The Case Against Intellectual Property

dhilvert writes "David Levine and Michele Boldrin argue that current IP laws encourage an inefficient rent model and stifle the potential for innovation without intellectual monopoly. Levine teaches at UCLA and maintains an Economic and Game Theory page."

Comments

Thing thats bothered me about Software PAtents.

[trotski]

A question one must ask one's self is when does a research result or algorithim or something stop being a matematical or scientific process, that should be shared with everyone and when does it become intelectual property?

I mean, the 'breast cancer gene' has been patented, the harvard mouse too; not to mention all of the computer algorithims that are patented. Whatever happened to the notion that mathematics and science should be shared with everyone? The scientific community has functioned on the 'open source' model for hundreds of years, but it seems that thanks to the concept of 'intelectual property' this is all changeing.

Really, I mean some of these patent claims are analogous to Newton/Leibnits attempting to patent calculus or Feynmann trying to patent his discoveries in quantum electrodynamics.The point is when does intelectual property become a rediculous concept, or is it a rediculous concept from the very begining?

Re:Thing thats bothered me about Software PAtents.

[Billly Gates]

" Trouble is you have these people coming up with all sorts of crazy ideas, like they invented the internet, then start pestering people for a fee."

This is what I meant by patening a means to access. Patening the internet or plumbing is an example of this. This brings in shitloads of money and this is why there is a contest in corporate America to patent something first before your competitors do so. A structure or algorithm should not be patented because they are used to access data or be used in a method to access the data.

This kind of patenting should be illegal wether its prior art or not. That in return would kill software patents as well as drug companies patenting genes.

You think patenting software is evil, then you know nothing of the horrors of the drug and bio-engineering market which is price gouging. IT makes Enron look ethical.

Software is scary because its not real but virtual. No one can make a compatible system if something is closed. Any physical object can be examined if its patented but not software unless its opened. OLE and DCOM is what is keeping Microsoft a monopoly. Because their products are virtual no one but Microsoft knows the inept details about them. Everyone else only knows how to use them and not build a competitor.

Re:Thing thats bothered me about Software PAtents.

[Znork]

Actually, like all laws in a democracy, patents are supposed to be solely for the benefit of society. Laws are only made to benefit individuals and corporations as far as the end result of those laws is a benefit for society (or, rather, the voters).

In the case of patents there is a benefit if allowing patents has a result of inventions being available to society faster and more ubiquitously than they would otherwise be. That's a good idea for things that take a long time to develop and are unlikely to be independently developed by many different inventors. However, when the patent office allows 'trivial' patents, the result instead is that something that would have been freely and ubiquitously available for everyone, due to the ease of which it can be invented as need arises, is instead that society as a whole and other independent inventors are deprived of the use of that invention for a certain time.

What I'd like to see in the patent system would be a kind of brainstorming. When a patent is applied for, the problem the patent is intended to solve has to be posed (in engineering terms). A group of 5-10 engineers who are well versed in the field of the patent gets a day each (or in a group) to figure out possible solutions to the problem. If anyone comes up with a solution close to the patent the invention is declared trivial and unpatentable, and the solution and any other ideas the engineers have are entered in a database as prior unpatentable art, against which any further patent applications are compared for triviality.

Such a solution would probably be rather personell intensive in the beginning, but as the database evolves and more one-click shopping solutions get dumped on application there would probably be a sharp drop in frivolous patent applications and the system could go back to what it was supposed to be in the first place.

Marconi vs Tesla

[NigelJohnstone]

Read this:

PBS, Who invented Radio?

Its about how Tesla filed for patent on the radio in 1897, Marconi applied for his patent in 1900.

Marconi's patents were thrown out at first. Marconi became rich and powerful, then Tesla's patents were thrown out in place of Marconi's.

So you end up with a market in which the patent owner isn't the inventor and the whole purpose of patents - to reward the inventor, is turned on its head.

You can see the same pattern happening in software patents and the constant requests on Slashdot for prior art.

Proactive IP regulation & Patent Busting

[kscguru]

The problem is that IP "regulation" is reactive instead of proactive. Two large companies want to merge, they have to get regulator approval beforehand. But if I want to own a piece of IP, I just claim it (copyright) or come up with an obscure description and pay a small fee (patent); I basically own it until someone proves I don't - the onus is on YOU to challenge MY ownership. And I can threaten all sorts of lawsuits until you succeed in that challenge. If I hold a patent that's "obvious", guess what - you've got to sue to break my monopoly.

The solution I'd like to see, instead, would be the government taking a proactive stand. Instead of granting patents and waiting for the mess to sort itself out, I want the government to go out and bust patents. Presidents like to portray themselves as trustbusters; well, "patent cartels" are one large trust that's never been busted. If some technology covered by a patent becomes truly umbiquitous - that is, so widely used that the inventor has ALREADY recouped his R&D investment - I'd like to see the government force the patent into the public domain. Example: CD-ROMs... Philips hold the patent, and has been very generous with it. But the technology protected by that patent is SO widespread that any abuse of the CD-ROM patent would ruin the technology sector. Think of how much some companies (or the RIAA, to supress non-DRM formats) would pay to control that patent - the value is inconceivable.

At this point, CD-ROM technology ceases to be a useful patent and starts to become something that the general public has a vital interest in... and here's the point where the government should "seize" the patent and turn the IP over to the public BEFORE the patent expires of its own accord. A widely used piece of IP (or any of the "obvious" patents we regularly complain about here on Slashdot) has passed the point where the inventors NEED a monopoly to protect their idea and has reached the point where the only purpose of that patent is profit at the expense of the public.

Monopolies are useful, but powerful monopolies are not; patents are useful, but exploitable patents are not. The government has an active role in regulating all other monopolies; it needs to take an active role in regulating IP monopolies as well.

"the industry would be at a complete standstill"

[NZheretic]

PATENTS: If people had understood how patents would be granted when most of today's ideas were invented, and had taken out patents, the industry would be at a complete standstill today. I feel certain that some large company will patent some obvious thing related to interface, object orientation, algorithm, application extension or other crucial technique. If we assume this company has no need of any of our patents then the have a 17-year right to take as much of our profits as they want. The solution to this is patent exchanges with large companies and patenting as much as we can. Amazingly we havn't done any patent exchanges tha I am aware of. Amazingly we havn't found a way to use our licensing position to avoid having our own customers cause patent problems for us.

-- Bill Gates, Challenges and Strategy Memo May 16, 1991

Or that both parties have too many lawyers

[ShatteredDream]

Many of our founders felt that lawyers shouldn't be allowed to serve in Congress or as the President because it'd be a conflict of interest. Afterall, if a lawyer can vote on the law, they can essentially vote themselves into a lucrative occupation at everyone else's expense.