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Neither Intellectual Nor Property
Techdirt's Mike Masnick is writing a series of short articles on topics around intellectual property. His latest focuses on the term itself, exploring the nomenclature people have proposed to describe matter that is neither intellectual nor property. The whole series (starting here) is well worth a read.
Sorry, it was done already: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_Teenage_Riot. They actually have an album that's a single 25 minute song of pure noise. And people liked it!
please excuse my apathy
So, lawyers have been thinking about the nature of property for hundreds of years, and have come up with the idea that property is a bundle of rights in a thing. And, there are some very real parallels between Real Property (ie land) and Intellectual Property:
The right to exclude: If you own real property, you can prevent trespassing; if you own intellectual property, you can prevent infringement.
The right to convey: If you own real property, you can sell it; if you own IP, you can sell it.
The right to subdivide: If you own real property, you can break it up into smaller units, or sell off parts of it (like, for example, Mineral rights). Similarly, with Copyright, you can sell off the right to distribute or the right to publicly perform it, and with patent, you can sell off the right to import it, or make products based on it.
The right to control how something is used: If you own real property, you get to say what happens with it. Same things with IP. (Both of these have limits)
The main complaint about IP as property comes from it not being "rivalrous" -- unlike, say, a coffee cup, which can only be used by one person at a time, IP can be used by any number of people at a time. However, there are non-rivalrous goods out there in which we attach property rights. For example, a public golf course near us has a public easement over the back yards of adjoining houses -- if you hit your golf ball onto their lot, you have the right to go and get it. That is a non-rivalrous property right: my ability to get my golf ball is not impeded by the number of other people who have that right.
IP resembles real or personal property a lot more than it resembles anything else.
A better prior art example might be Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music, a 1975 double album of nothing but constant overdubbed guitar feedback. Although Reed claimed at the time that it was a serious artistic endeavor, it was widely speculated that it was made entirely for the purpose of getting his record contract terminated, and I remember reading somewhere that he once admitted to never even having listened to the album all the way through.
Momentarily, the need for the construction of new light will no longer exist.
An "average" patent (basic electronics, software, mechanicals) costs between $4k and $8k in attorney's fees, plus the USPTO filing fees. Relative to the market potential, fees are minimal. That cost vs. reward is something the business, inventor, etc., must take into account when securing IP protection.
Biotech patents are another story but rarely go above $100k in fees. Assuming that a drug, for example, could bring in hundreds of millions+ in sales, the fees are pretty insignificant...
It's also a very rare situation that a lawyer will take an interest in the IP in exchange for services.
We figured out a long time ago that it's easier to elect seven judges than to elect 132 legislators.
If you read further down the Wikipedia page, you'd know that it actually did happen:
Crumb's Corollary: Never bring a knife to a bun fight.
It isn't a question of theft.
It is question of how society assigns rights and interests.
You snooze, you lose.
Elisha Gray filed his telephone patents three hours after Bell.
Gray - no innocent - was an electrical engineer with millions of dollars worth of patents in his name.
But it was Gray in the audience and Bell on stage when the telephone was demonstrated at the Centennial Fair in Philadelphia in June of 1876.
Gray standing next to the Emperor of Brazil who makes headlines when he shouts "My God, it talks!" Gray who drops out of the game and assigns his interests to Western Union.