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Working Around Patents with Evolutionary Design

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the survival-of-the-most-original dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Using computational trial-and-error allowed a Stanford team to come up with a patent-free WiFi antenna. Patent rules are tricky to formulate as self-interest dictates that the claim is as general as possible. Patent fences effectively can build a substantive competitive barrier to markets. Using evolutionary tactics may be a way to legally and ethically bypass these roadblocks."

2 of 121 comments (clear)

  1. Evolved antennas at NASA by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    Efficient antennas 'designed' by evolution are already in use on spacecraft.

  2. It was not evolution! by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 3, Informative

    Patent law has not "evolved". It has been maliciously twisted and distorted by corporate interests. That is a very different thing.

    And if you want it to stay anywhere near halfway sane, write your Senators and tell them to vote against their new "patent reform" bill. That would change the law to award patents to the first who apply for a patent, rather than the first to invent. Talk about stifling innovation! That would give all the advantages to corporate lawyers, and our patent system would fail completely in its purpose.