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Beware the King of the Patent Trolls
superapecommando writes "If you haven't heard of Intellectual Ventures, you may want to check this out. Set up by ex-Microsoftie Nathan Myhrvold, with investments from Microsoft among others, it is basically a patenting machine – filing and buying them in huge quantities. Note that it doesn't actually use these patents – except to threaten people with. In other words, Intellectual Ventures is a patent troll – or, rather the King of the Patent Trolls. So I was interested to come across this extremely positive blog post on the company. That it is so positive is hardly surprising, since the blog is called 'Tangible IP,' and subtitled 'ipVA's blog on adding value through intellectual property.' Nonetheless, it provides valuable insights into the mindset of fans of intellectual monopolies. Here's what it says about Intellectual Ventures: 'They are an invention house, and have adopted and reinvented leading edge patent strategies to create a portfolio of their own IP which, in its own, would be of high high worth.' They don't invent anything in the proper, deep sense of the word; they merely file and buy patents – with no intent of ever making stuff or solving real-life problems."
Moreover, Intellectual Property is one of the last assets the United States has left to profit from. We don't actually make much anymore, we just invent it and have someone else make it. If we don't control the profits from the inventing, we're fucked.
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
it's a really simple principle:
if i invent something, i am entitled to as much money from it as i can get. if someone else invents something, it should be free for me to license.
that should describe the resulting discussion....
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/eco_exp_pergdp-economy-exports-per-gdp
Scroll down - we're between Burundi and Cape Verde, at number 179.
Does the richest country in the world have the most manufacturing? Yep. Are they in the top ten in manufacturing per capita? Nope. Are they even in the top fifty for manufacturing per GDP? Nope.
These numbers are by "value added" manufacturing. So, we've got a lot of bullshit that we put together that's manufactured almost entirely in east asia. Gluing it together, shoving it in a box, and then raising the price is not what I would call manufacturing.