process slows business, it may actually be because it requires disclosure. Companies go for the "sure thing" by patenting, but give up the possibility of perpetuating their monopoly through secrecy which can be *very* effective. Thinking Coca-Cola? Chump change. Consider Ziljan (the cymbal people) IIRC, they kept the process a family secret for something like 400 years or more. If all the Ziljans get hit by a bus, nobody will ever be able to make those exact cymbals again. So, what was that about patents being bad for society?

Of course this is all just speculation and stuff. Nobody has the time to do an unbiansed, rigorous, statisticly valid study and present it in such a way so that laymen could understand it. That would be... a lot of work!

Re:Two Types Of Invention?

[oscarm]

Your correct in suggesting there are two types of invention. I tihnk the difference is the same as the difference between Basic and Applied Research. Of course, the trouble is that a lot of companies in the Applied Research area of development are trying to use IP-rights to squelch Basic Research/Invention that threatens them.

I think corporations who favot strong IP laws are much more in-favor of small, incremental improvements to exisiting products/business models that keep them alive. They do not want to encourage more revolutionaty invention since it threatens their existence.

Re:Two Types Of Invention?

[mpe]

Of course, the trouble is that a lot of companies in the Applied Research area of development are trying to use IP-rights to squelch Basic Research/Invention that threatens them.

Also some of them might also be leaching off someone elses research.

Gene Patents

[President Chimp Toe]

I found these points interesting:

Novartis was one of the companies which successfully lobbied for the European convention allowing companies to patent genes

New global trade rules have also allowed big corporations to patent crop varieties and, in effect, the genes of plants, animals and human beings.

Even without going into ethical debates, gene patenting is notoriously dubious. The standards that these companies apply to patenting genes is very poor at best. My patent law is not up to scratch, so i would be happy if someone could point me in the right direction on this. However, my genetic knowledge is rather good ;-)

Essentially, companies (such as novartis) cast a very wide net when patenting genes. Alot of the time, they dont actually do anything particularly pro-active when attempting to discover them. They essentially take a pool of all genes expressed in a certain tissue ("mRNA") and randomly sequence these genes. And then slap a patent on them. This is quite clearly discovery. Furthermore, it is cheap, non-directional, quick and easy.

Originally, companies like novartis argued that cloning genes would take a strategy of e.g. specifically identifying genes causing a disease. This takes alot more effort and money, and is more likely to have medical significance. Therefore it is easier to argue that patenting is to some degree fair.

However, the first strategy is quite clearly against patenting law (even the stretched definition for gene patenting). For example, I often see "patents" for DNA sequences of the gene MYB (which I know quite well ;-), despite the fact that it was originally identified in 1986. If this isnt prior art, I do not know what is.

This is a result of the essentially random, "wide-net" strategy the companies are utilising. Even worse, it is trivial to check (using a homology search) whether there is "prior art" on a gene or not. But the companies do not do this.

BUT I COULD. And may well do. I have been thinking about comparing the database of patented DNA sequences against those in the public domain (It will take some time to set up, which i dont have right now, and significant computer resources, which i dont have right now - help anyone? reply to this as above email wrong ;-) . It will show huge proportion of "patented" sequences have prior art.

But who would I go to with these results? Could the companies be held responsible? If, so what would be the result?

Re:Gene Patents

[the gnat]

Aside from prior art, I think there's an even more compelling argument against gene patents- they aren't "non-obvious". Anyone with sufficient training and funding can perform the protocols the biotechs use to find genes for patenting. There's absolutely no innovation involved. Patenting a method for gene finding might be slightly more viable- except that these probably wouldn't be "inventions", they'd be more like a cookbook for an intro bio lab.

The real problem here is that, as often, the legal system can't keep up with technology. Gene finding might have been difficult 10 or 20 years ago, but it sure isn't today, at least not to reach the PTO's moroning standards. What makes more sense is allowing these companies to copyright their databases and sell access- Celera's original business plan*, and actually a good one. They could even charge royalties on products developed using their database. Unfortunately, that doesn't have as much long-term potential- a few years later, some university will come out with a better (free) sequence as technology catches up. So by patenting genes, biotechs ensure that they'll be able to buttfuck any researcher who actually finds a use for the genes, even if independent discovery of said genes would have been both trivial and obvious.

*They were going to patent some too. But they're not even remotely "evil" compared to Incyte or Human Genome Sciences. Craig Venter is warm and cuddly compared to some execs out there, and he has genuinely contributed immensely to public research.

Re:Gene Patents

[danro]

Please, specify these significant computer resources you speak of.
You never know... someone here might be able to help out.

Re:Gene Patents

[FallLine]

IANAL && IANAG*, that said, I am familiar with the medical devices (and the medtech industry by much association) and other technology industries. Your understanding of the business, legal, and regulatory realities is what causes most of your trouble here.

Firstly, it's common practice in patent law to cast as wide a net as possible (without getting it thrown out entirely) because if you don't someone can come up with a slight modification, but to have it and its application to be essentially the same, and get away with it.

Secondly, the effective strength of a patent is NEVER is strong as it would appear to be to a layman; it's a mere fraction of it. The vast majority of a patent's strength is decided in a court of law and rarely, if ever, comes anything close to what you may think it sounds like.

Thirdly, while these particular genes may be obvious (not my expertise), identifying the significance of them, and getting past the very significant regulatory (e.g., FDA) hurdles, plus the huge marketing cost (which is VERY essential to society, as much as some geeks may deny it. Drugs generally don't sell themselves) is both very expensive, very risky, and takes a long time to ever reach the market (a major issue to anyone familiar with finance).

Fourthy, the medical technology industry is almost too costly to engage in as is, completely ignoring any fault of the companies', because of the factors that I've mentioned above. Reducing the strength and duration of these patents can easily make it financially unviable proposition, because no one in their right mind is going to take the level of risk required if a competitor can get a mostly free ride on their coattails and reduce their profitability.

Fifthly, although it may be arguable that the prior identification of them would constitute prior art as it was concieved of initially, that definition is simply untenable to the development of them in today's society. The point of that phrase was to encourage the taking of risk towards worthwhile pursuits. If it wasn't non-obvious back then, then it wasn't probably didn't require much risk. That's quite different today with these kinds of pursuits as the barriers to entry here are huge. The gene itself may be obvious, but making it into something worthwile is non-obvious AND requires a lot of risk taking.

Re:Gene Patents

[the eric conspiracy]

I think there's an even more compelling argument against gene patents- they aren't "non-obvious". Anyone with sufficient training and funding can perform the protocols the biotechs use to find genes for patenting. There's absolutely no innovation involved.

Most /. readers have no concept what a gene patent is. A gene patent is NOT merely a patent on the genetic code; in fact such a patent is specifically barred under law - rather it is a patent on the USE of the structure of the gene in some application. The USPTO has a discussion of this very important issue that /. readers would do well to understand so they don't look totally unwashed when writing about this topic.

http://www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/category/3607.ht ml
http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc .cgi ?dbname=2001_register&docid=01-322-filed

Re:Gene Patents

[FallLine]

I have, do, and will fail to believe any executive that claims their company is facing great financial hardship, or that they are barely able to make money while he/she is paid millions.

That's because you don't understand some basic financial concepts. As an example, you might make these same claims about a lottery winner. Yet if you do some basic math, you'll see that although one person does indeed win millions, for every one dollar that that person wins, the loosers collectively pay well in excess of a dollar, say, 2 dollars for every dollar that is paid out. In other words, the lottery is a loosing "investment" on the aggregate, by definition. This is why people say the lottery is a tax on the stupid/poor/people that are bad at math. So in this case, just about any reasonable person that can perform basic math understands that this is not desirable.

Now let's go a step further, let's say if, out of a million 1 dollar tickets sold, the lottery actually pays out say 1,000,500 dollars to the winner. In this case we may have a winner on the aggregate, but it's still not viable financially. The reason for this is that the aggregate payout, although positive, is not commensurate with the risk taken. Your effective interest rate on that investment would be just .05%, which sucks. You could invest in much less risky, and even "riskless", investments, e.g., treasury bills, and make a higher interest rate. Although you might shrug it off and gamble for fun if it's a mere 1 dollar commitment, what about a significant sum like, say, your life's savings? Only a moron would invest in that too.

Now with this situation of the drug companies, you're basically just saying that they're profiting. Well OK, that's fine and dandy, but that doesn't mean that people will invest in and of itself. Many of the large drug companies are presently able to make enough profits, relative to their level of risk, to continue attracting investment, but most of the small and medium sized companies don't (because they must essentially put all their eggs in one basket because the costs are too high for them to do any sort of meaningful diversification). The large drug companies happen to be profiting enough on the aggregate to justify continuing investment, but it's close. You can't start eating away at their profits and expect them to continue to exist. The management team's compensation packages may speak for profits, but it's a pittance in comparison to the profits that they earn, and indeed need to earn, and those salaries are essentially a necessary condition for continuing to profit. Like it or not, they're paying what the market demands.

Everybody Knows

[alexander.morgan]

I must have missed the corporation bashing part of the article, but everybody knows that patents are mostly bad for innovation. And too much innovation and progress however, is bad for big established businesses. It is costly and disruptive to the business. Why innovate, if the law guarantees excellent returns on past inventions until the current management retires? But that is not a good way to keep the status quo, so a little FUD is needed.

Lawmakers must choose between public good and corporate good, and since corporations pay for their reelections, they help their donors. The catch is that a bad economy is bad for getting reelected, and fallout from recent court decisions and the frenzy to uphold software and business method patents will be felt soon.

Basically, the patent frenzy will be felt first by people seeking venture capital. Investing in a startup is already a risky proposition. But with patents it is much worse, since you have no reasonable way of knowing which patents your programmers are violating. Which means you have to cash out through an IPO before the lawyers come after your baby. And once a few promising startups get tripped up, you will see venture capital dry up.

And where would the Internet be today without venture funding? Without small startups creating a whole new economic sector? Does anybody really think the telcos would have invented any of this stuff? Not likely.

Without small companies and individuals taking risks, patents mean stagnation or slow economic growth at best. That is why when you get rid of patents, you spur economic growth. Pretty logical, until you get to the FUD part used to scare everybody.

Just for kicks, take any drug company and look at their numbers. Most (if not all) spend a lot more on marketing and operating expenses than R&D. Obviously they don't mind doing that without patent protection.

Re:Everybody Knows

[the eric conspiracy]

I must have missed the corporation bashing part of the article, but everybody knows that patents are mostly bad for innovation.

I think that everybody does NOT know this at all. The fact of the matter is that the almost all industrial R&D, from the time of Edison has depended on the use of patents to provide the commercial incentives for justification of investment into the development of new technologies. Without patents we would have never had the development of large industrial research organizations at companies like DuPont, Intel, Merkh etc. etc.

These organizations have supplied tremendous advances to society - synthetic polymers and fabrics, the CPU, streptomycin, to name a few. All developed with the incentive and goal of obtaining a commercially exploitable patent as the business incentive for funding the R&D.

The idea that patents hinder innovation cannot be justified by any evidence drawn from the history of technological process. It is no accident that Great Britain, the country that first adopted a patent system was also the first country to experience the fruits in it's 18th century industrail revolution.

The article cited in this story bears out all to well the issue of the necessity of patents in a modern industrial society - both Switzerland and the Netherlands adopted patent systems 100 years ago. Countries in today's world that do not support a patent system are countries with no significant technological infrastructure.

Re:Everybody Knows

[alexander.morgan]

The article cited in this story bears out all to well the issue of the necessity of patents in a modern industrial society - both Switzerland and the Netherlands adopted patent systems 100 years ago. Countries in today's world that do not support a patent system are countries with no significant technological infrastructure.

Interesting spin and partially true. But most of those [presumably third world] countries were the victims of the great colonial powers of the time, with a lot of taking and no giving--unless you count misery. There are a lot of reasons why those countries are not doing well. Lack of education, continuing armed conflict, disease, anarchy, you name it. Patents don't make the list. Patents in those countries mostly cause more misery in the form of desperately needed drugs unavailable due to the high cost of patented drugs.

I am by no means against IP protection--in the form of copyright. But patents, especially the recently extended life of patents, are a disincentive to innovators.

I think patents can be likened to a mine field. If you can afford hundreds of mine sweepers (lawyers), then burying more patent mines may seem like a good idea. But keep in mind that even the patent office regularly issues patents for things that are already patented (for an example look up the history of the GIF patent).

Patents are also a good idea if you are a giant corporation with thousands of patents. Then you can sit down with other giant corporations and negotiate a truce. Which of course keeps the new players (those little companies that come up with billion dollar ideas that drive the economy, think Amazon, eBay, ...) out of the game.

And of course, the software industry is proof that patents are not needed to create enormous wealth and incentives. Think Bill Gates. Virtually all of the important software inventions were made without patent protection. I have never seen anybody complain about Microsoft not making enough money. All that was accomplished without patent protection. And even without patents they ended up being a monopoly. So what makes you think that any large corporation would not have gotten just as big, or bigger, without patents.

Patents (software patents in particular) mean that you have no idea if your work will pay off, because somebody may own the ideas you thought up, even if those ideas seem obvious (a reason why the patent office should deny the patent application, but rarely does). And sooner or later, independent developers with great ideas will just die out.

Re:Everybody Knows

[Godwin O'Hitler]

Lawmakers must choose between public good and corporate good, and since corporations pay for their reelections, they help their donors. The catch is that a bad economy is bad for getting reelected...

I think a big problem with that argument is that often bad_effect_on_the_economy_lag_time >= time_between_elections

Re:Everybody Knows

[sql*kitten]

I must have missed the corporation bashing part of the article, but everybody knows that patents are mostly bad for innovation. And too much innovation and progress however, is bad for big established businesses.

That's nonsense. You clearly don't know that patents require you to publish details of your process - and they don't forbid anyone from using that information, they merely permit you to charge (license) people for making use of the information that you might have invested considerable time and money to discover/develop.

The alternative to patents is secrecy, because that's the only way that an investment can be recovered. This would preclude from the market any product whose workings could be derived from inspection. It's hard to think of anything more anti-innovation where the only way to justify the cost of the development of a new product was to ensure that no-one ever saw it.

Re:Everybody Knows

[alexander.morgan]

That's nonsense. You clearly don't know that patents require you to publish details of your process - and they don't forbid anyone from using that information, they merely permit you to charge (license) people for making use of the information that you might have invested considerable time and money to discover/develop.

When was the last time you looked at a patent to implement a piece of software? Patents aren't written in a language that most normal people understand. They are written in legal mumbo jumbo to be as broad and encompassing as possible. Try to translate that into a useful program.

Re:BS

[k98sven]

Either you are:
1) Trolling

2) Blatantly misinformed
Adressing the second case:

I doubt this poster knows much about the world at all. (The use of the Bushesque term 'Netherlandian' says it all)

Switzerland is a major player (with respect to it's size, of course) in pharmaceuticals, banking, and engineering.

I'll give you an international high-tech firm that is from Switzerland: ABB - a major (second largest?) firm in robotics, power plants, power transmission etc.

Tech start ups? Well a lot of people (especially on ./) seem to care about Kazaa.

Re:BS

[nanojath]

Sorry, you don't know what the fuck you're talking about. The Swiss have a huge economy considering their population and geographical size, a huge banking industry and a huge science/tech industry (ever heard of the Nobel Prize?).

Of course the USA is very big and very rich and will win a comparison contest, but you can't ignore name technological corporations like Ciba, Roche, Sandoz and Wellcor. When you have a small country, a small population, and few natural resources, you don't succeed by trying to be the biggest. You succeed by being the best in a relatively niche market.

Random Euro-URLs

[guerby]

The prime source of information about software patents in Europe is the patents mailing list on the AFUL web site (french free unix user group).

Some information is also available on the APRIL web site (french association for research in free software).

In particular, to date, all the big (poll-wise) candidates to the french presidential election have expressed their opposition to software patents, see in french Haro sur les brevets and Tous les candidats dans l'opposition.

And of course the EuroLinux web site and FFII web site (Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure ) have links to a lot of ressources and interesting readings.

We, european citizens, are seeking ways to get other european countries take position against the current proposed european law that opens the gates of unrestricted software and ideas patenting.If you're willing to help the cause, please contact your local free software association and try to get some activism in place together with the established assiociations like the FSF Europe. If you are French or German you can even make a tax-deducible donation, it may help the cause too.

--
Laurent Guerby <guerby@acm.org>

Good from the beginning

[graphicartist82]

This *may* have been okay from the beginning if there were never any patents.. But if you got rid of patents after they'd been implemented, it would cause a lot of trouble.

***Insert Bad Metaphor***
Kinda like if they made marijuana legal in the US. In countries where it's legal, it's no big deal because it's always been that way...
***End of Bad Metaphor***

Re:Good from the beginning

[Wildcat J]

***Insert Bad Metaphor***
Kinda like if they made marijuana legal in the US. In countries where it's legal, it's no big deal because it's always been that way...
***End of Bad Metaphor***

I believe you mean "bad analogy", and indeed, it is a poor one. The (il)legality of marijuana is just one facet of the criminal justice system, whereas the patent system is fairly autonomous. That is, legalizing marijuana is a matter of reclassifying its status as a drug ("schedule I", or something, I'm not an expert), doing away with patents means completely rethinking "intellectual property."

However, I don't necessarily disagree with your assertion that it's difficult to change from supporting patents to allowing free reign in large part because that happens to be the way we've done it for so long. As has been pointed out, there are companies that produce only "intellectual property"; without patents, what happens to them? (not that such is necessarily a bad thing ;)

-J

Re:Swiss collaborated w/ Hitler. Dutch gave up.

[Hertog]

I beg you pardon?

The Dutch gave up? What universe are you living in? IIRC there was four day's of 'official' battle, then surrender because the Germans said they would bomb Rotterdam if there would be no surrender. They bombed it anyway.

Go tell the soldiers who died at the Grebbe-line that they gave up, just because they where shot!
Go tell the people who lost all they had because of the Water-line (inundation) they gave up.

And for the rest of your comment... It was Austria that 'invited' (note the quotes) the Germans in, Switzerland was neutral during the whole war.

Gr.

Hertog

Happy medium

[geekoid]

Patents only good for 7 years, no extension. ---note period. ;)

Re:Happy medium

[edremy]

Patents only good for 7 years, no extension.

Doesn't work for the drug companies or any other company with significant regulation that delays introduction of the patented thing.

7 years is roughly what it takes for a drug to wind its way through the testing process, and it can be well over 10. It doesn't start making money for a few years after that. (Assuming it ever does: few drugs ever make back their development costs.)

Re:Happy medium

[ProfBooty]

"Patents only good for 7 years, no extension. ---note period. ;) "

That doesn't work for drug companies.A patent might be granted by the USPTO, but it still needs FDA approval before it comes to market.

Its concieveable that the whole process might take 10-15 years, leaving only 5 years of patent protection.

It's a different situation

[IKEA-Boy]

I live in The Netherlands myself and while I generally disagree with the whole patent process
(especially in the US) I must point out that The Netherlands and Switzerland have a very different
economy than the US. Their economies are based primarily on trade and services (banking,
insurance, transport).
So it's not that big of a surprise to see how the patent laws developed differently from the US in
these countries.

You call that flourishing!?!

[sup4hleet]

According to this the demise of IP rights has granted them the ability to proudly cheer "We're number six! We're number six!" :)

Re:You call that flourishing!?!

[IKEA-Boy]

According to this the demise of IP rights has granted them the ability to proudly cheer "We're number six! We're number six!" :)

Yes, and numer 5/6 means higher than Hong Kong, Germany, Canada, the UK and Japan. To name a few.

Re:BS

[k98sven]

(ever heard of the Nobel Prize?)

Actually, the Nobel Prize is from the other rather high-tech European country fitting the Sw* wildcard: Sweden.

There is not a one size fits all solution

[DeadPrez]

I would love there to be one, of course.

Personally, I think there should be no software patents what-so-ever. Innovation occurs fine without them. Competition is only stifled with them. Finally, software is one of the fastest changing markets and traditionally patent law seems horribly ineffective when applied.

Once you get out of the software patent arena it gets a lot more gray. The general trend is to expand patent laws and extend expiration of patents. It is also fairly easy, to keep a patent open and gain all the benefits of having the patent without having that time count against you. I think these two trends need to be reversed. Patents should not last longer than a decade and should count from the day of the first filing. If you can not exploit your invention in this period of time, the public should not be punished any longer.

Re:There is not a one size fits all solution

[maroberts]

Shortening the time period is difficult to argue in certain instances, such as drug development.

A drug may have to go through many years of trials before it can be used generally and thus a return achieved on manufacture of that drug.

I'm fully aware that there is a lot of contention with regard to drug patents too, especially concerning AIDS related drugs, but without them I see little incentive for manufacturers to invest hundreds of millions of dollars into their development.

Copyright on the other hand, requires minimal investment before a return may be achieved and therefore a period of 70-95 years is wholly unjust. A duration similar to that of patents would have far more justification.

Re:There is not a one size fits all solution

[DeadPrez]

I disagree.

Most IP heavy companies, such as drug companies patent ideas far too early in their development. Anyway, companies ought to either keep trade secrets, secret or stop applying for patents on concepts 20 years early in development.

I'd would add one thing specific to the drug industry. I know they have FDA approval to go through (but only in the US remember, they can be selling drugs in Mexico much earlier so don't say they are floundering while waiting for FDA). While a drug waits FDA approval, for the *first* time that period doesn't count against the patent. If it fails FDA, time starts again and can't be stopped.

Drug companies, especially, have a social obligation to help people. If they are twiddling their thumbs and dragging their feet its time to open competition to other companies, and individuals who want to help people and make money as well.

Re:There is not a one size fits all solution

[maroberts]

I know they have FDA approval to go through (but only in the US remember, they can be selling drugs in Mexico much earlier so don't say they are floundering while waiting for FDA)

Most income from such drugs comes from nations rich enough to be early adopters e.g Western nations.

As far as patenting early on is concerned, often there is a neck and neck race between drug companies to get to the patent stage. Trade secrets are not a very secure method of protection - resentful ex-employees soon can be persuaded to release them to the world.

Re:There is not a one size fits all solution

[DeadPrez]

Trade secrets are not a very secure method of protection - resentful ex-employees soon can be persuaded to release them to the world.

Dare I say, so what? Government's should not be wiping the ass of corporations. There are tradesecret laws for a reason.

And so what if you get beat to a patent? You lose. Last I checked R&D is never a "sure thing." Is there some reason it should be? No. Why? Capitalism & free market. Anyway, if you get beat and can't license the patent, time to rethink your strategy. No one likes losing but this ain't communism for a reason.

Remember this is assuming the patent system has been overhauled so "frivilous" patents aren't being approved. The company that beat you to it, deserves the patent!

PS: Don't believe the hype about there only being money in "western" nations. There are millions if not billions being spent on drugs outside western nations.

Re:BS

[Scrameustache]

This is total bullshit [...] retards [...] you all hate them [...] Where are all the billion dollar Swiss/Netherlandian tech start ups??

Why don't you read the article, and maybe you'll notice that they are naming companies in there.

Ok, now take a moment...let it sink in...ok, now you've had time to assimilate that this is the awnser to the question you asked.
You're now about to go on and on about the fact that the 3 companies you gave as examples were all tech companies and so the examples given don't apply.
Now take the time to read the article again...notice the products used as examples of insane copyrights? Yes, they're drug and food companies, that's right!

Ok, now maybe examples of comapanies that made it big given in the article in question were drug and food companies? Maybe?
Yes, that's right.

Not everyone knows this it seems, but there are companies that are doing research and developpment in other areas than in electronics.

Re:Swiss collaborated w/ Hitler. Dutch gave up.

[sn0wcrsh]

Your ignorance is both appalling and apparent.

Please go read any history book about the Dutch resistance in WWII. Holland may be a small country, but it is factually baseless to claim they "sign[ed] on for the third reich".

There is a reason why the Dutch study english and not German in their schools. (Even before WWII).

A comment like this can only be posted by an "anonymous idiot"..

But Einstein was a swiss patent clerk

[Tax Boy]

Switzerland has no IP laws? But what about the smartest patent clerk ever?

poor guy would be unemployed today.

Re:But Einstein was a swiss patent clerk

[k98sven]

Interesting point..
According to the article, Switzerland didn't have patent laws until 1907.
According to A.E.s biography he worked at the patent office from 1902 to 1909..
Any swiss IP historians around who can elucidate?

Re:But Einstein was a swiss patent clerk

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe it just explains why he had enough spare time at work to figure out relativity?

Re:But Einstein was a swiss patent clerk

[Registered Coward v2]

According to the article, Switzerland didn't have patent laws until 1907.
According to A.E.s biography [st-and.ac.uk] he worked at the patent office from 1902 to 1909..
Any swiss IP historians around who can elucidate?


It doesn't matter, according to Ae. All time is relative.

Re:But Einstein was a swiss patent clerk

[doru]

According to its website, the Swiss Federal Institute of Intellectual Property was founded in 1888.

They don't give much historical information, apparently. But I'm not very good at German...

Medicine

[Cato the Elder]

Just because providing medicine to poor countries that need it is the right thing to do doesn't mean stealing from the companies who developed the medicine is the right way to do it. If people are stealing bread because their families are starving (a la Jean Valjean) the correct thing to do is not to legalize burglary but to provide food to the poor at the public expense. The companies whose years of R&D and millions of dollars created a safe and effective medicine need compensation for this, or they won't produce drugs for diseases that effect mainly the Third World. If this cannot be provided from the poor nations themselves, the purchase should be subsized by richer nations.

Re:Medicine

[Stonehand]

...including not just public funding, but also private philanthropists. If memory serves, one of the main focuses of the Gates Foundation happens to be immunizations in the Third World. I don't know whether it's negotiated any terms with drug companies regarding drugs that would otherwise be economically non-viable, however.

Re:Medicine

[ragmana]

Granted.

But, I can easily see pharm. companies using public subsidy as a way to keep prices inflated. Public expense could bevome very expensive. I have no problem with them reaping rewards from their innovation, I'm just wondering when their rights to reward need to make way for people's rights to not die.

I'm not suggesting we legalize burglary - the company that developed the product should recieve the benefits (for a period of time anyway, before a decent patent phase out period). I'm thinking price and ability to pay should be related to one another when it comes to basic human survival needs. I have no problem paying $20 to XYZ Corp. for my inhaler medication, I can afford it easily. People who can't cover their dietary needs probably don't have that luxury, and today they would just die. XYZ should charge me $20 - or $30 if it must to cover legitimate non-profit expenses - and give them the inhaler. They would not have to lose a dime. ABC Corp. should not make a dime from stealing XYZ's innovation.

A corrolary consideration of rights: If XYZ Corp. refuses to help those who need but cannot afford the inhaler, they trample on the primary rights of others and thus forefit their tertiary rights. ABC Corp. should then gain the benefit of selling and giving to those specific "consumers" that XYZ forefit.

Re:Medicine

[Stonehand]

Here's the problem, 'tho -- what if the only market for a product cannot afford it? For instance, there aren't that many wealthy nations that have had large outbreaks of sleeping sickness. The medicine for that, therefore, tends to be very rarely produced, if ever, because those who need it can't pay for it on their own and those who can pay for it, generally don't need it.

In that case, the "charge the wealthier more" model doesn't apply, and you're basically stuck at...

a) Exemption from IP law. ISTR that there are actually some treaty provisions in which protections for pharmaceuticals can be waived under very limited circumstances, but I could be merely imagining things...

b) Public funding, which, yes, might drive up the price a bit, unless price controls are imposed.

c) Private funding, which might have the same effect.

d) Local companies ignoring IP law and reverse-engineering the drugs anyway. This happens to some degree already -- the pharmaceutical companies know that being too zealous enforcers might count for bad press.

e) Locals get screwed. This also happens a great deal today.

Re:Medicine

[ragmana]

Hmm... Good point. Even if public/private funding is used to take care of R&D, it would likely be more expensive. The only way to minimize costs would be through public development or Non-Gov't. Org.'s. Public development is notoriously ineffecient and expensive, and NGO's don't exist in this area (to my knowledge).

a) and d) only really apply if somebody gets around to producing the drug, which is the problem as you said. But, they assume the product gets produced in which case I don't have a huge problem with d) if the company refuses to distribute the product, or distribute it at-cost paid publicly or privately. a) would be somewhat better, although I would prefer the innovator be involved and have a chance at compensation or even reward for the R&D.

Best case scenario would be a philanthropic pharm. company paired with a philanthropic NGO and provate donations to defer costs. Pretty utopian, I admit. So . . . what to do about a drug only the poor need? . . .

The story is different, though, for drugs that both the rich and poor alike would need to survive.

Not to portray myself as a "bleeding-heart" liberal per-se (I have been advocating IP as a tertiary right), but I think "poor man's diseases" might be eliminated if we really applied the health and food, survival rights standard. Who knows details about sleeping sickness to flesh the example out?

Re:Medicine

[richieb]

The companies whose years of R&D and millions of dollars created a safe and effective medicine need compensation for this, or they won't produce drugs for diseases that effect mainly the Third World.

Actually a lot of their research depends on basic science done in publicly funded institutions. For example, the HIV virus was isolated by scientist at the NIH and equivalent organization in France(I know there is some controversies there).

If you actually look at the budgets of the large drug companies, they spend more on marketing than research. For example see this article.

Re:Medicine

[Hob Gadling]

Several issues with your statement:

1. Ideas are not, have not, never will be "property". This is used to describe something tangible, not a legal construct used to protect corporations. I shouldn't even have to explain this one.

2. Those companies whom you describe as needing compensation for their "millions of dollars" in R&D, have already been compensated. Over 80% of *all* big-Pharm R&D (top 7 pharmaceutical companies in the US) is funded by the gov't. Don't whine about all the money "stolen" from these poor multinational corporations, many of whom don't pay taxes (or pay very little).

3. Basic health care (including pharmaceuticals) *is* a human right. "Profit" is not a right, especially when the US corporations are not "losing" anything. They just can't (or choose not to) compete with the other corporations willing to manufacture generic medications. US corporations charge the amounts they do because of the monopolistic protections they receive. No actual "property" is being stolen from them, they're just being undersold.

Another interesting topic is why the same antibiotics sold to humans cost such-and-such/pill, while they are sold at 1-10% of the price when sold to animals.

Re:Medicine

[Cato the Elder]

Ideas are not, have not, never will be "property".

Nor are "ideas" patentable. Nowhere in my post did I claim ideas were property. I did use the verb "steal" because it describes a diversion of money from one corporation to another by illegal means.

Over 80% of *all* big-Pharm R&D (top 7 pharmaceutical companies in the US) is funded by the gov't.

Could I get a source on this? I'm curious. I find the point irrelevant, however. The subsidizing governments are not the ones making the decisions.

multinational corporations, many of whom don't pay taxes (or pay very little)

Hmmm. So why does Pfizer's report "provisions for taxes on income" at a rate of 35%? Do I misunderstand the fiscal meaning of this term?

I would also like to address your discussion of rights. I agree that a way should be found to make basic medical care available to everyone. I simply do not feel that the best way to do this is to entirely dismantle this system of patent monopolies.

Another interesting topic is why the same antibiotics sold to humans cost such-and-such/pill, while they are sold at 1-10% of the price when sold to animals

Products for animals are less regulated. Testing and modeling drug interactions is much less expensive. Many animal medications are sold direct in bulk to farmers. The cost of animal care isn't inflated by comprehensive insurance or by as extensive malpractice suits. Many of these factors apply to all aspects of animal medicine. If you look at the prices to do a CBC (complete blood count) for a human vs a dog, you will probably be tempted to send your little red topped tube off with the vet and just look up the reference ranges for humans in a textbook.

Last time I was in Holland

[k98sven]

I visited the European Patent Office (a.k.a Barad-dûr) in the Hauge,
and I must say that nowadays they certainly take patents seriously!

For the record

[Belly of the Beast]

Rotterdam was flattened. And the Germans said thay'd flatten the other large city in the NL, Amsterdam if the Dutch didn't surender ASAP. In fact, if you walk around Rotterdam you may find less left standing than in Hiroshima. Halland standing up the the 3rd Reich makes about as much sense as Japan did standing up to atom bomb.

This was a simple case of surender and live to fight another day or die. Occupation was hell for the Dutch, but at least there are still Dutch.

Try reading some history, even the "Classic Comics Edition," for twit-wit's sake.

-s

Patent vs. copyright

[jfengel]

Many people confuse patent and copyright, and in the case of intellectual property they do begin to blur.

The patent was originally intended to protect processes, usually mechanical ones, where the idea was a fairly insightful one. At least in principle you could keep your idea to yourself and still make a profit at it by building the thing yourself. That's not always practical, so patents were created to give you a legally enforceable way to limit the distribution of your idea to just the people you sell it to. The "price" of that is that it's time-limited, which is just as well because eventually somebody is going to figure it out anyway.

A copyright covers something more clearly defined, a particular sequence of letters, recording, or an image. Determining identity is relatively simple; just check the sequence of letters/notes/pixels. By contrast, an idea is kind of hazy.

But unlike a process, you _must_ reveal all of the details for your invention (i.e. your book, song, or image) to have any market value. You can't market half a book, or just the ones of a piece of software. But you can sell a ballpoint pen, say, without telling anybody what's in the ink, and it's not easy to figure out.

The cost of stealing a copyright is relatively low; just copy the book. The cost of stealing a patent, as originally conceived, is much higher: you have to manufacture something.

So they invent copyrights. Unlike a process, which can be changed and added to, a book or song more clearly belongs to its owner, so the terms are much longer. Taking a book and adding a chapter to it, or "improving" a few words and selling it, and then profiting from the sale and keeping 100% of the proceeds, would certainly seem like stealing no matter how long it was available.

Unfortunately, software works more like a process to be patented, but it's as easily stealable as a document, and you have to reveal it to make it valuable. It fits into neither category cleanly, so whenever one topic is broached on Slashdot, the other will come up.

In the end it will turn out to be its own category, I suspect, with a whole new set of compromises. The existing patent and copyright laws are already difficult to interpret; for example, how much do you have to change a manufacturing process before you can claim it's a whole new one? In software, the cost of taking somebody's idea and re-implementing it is relatively low most of the time.

Re:Patent vs. copyright

[nerdlyone]

In the end it will turn out to be its own category, I suspect, with a whole new set of compromises. The existing patent and copyright laws are already difficult to interpret; for example, how much do you have to change a manufacturing process before you can claim it's a whole new one?

Good point about software needing its own IP category. It is more a tool than expression, which should make it subject to the restrictions of patent law--which has a MUCH higher standard to get protection than copyright. In copyright, all you have to do is fix your original expression and it is already automatically protected, no government filing or intervention required.

On the question of how much you must change a process before it is a new one, the question is hard to answer. An easier way to look at it is that if you fulfill all the elements of a claim in someone's patent, you infringe that patent, whether you have added elements or not. If you don't actually fulfill all the elements of the claim, you don't infringe and your process is not owned by that patent. You can also patent an improved process by adding elements, though you would still infringe the originally patented process since you would still have all their elements in your design.

ok, good point

[ragmana]

Perhaps patents as they were originally intended (at least as far as I am aware) might be the answer. Those would phase out after a period of time, allowing new innovators to build on the progress of past innovators. This is what we do anyway as virtually EVERY innovation depends on a previous innovation. Language itself counts as an innovation, and look at how it develops (almost patent-free).

In the case of manufacturing, the phase out period should be far enough out that manufacturers would not be hurt by it unless they decided to cling to outdated propriatery technology. They would have to innovate to compete as they do now, but after a time their innovaion would become available to tohers to learn from and build off of.

This would also prevent platform owners from pushing aside innovators forever - there would essentially be a time limit before their technology becomes public domain.

The question may be not whether or not to have patents, but how long they should last. Too short does not give enough time to reap the rewards of an innovation, too long (as we can see today) can promote stagnation. (Or am I missing something?)

Re:ok, good point

[bob_clippy]

Platform owners win because they control the platform, not because of technology, or even their specific implementation of the technology. If you forced Microsoft to make Windows 2000 open source, it probably wouldn't drive their stock price down more than a couple points because going forward they make the proprietary changes that everyone has to follow.

I agree the software patent situation is screwed, and that most innovations are evolutionary and therefore there should be much fewer patents issued. I like the European standard (significant advancement to state of the art) better than ours.

Re:ok, good point

[ragmana]

Hm... well, this is the fourth time I've tried to write this post. I'm not sure how to deal with proprietary changes, which I take to mean changes that are like innovation but not quite, but that constitute a standard. That way people developing software know what they are dealing with.

If Win2k were open source now, do you think a product that competes with XP would result?

Re:ok, good point

[bob_clippy]

In the mid-90's IBM spent hundreds of millions trying to sell OS/2 Warp, which leveraged its knowledge of Windows and DOS (it had source code rights). It even ran Win 3.1 programs but it went nowhere because people wanted one standard and that was Windows (OK, another reason was Dell and Compaq saw IBM as a competing manufacturer, but that wasn't the reason it lost).

DR-DOS and MS-DOS, same thing, although Microsoft helped speed up the process using techniques that cost them an out of court settlement (Q. Do you think Gates regrets doing this?)

So my answer is no, there would not be an effective competitor, although there might be something that would get a 1% share (mostly visitors to this site) for a couple years.

Re:ok, good point

[ragmana]

I don't know if OS/2 Warp is the best example. I was not particularily technically adept or aware in the early-to-mid 90's - too young - but I had heard of Windows and not of OS/2 (until the very late 90's, when I heard of it as a moot point).

But, you're probably right - competition in platforms may be neigh impossible in the real world.

Re:ok, good point

[demus]

OS/2's demise was caused more by bad handling then MS did. It didn't compete with MS on the home or small business desktop, because each iteration demanded the newest hardware available, thus the average user never heard of it, thus "everybody" knew how to use some version of Windows, making it much easier to roll out to a work-force relatively cheaply (both in hardware and training).

If MS had to open the windows source, and keep it open for subsequent releases, a compatible alternative, priced reasonably could very well get a goodly chunk of the pie. That's what happened with the PC.

"Standard" in this case means "runs the programs deemed neccessary", not that there is a start button in the lower left corner.

Re:ok, good point

[el_chicano]

It didn't compete with MS on the home or small business desktop, because each iteration demanded the newest hardware available, thus the average user never heard of it, thus "everybody" knew how to use some version of Windows,

OS/2 Version 3 (Warp) ran just fine on a 386-DX40, so it was not a hardware issue. It ran Windows 3.1 better than MS Windows did (the Windows virtual machine would crash but the OS stayed up, unlike "real" Windows).

Nope, the real reason OS/2 died was because Bill Gates refused to license Win32 to IBM. It was not a technical problem but one of abuse of monopoly power.

I cried when I had to go from OS/2 Warp to Windows 98. OS/2 was light years ahead of Win98, but once Windows 3.1 was phased out there were not many applications available for OS/2 so the switch to Windows was inevitable.

It wasn't until Linux came out that computers became fun again. Users should never have to reboot a computer when an application crashes, or be told by technical support to reload the OS when they can't figure out what is going on...

What a bunch of Bull

[Cato the Elder]

The arguments presented vis a vis patents don't make any sense. First, he makes a big deal about how not respecting other countries patents encouraged economic growth in Switzerland. However, this isn't really a debated point. Stealing gets you more money. So does exploiting child labor. That doesn't mean either should be allowed.

He also claims that despite patents, Switzerland produced many important innovations in food production. However, I don't see any evidence, either in the article or from looking up various descriptions of the inventions, that these innovations were made public. Patent protection is granted only in exchange for publishing the details of your invention so that others can build on and be inspired by it (this is why patents are not supposed to be granted for obvious extensions of the art). Something like a chocolate receipe can be kept a trade secret for far longer than 20 years, in the end producing less public good than a patented invention.

Re:What a bunch of Bull

[God! Awful]

I was just about to post and say the same thing. Somebody mod the parent up. Let me extend this point by saying two things:

1. Take a look at game theory, such as the iterated prisoner's dilemma. In many games, if everyone cooperates then everyone will do well. If a few people defect, they will do even better. However, if the majority of people defect then everyone will suffer. Thus, the fact that two nations prospered without patent law does not imply that the system could be extended to the whole world.

2. The fact that the author could name a few inventions that were developed during the patent-free period (even if they were more like trade secrets) doesn't prove anything. Anecdotal evidence only proves that something is possible or true in principle. You need to have quantitative evidence to prove that things are true in general. E.g. the fact that Red Hat has had at least one profitable quarter shows that you *can* make money selling free software, but it doesn't prove that they have a solid business case.

-a

Re:What a bunch of Bull

[Znork]

All nations have prospered without patent law. Go back to the last century. Inventions were still happening.

Go back just a decade in computing, to before you could patent computer programs. How much invention happened then? Most of the important new concepts in computing were developed without patents.

What if IBM had been able to patent the BIOS of the PC? The evolution of the PC industry would have been slowed down immensely.

The prisoners dilemma doesnt match up against IP problemspace. If everyone defects, they still will not be worse off, in fact it might map the other way around.

This isnt really news tho, look up the criticism of patents on the eurolinux alliance website; a lot of research that has come to the conclusion that patents hamper innovation is available.

Re:What a bunch of Bull

[God! Awful]

All nations have prospered without patent law. Go back to the last century. Inventions were still happening.

Okay, firstly I don't know which century you're talking about. The last century was only 3 years ago, so I'll assume you mean the 1800s. I don't know how many countries had patents in the 19th century, but the Americans certainly did. So did the French; read the article. Now, if you want to go way, way back to the last millenium, I don't think anyone had patents. But the world was very different then. People had a baser standard of living.

Go back just a decade in computing, to before you could patent computer programs. How much invention happened then? Most of the important new concepts in computing were developed without patents.

The world has changed. Back then, the oft-espoused business case of "give away the software as a loss leader to sell your hardware" would have actually worked. Hardware was very lucrative, and this was driving innovation. Now, the situation is different. (Remember also that lots of bad concepts in computing were developed back then, like storing the date as a 2 digit decimal.)

What if IBM had been able to patent the BIOS of the PC? The evolution of the PC industry would have been slowed down immensely

They would have to license it under "fair use".

The prisoners dilemma doesnt match up against IP problemspace. If everyone defects, they still will not be worse off, in fact it might map the other way around.

That's an unsubstantiated opinion. Your statement that "If everyone defects, they still will not be worse off" is baseless. Maybe you are assuming a zero-sum game? (an invalid assumption)

This isnt really news tho, look up the criticism of patents on the eurolinux alliance website; a lot of research that has come to the conclusion that patents hamper innovation is available.

Yes, I know. A lot of self-interested Linux advocates have argued against patents for years. However, the fact that it's a heavily debated issue is what continues to make it news.

-a

Re:What a bunch of Bull

[Znork]

Yes, ehm, of course I mean the 1800-hundreds.

For computing, almost all major evolutions have happened without patents. The word processor, spreadsheet, GUI's, the web, pretty much everything has been developed without patents. Copyright has been enough for several decades, with no apparent harm to invention. I cant think of a single software idea where the ability to patent would have been a driving factor in its development.

Do you think that 1-click shopping would not have been invented had there been no patents for software? GIF's? GIF was developed without knowledge of the unisys compression patent (not to mention the compression algorithms were patented not only by unisys, but two other companies hold conflicting patents as well, IIRC). Since then, better formats have been developed, while having to steer clear of patents, so again things get invented despite, rather than because of, patents. Software gets developed all the time where the creators run afoul of patents post-fact, which means the idea of patents promoting invention isnt correct, at least in the software field. And patents are meant for promoting inventions, not to be ways to leech cash of other developers or to leverage them as control instruments in the industry.

IBM would hardly have licensed a patent for the BIOS. With the stance they had when all they had was copyright, why would they be different with a patent backing them?

The problem with applying the prisoners dilemma to the IP problemspace is that the prisoners dilemma requires that you be able to map some form of values onto the options. If you automatically get a negative result by implementing patents, you dont get the effect specifically because others defect.

Re:What a bunch of Bull

[God! Awful]

Well first, the story was about patents in general, and you seem to have narrowed it down to patents in general. 1-click shopping is the poster child for bad software patents, and I'm not going to defend it.

Your argument about GIF doesn't necessarily prove anything. The fact that 3 companies developed and attempted to patent the same idea doesn't prove that the idea would have inevitably been discovered. All 3 companies invested time and money developing the technology with the intention of patenting it.

On the other hand, I do think that innovation would continue today without patents. The reason is that a lot of research takes place at universities. Private companies would cease to invest in pure research, but universities would continue to do so. Universities get their money largely from tuition and government grants. Let's assume that companies won't fund university research if they don't benefit from it in the form of patents. So in actual fact, if patent protection was removed, a large percentage of the ongoing innovation would be funded by poor, starving students.

-a

"...good article..." NOT!

[binaryDigit]

This has to be one of the worst articles I've read in a long time. He presents no, even remotely, compelling arguments to prove his point (whatever that might have been). It reads more like a stream of consciousness than something with a point. But lets explore some of the concepts that come from his article.

Lets see, "taking other peoples ideas and ignoring conventions to protect those ideas, and then benefitting from those ideas is ok because it may help you to become big and strong as well as you're countries economy." Uh, ok.

Then he brings up a couple of "success" stories and somehow correlates that with the making of a healthy economy for entire countries.

This article is pure rubbish. It's like something a high schooler would write. "Corps are evil for pushing patents and here a few examples of why their arguments are weak". Sheesh, hardly what I'd call compelling. Focus on the negative aspects of this policy. Show how it needlessly stifles competition or prevents innovation from helping those who need it. Hell, if the problem is that "rich corps" are getting richer by gouging poor countries, then attack that problem. Saying that somehow patents are behind it all is silly.

Two thumbs down to this author for taking what really is a problem (access by poorer countries to inexpensive innovations) and trivializing the issue by heaping on their own politcal views.

Re:BS

[IKEA-Boy]

Ok, I'll bite. The Netherlands actually has a very large number of powerfull multinationals. For example: Shell (Royal Dutch Petroleum), Philips (electronics), Unilever (foods, and other), Heineken (beer), Ahold (retail), ABN AMRO (international banking), ING (international banking and insurance), AKZO (chemicals). And I'm sure Switzerland has some nice big banks and pharmaceutical companies to speak for them.

I remember reading somewhere that The Netherlands have the highest number of multinationals per head of the population (no link, sorry). I'm not saying this is a good thing, but that is a different story.

For a nice overview of the strength of the Dutch economy go here. Now pull your head out of the Texas sand and start informing yourself before making ignorant posts.

Correction about ABB

[danro]

Only one half of ABB originates from Switzerland.
ABB was formed in a merger between ASEA (Sweden) and Brown-Boweri(Switzerland)

Of course, since it is (or at least has been) sucessful both Switzerland and Sweden claim that it is "their" company.

Latly the company has recieved much publicity due to some shady business regarding two of the ex CEO's retirement benefits (they "voluntarily" paid back $80M last week after a public flogging in the world press).
They are also plagued by huge asbestos claims they inherited due to the acquisition in 1989 of the US power generation company, Combustion Engineering.

Re:BS

[Zed_Balcab]

Under which rock are you living? Both of these countries have rather strong economies, especially if you consider population.

But much more important: Nice people, good living there. I really like Dutch people (and i'm Swiss...) :)

Re:Swiss collaborated w/ Hitler. Dutch gave up.

[Wildcat J]

Of course, Germans would say that Dutch is like German, but with poor spelling ;)

Wrong "Two Types Of Invention"

[GlenRaphael]

Perhaps there are two types of invention: Those that will occur without protection, and those that won't occur without it.

Those cases do not exhaust the possibility set; one case you left out is "those that won't occur with protection." which is the chief benefit of reforming or removing the current laws. Leaving out forms of invention that are to some degree indifferent to the legal regime, I would claim the two most interesting categories of invention for purposes of our current discussion are:

(a) those that won't occur without at least the current level of protection, and
(b) those that won't occur with it.

Making protection "too strong" will produce more innovation of type (a) and less of (b); making protection "too weak" will produce more of type (b) and less of (a).

Re:Wrong "Two Types Of Invention"

[istartedi]

My initial reaction to this was to dismiss it as more AIP rhetoric, but I think you have a point.

I now think the 3 classes should be:

1. Those that are more likely to occur when protection exists (a new type of motor that requires a $500,000,000 investment to perfect).

2. Those that are less likely to occur due to the presence of protection (a software project that can't afford to defend itself from frivolous lawsuits because, oh say... XOR mouse cursors are patented).

3. Those that will occur no matter what (some guy mixes cough syrup into a drink, sets it on fire, and discovers that it tastes good).

A simple "how strong should IP protection be" is really too simple a question when we view things in this light. Perhaps the questions should be 1. Which classes of inventions fall into which category. 2. How much protection should that class enjoy to omptimize output.

Notice I said *optimize* output. It is entirely possible for a society to determine that some types of IP should be minimized as opposed to maximized (e.g., child porn, or for a less extreme example... they might want to encourage TV networks to produce more serious programming and less mental pablum). But then when you start to talk about discouraging some forms of IP, you get into free speech issues...

Difficult questions indeed...

Re:Wrong "Two Types Of Invention"

[mpe]

Those that are more likely to occur when protection exists (a new type of motor that requires a $500,000,000 investment to perfect).

The other necessary criteria is that the object should be quite cheap to manufacture once it has been perfected. Drugs, at least in theory, fall into this catagory. (But only so long as the drug company is actually developing from scratch...)

Re:Wrong "Two Types Of Invention"

[NetWurkGuy]

Trying to identify separate categories of invention in this way is unquestionably a step in the right direction. What's missing is good data to quantify the analysis. As is so often the case, the basic problem is that history is not a controlled experiment. We must make do with such separate cases as arise by historical accident. This is what the Gardian article attempts to do.

As an additional factor which I have not seen mentioned here: not all invention is commercial, we must also take account of government, academic and philantropic R&D as sources of inventions that might not occur without patent protection.

They don't call themselves Dutch

[yerricde]

I doubt this poster knows much about the world at all. (The use of the Bushesque term 'Netherlandian' says it all)

That term is closer to the truth than you may think. Netherlanders do not call themselves by any name that resembles "Dutch". To them, their country is Nederland (singular), and their language is Nederlands, which means "Netherlandish".

Re:They don't call themselves Dutch

[Yhg1s]

Actually, we *do* call ourselves Dutch -- in English. Germans don't call themselves German either, except in English. They call themselves Deutsch in German. And Republicans don't call themselves Republican either, they call themself Du-- er, no, wait, that's what *we* call them. :-) In any case, 'Netherlandish' is completely wrong. Either call it 'Dutch' or 'Nederlands'. I just call it home.

Re:BS

[swissmonkey]

Novartis
Nestle
Logitech
Half of ABB
Serono
Roche
Firmenich

Oh, and we're so retarded with computers that when Cray Research developed their Parrallel Application Technology Program, they included:

NSF Pittsburgh SuperComputing Center
Jet Propulsion Lab/NASA/CALTECH
Los Alamos (LANL) and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL)

And...

EPFL (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology) based at Lausanne, Switzerland

Physics nobel prize
1984 2 researchers from CERN, based in Geneva
1986 Researchers at IBM lab, Zurich
1987 Researchers at IBM lab, Zurich
1988 Researchers at CERN, Geneva and 2 researchers in USA
1992 Researcher at CERN, Geneva

Chemistry
1991 Researcher at Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich

Medicine
1996 Researcher University of Zurich and one from Memphis, USA
1984 2 Researchers at Basel Institute for Immunology and one from Cambridge, UK

Not that bad for a country of 7 million people.

And no need to talk about a professor of Physics at university of Zurich and Swiss institute of technology, named Einstein...

Patenting time itself and the world's oldest job

[T5]

Switzerland and the Netherlands - making mucho dinero from watches, prostitutes, drugs, and flowers and tourism.

Maybe the USPO will grant me a patent for rolling these all together. Let's see, a doped up, tulip carrying, on-time escort service servicing the international airports in Amsterdam and Bern...

Re:BS

[swissmonkey]

We probably lack some things in Switzerland.

But you definitely lack education about Switzerland.

Banks are not the most important element of the economy, by far. They are just one of the most well known worldwide.

OT, but I just had to say...

[HKTiger]

...hey guys (or grrls, or beings, or whatever), this is a truly enjoyable sub-thread here: it's a delight to see a discussion board hosting a *discussion*, something that's intelligent, thoughtful, and well-reasoned on both sides. Conceding some points to each other is a disturbingly rare occurrence, and I"m overjoyed to see it.

And, aside from the mental exercise I'm getting here, evaluating each argument, I'm actually learning something. Huzzah huzzah.

Now I"m in the mood, I might as well go suck up to the boss to try to get some time off...

Re:OT, but I just had to say...

[charon_on_acheron]

Yes, I totally agree. I think one reason this doesn't happen more often is noone wants to lose karma by having their thread modded (-1 Offtopic). I was actually surprised mine wasn't modded (-1 Troll, And A Sick Troll At That).

In fact, the last time I made a comment like this, it happened to be the same time that CmdrTaco and crew were moving everything over to new hardware. This was last fall sometime. The whole thread disappeared, everything from my post through about 5 responses. I just figured I had touched someone's nerve at /.HQ, and they zapped me and the discussion. (Not the infamous Bitchslap, because I wasn't re-posting it. Just a wake-up call to get my attention.) But I am sure it was just a glitch while transferring the database to the new servers. wink-wink

And of course I always try to give credit where it's due. The arguments ragmana gave were good ones, which I just don't agree with. But most importantly, he made several statements that agreed with each other. Even when dealing with people face-to-face on something they believe in that isn't that common, no matter what group the people are from. But notice ragmana cheats, by being a logician, which I am sure helps to form strong, logically sound arguments. :^)

Anyhow, we'll see where this stands after ragmana composes a response. I wouldn't be opposed to exchanging opinions in another forum if a more suitable one was suggested.

Re:OT, but I just had to say...

[HKTiger]

Hey, if this exchange continues elsewhere, please include me: I'd be interested in following it, and contributing (when I can convince my brain to behave nicely and maybe offer something useful).

Let Perpetual Motion Machines Be Patented Again

[feloneous cat]

Makes as much sense as Dr. Spud patenting a genome [makes a disgusted face]. Besides, they were a HELL of a lot more fun to read [grin].

Patent limits

[ProfBooty]

FYI, in the US, patents last 20 years from the date of filing. Since the pendency time of an application takes several years between the filing date and whenthe patent is approved is several years on average, it is more or less the same time limit as before.

To: MrTroller

[AftanGustur]

I don't think a few isolated examples from the last century makes a good case for doing away with patent laws.

The article suggests no such thing. In fact it even says: "These examples do not necessarily suggest that the abandonment of patent protection is an essential precondition for development. But they do indicate that it can, in the right circumstances, be an effective tool."

While i'm all for helping developing nations (and I think cheap medical supplies, drugs, and genetically enhanced food crops should be available to anyone, patents be damned), I don't see patents as being the cause of all their troubles

Again, no one is suggesting that "all their troubles" are caused by patent-blockages. Did you read the article ??

I find it very unlikely that a lifting of patent laws on underprivileged countries would fix all their problems.

Again, who is suggesting that it would fix all their problems ??

It may alleviate some issues, but it won't fix much in the long run.

And why ?? Do you know what % of adults have AIDS in Africa ?? Up to 30% in soma areas !!! Do you know what percentage can affort drug treatment ?? Close to 0%. And you say it won't fix much ???

He could better spend his time focusing on how to get these countries the cheap food and medical sources they need, rather than putting forth examples of 'patentless society'.

If the 'developing' countries are to be able to 'develop' then giving their money away won't help. Although Africa can't affort to buy bug/desease resistant seeds (and once a year, because they won't create fertile seeds) or aids drugs, it can well affort to produce it itself. But "affort" is not enough if you are denied the ability by some company that puts profits before anything else.

You are taking an extreme view on the issue without even having read the article in question.

That makes you a troll mister !

Leonardo

[KjetilK]

Well, if you know Da Vinci, well, we probably only saw a tiny fraction of his genious. He always complained how rulers only wanted him to make bigger and better war machines, to Leonardo a utterly boring and much to easy task, they wanted him to make pretty paintings, also not something for his great genious, though he performed very well at it.

Leonardo wanted to learn how nature worked, and he wanted to learn how to fly. It was a great loss for humanity that Leonardo was unable to dedicate all his time to that.

Cheap food and medical sources, sure!

[Handyman]

He could better spend his time focusing on how to get these countries the cheap food and medical sources they need, rather than putting forth examples of 'patentless society'.

This view is exactly the view that does not help these people. Poor countries do not really need cheap food. They do not need cheap medicine. They do not need money. They need a way to provide for themselves! How can they do that? They have to flourish economically. The only way for a poor, underdeveloped country to flourish economically is by being allowed to compete honestly, to do what they do best (to produce things cheaply) and to be able to exploit the advantage they have in that area. In the mean time, what happens instead is that, because of intellectual property laws, the poor countries cannot produce stuff cheaply because they did not invent the stuff - however, big corporations from the rich countries CAN come in and buy cheap labour there, without giving the country any of the advantages it would have if it could keep the production in its own hands (e.g., the profits). Basically, we keep 'em working and pay them only what they need to live on, and then we go and take the profits home. That's called exploitation. Also, the smarter people there have not even got an incentive to learn and get into a management career, because all the higher positions in large factories in their own country are continued to be held by people from the rich countries. There is no investment in human capital. Only exploitation.

I don't say that the intellectual property laws aren't good for something. It's just that the underdeveloped countries are hampered by them because all *they* can do is produce things cheaply, and they don't have the chance to build up a pool of intellectual property themselves, so basically they will always be dependent on the intellectual property owners. Later, when they *are* developed, they will not have a chance anymore to build up an intellectual property pool, because we already invented and patented everything before they had the chance. It's just like in the old days, when power was with the people who owned the factories: now the rich countries own the stuff needed to produce, and the poor countries cannot change this except maybe through a revolution, overthrowing the western world with its intellectual property laws, forcing them to share.

Article on Innovation Related Privileges

[pamri]

This Economic Times article, (which was rejected by the editor's) very beautifully articulates that Intellectual Property is not a right but a privilege. Qoute: "Few people outside Cuba and North Korea would be opposed to the concept of patents, trademarks and copyrights. However, given that the cost of these to the public, worldwide, is in tens of billions of dollars, it is desirable that the debate on the subject be carried out in rational terms. It is therefore advisable that a non-emotive term be used to describe these concepts. IPRs have a closer relationship with innovation, novelty and distinctiveness. Normally, every IPR would involve innovation or novelty, though not everything which is innovative may be entitled to an IPR. As discussed above, IPRs are, at best, negative rights. An IPR-holder has an exclusive right to do something to the exclusion of all others. In essence, therefore, an IPR is not a right, but a privilege. When the holders of such exclusive rights sue to maintain the exclusion against third parties, they can hardly be said to be defending their rights, they are actually enforcing their privileges. In terms of their legal incidents, IPRs are no different from such privileges, albeit with a far better policy justification to support them." So, to summarise, by using term's such as right, Corp's & lawyer's are essentially exaggerating their claim.

Its not stealing if generics arn't illegal

[DABANSHEE]

In those countries

At least, the playing field should be level

[driehuis]

I'm not a big fan of the patent system and particularly its gradual expansion into the realm of software engineering, but my biggest concern is that the playing field isn't level.

If someone files a patent that in my mind is obvious, I'd have to challenge it in court, and even if I were to win, it would cost me significant money.

I wouldn't mind the European Patent directives as much if I could file a complaint for a reasonable fee, say EUR 100, refundable if the patent is revoked as a result of the re-examination. That would pretty much level the playing field.

I have written a piece of software that I can't publish because of a frivolous patent. On my reading of the patent, it doesn't apply to my case, but the patent owner will offer no guidance as to the applicability (but for US$25000 they'll allow my in-house usage of the patent, and they don't care if the patent applies in the first place). So, I'm stuck with two options: getting a patent lawyer to look at the case to find out if it applies (that would set me back at least EUR 1500), or not doing it. I opted for the latter.

While I'm at it, bumping the price offenders pay for new patent applications would be cool too. If they employ their own patent lawyers their incremental costs for filing frivolous patents are pretty low, and if those lawyers get bonuses per patent passed the temptation to skimp on their homework becomes pretty big.

United States and vs. Both

[X_5mil3]

For anyone stupid enough to take Switzerland and the Netherlands as evidence that we don't need IP protection, why don't you look at the United States which has obviously flouished more 'with' IP protection. Copyright, and patent protection is nothing more than protecting peoples rights to their own property. Here's a question: who would agree that a factory worker should not be payed for the work he has done, besides socialists? For anyone emotionally attacking IP protection you ought to apply the same situation to someone that creates something with more mental effort in which 'others' (factory owner above) would use for their own profit.

Re:United States and vs. Both

[X_5mil3]

Yeah, i've known that 'all' individual rights are removed, including property rights, including the working class that is always exploited into believing (emotionally) that they can survive without property rights. So I ask you the same, have you even known anything about socialism, individual rights, or property rights?

We need a wealthy foundation

[Fefe]

...that employs patent lawyers to have dubious patents revoked. And they should only get paid little money with large bonuses for every patent they manage to have revoked.

Then, if 90% of the patents stupid companies file are being revoked, things will change. The patent law isn't so bad. It's just that politicians think that more patents means more innovation and thus they tell the patent offices to accept more patents. The prior art rules are there, they just need to be applied. Complaining on Usenet does not help. We need an independent entity to spend money on killing off stupid patents.

Patents cost money, you know? Big companies will start applying only for non-bogus patents if all the bogus ones are revoked and publicly ridiculed.

Re:Do away wit it all

[thermoplyae]

I agree with cutting the attorneys and other parasites out of the equation, however we need to protect people with geninuely original ideas and reward them for innovations, but I don't include large corporations how are stopping advancements with barriers to entry

Take a look at the charon_on_acheron sub-thread...

[ragmana]

... I think we're discussing all your points there. If you think what you're saying is something new and I missed that, I sorry - post what you think is new and I'll try to address it.

I'm trying not to make a knee-jerk criticism of some sort of "Big Pharm." (That's the first time I've heard the term used, actually.) Charon makes your point very well in his first and second posts, I think you might like his articulation. (Yeah, my response is there too. Another is forthcoming, it's quite an interesting discussion, so far. Well, to me anyway.)

Human nature

[Alex Belits]

A lot of people expressed or defended the capitalist ideology (and a bunch of other ideologies and their varieties as well) or various legal systems by claiming that their favorite idea is based on "human nature". I have big news for people who bring "no incentive for innovation" argument:

IT'S BASIC HUMAN NATURE TO INVENT AND IMPROVE THINGS. In fact, this is one of two things humans are good at, another being exploration/research.

Someone will invent things anyway. If society will be better if such inventions will be rewarded, the discussion should be about how to reward them, not how to turn ideas into a currency, something what they never were supposed to be, and can't be because of -- you guessed -- human nature. So far the ability to sell a patent to a large company does not work at all -- most of people that innovate are employees of those companies already, and a fee that employees get for a patent that they surrender to the employer is beyond insulting -- therefore nothing really works as a reward to those people. Giving the companies incentive to go on a patent-squatting run may create few stable and rich companies, but society at large does not benefit from companies being stable and rich -- it benefits from companies being effective at producing things that people need. If companies are inefficient, and have to disappear, they have to -- no company has a right to survive in the first place, only people's lives are supposed to be protected. So again, it comes back to one of the most disturbing problems in the recent history -- "lives" and welfare of companies are now better protected than lives and welfare of people. Congratulations, non-human entities are running human societies.