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The Public Patent Foundation Fights for Freedom From Bad Patents (Video)

Posted by Roblimo on from the we-remember-the-cat-laser-pointer-toy-patent-all-too-well dept.

The Public Patent Foundations Fights for Patent Freedom (Video) The PUBPAT website's About page says, "The Public Patent Foundation at Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law ('PUBPAT') is a not-for-profit legal services organization whose mission is to protect freedom in the patent system." Today's interviewee, Daniel B. Ravicher, is the group's Executive Director and founder. Eben Moglen is on the Board of Directors, and PUBPAT's goals have been aligned with the FSF since PUBPAT started. The most publicized PUBPAT success so far was, in conjunction with the ACLU, getting patents on naturally-occurring genes overturned. Go, PUBPAT!

6 of 36 comments (clear)

  1. "bad" patents by jmcvetta · · Score: 2, Insightful

    All patents are bad patents. The ownership of ideas is immoral. It is an affront to human dignity, and retards social & technological progress. We must work for the abolition of idea property just as our ancestors fought to abolish human property.

    1. Re:"bad" patents by maxwell+demon · · Score: 2

      The realistic (as in, "this is what will happen") alternative to patents is trade secrets.

      So currently there are no trade secrets?

      If a company believes it can keep the invention secret for the time the patent protection lasts, and nobody will independently discover it during that time, then it will certainly not patent it. So the patent will in general only tell you what would have known anyway at the time when the patent ends.

      --
      The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
    2. Re:"bad" patents by Anrego · · Score: 2

      Where "limited time" is still quite large, and licensing is often well out of reach for the little and even medium sized guys, they may as well be trade secrets.

      I think I'd prefer a world where if you can figure out how to do it, you can sell it. Maybe in the large scale stuff this would be terrible, but from where I am it would seem to open a lot of currently closed doors and allow a lot of innovation at the garage and small business level.

      I do agree that simply abolishing all forms of IP protection is probably not a viable option, but some serious reform would seem in order.

    3. Re:"bad" patents by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I don't accept the premise, "Trade secrets impede technological progress". A lot of technology is developed in parallel, but the company that wins the race to the patent office can shut out the contributions of its competitors, even if the competitor has a superior approach. Yes, cross-licensing is possible, but it's not guaranteed to happen, and the legal wrangling that often precedes such agreements can slow the pace of progress substantially.

      And I don't accept the premise, "Patents don't (except where they're bogus)". What are your sources? Where are the controlled studies supporting these contentions?

      And why would "bogus" patents have the magical power to impede technological progress, which "non-bogus" patents are somehow magically denied? I find your distinction to be bogus.

    4. Re:"bad" patents by bzipitidoo · · Score: 2

      simply abolishing all forms of IP protection is probably not a viable option

      I think that abolishment is a viable option. Money can compensate people for revealing trade secrets. Don't have to give them a monopoly in order to give them money. The details of just how that should be done will need much hashing out, but it's doable, and being done by the likes of Kickstarter and Indiegogo, Monopoly protection on ideas has always been bad for innovation, and expensive, difficult, and problematical to enforce. It's only in recent times that this has become painfully obvious.

      Someday, the exclamation "you stole my idea!" will sound utterly quaint and ridiculous, like accusing someone of using witchcraft to cause your cow or goat to sicken and die sounds today. Future generations will be glad that whatever else is good or bad about current times, they didn't live in the dark ages of intellectual property laws, when "making available" a mere 24 songs could trigger a witchhunt and a financial crucifixion.

      --
      Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
  2. Re:best website by Anrego · · Score: 3, Informative

    I actually like their site.

    It's refreshing to see a nice clean design that just presents the information you're probably there to see. It feels like the right amount of content. It's not a big wall f text, but it still lists what they are doing, latest news, and their main mission.

    I find the lack of social media "like/share" buttons, tag clouds, annoying animation, and weird floating dealies gives it a professional feel.