There is a substantial industry of technical artists (medical illustrators, scientific illustrators) that require the meager protections that copyright law provides them to avoid being completely exploited by the publishing companies that contract with them for their work.
In this were even remotely true, no one would be able to do work-for-hire. The key point here is "contract". The contract stipulates (hopefully clearly) what needs to be delivered and what needs to be paid. Copyright never enters into it, unless you suggest that the artist would attempt to get paid twice (or more) for working once, but that would be deeply immoral and counter to the working ethic of modern man. Right?
You guys don't seem to have the ability to think one step further.
So why stop with one step? Take two. Read up on Big Pharma's annual reports and pay close attention to the R&D costs column. Most of them have a number there corresponding to around 15% of their total costs. Now check how much R&D is paid for by the federal government and how much of Big Pharma's sales is paid for by federal money (ie your tax money).
Here, I'll help you get started:
The basic numbers are very striking. If drug prices in the United States were to fall by 70 percent in the absence of patent protection, it would amount to savings of more than $140 billion a year, given 2005 spending levels. This is almost six times as much as the industry claims it is currently spending on research. Since half of this money may go to research copycat drugs of little social value, the savings from eliminating drug patents in the United States may be more than 10 times as large as the spending necessary to replace the useful research performed by the pharmaceutical industry. Dean Baker
because they are guaranteed to not make a return on their investment.
You keep repeating that, as if repeating it makes it true. It does not. Again, check the facts and the numbers. That patents could in some magical way provide inventors with a income guarantee is a myth, not to mention that the proposition that patents somehow could be the only way to reap profits from an invention is a complete and total fabrication. It simply is not true. Patents are one of the most ineffective wealth distributors ever created, unless you're a patent lawyer or a patent troll. Please, don't be a troll.
Actually, the authors of many empirical studies point out that patents do not play anything like a dominant role among the various mechanisms by which returns from innovation are captured. Indeed, for most firms trade secrets, know-how, lead time to markets, continuing technological innovation, licensing, name recognition, service capabilities and the use of complementary marketing and manufacturing capabilities are often deemed more effective than patent protection. In the end, in virtually all branches of industry, the absence of patent protection would have had little or no impact on the innovative efforts of a majority of firms (Mazzoleni and Nelson, 1998; Cohen et al., 2000). Pierre Desrochers
Im glad arguments like this didnt win out 10 years ago, or I'd be sat at a 386 PC right now.
Meanwhile, in the real world, IBM's patents LOST to Compaq's copying, which spurred the computer revolution as we know it. If IBM had been successful in "protecting their IP", you would probably be sitting at a 486 right now. Running OS/2.
Patents do not drive profits. Innovation does. Innovation does not depend on patents, they depend on being first-to-market. Patents slow down that process. These processes are in fact very well studied. R&D does NOT substantially rely on patent protection.
Actually, the authors of many empirical studies point out that patents do not play anything like a dominant role among the various mechanisms by which returns from innovation are captured. Indeed, for most firms trade secrets, know-how, lead time to markets, continuing technological innovation, licensing, name recognition, service capabilities and the use of complementary marketing and manufacturing capabilities are often deemed more effective than patent protection. In the end, in virtually all branches of industry, the absence of patent protection would have had little or no impact on the innovative efforts of a majority of firms (Mazzoleni and Nelson, 1998; Cohen et al., 2000). Pierre Desrochers, Johns Hopkins University
Is it fair that this band finally finds big success and they can't claim a penny from it?
If they don't write a single new song during these five years, I'd say that yes, it is fair. Copyrights were supposed to be an incentive to create, not to sit on your ass and hope some record exec would take pity in you and release your album. Copyrights are supposed to expire. If they don't, then the contract that we, the people, have with creators has been violated.
But five years is just an arbitrary number to get the discussion going. How about 14 years? That's what the US had under Nixon. Seems to me lots of music, movies and books were created between 1923 and 1973.
Part of the idea here is to break the "recording industry" model.
Exactly. We're looking at making copyrights inalienable. Artists/bands would not be able to sell their soul^H^H^H^Hcopyrights to Big Media, instead, Big Media would have to come crawling and offer the bands services like management, promotion, financing and tour planning. Competing on an open market where the artists suddenly are on a much more even footing with Big Media. Put that in yer pipe and smoke it, Sony!
However, there's no reason not to shorten the life of patents from the 14(20?) years they currently are, depending upon the application.
The problem with that is the length of time it takes to get a patent approved (when it's done properly, that is) and the length of time you can reasonably expect a time-to-market gap to close. In both cases, patents that expire in shorter time than around five to ten years (dependant on the industry and scope of the patent, of course) are irrelevant because you get the same kind of "natural protection" just from being first on the market with the new thing - you can plan marketing strategies, set up distribution channels, run ad campaigns, build a brand, whatever, looong before the copycats catch up. Just look at generic drugs - the originals almost always outsell the copycats, even though they typically are more expensive. Or look at all markets and industries that do not offer IP protection or products that are out of patent. They flourish.
Adding in the hidden transaction costs of patents; applications, cross-licensing and prior art searches among them, you wind up with having to have 10-15 years of patent protection to make economic sense even for the patent holder. This does NOT factor in the associated risks of patent litigation because they are too erratic, but judging by the kind of numbers bandied about, we're looking at maybe 20 additional years (since most patents just sit there, never pulling in any dough at all, very few patents have to earn the keep for all patents, making most of them a losing proposition and thus skewing ROI for all patents).
Add to THAT the costs to society where the competitors are barred from utilizing the patent and we're looking at nightmare, from a national-economical standpoint.
At this point in time, I shall cop out and direct you to a much smarter man than I; David Martin - The Deck-chairs speech. Because you NEED to read that. You all do. And when you've read that, read this.
if copyright was gone there would be 3rd Party companies running free/pay servers and ride on Blizzard's work.
...prompting Blizzard to release new content on their servers to keep people happy. Sounds like a great deal to me - spurring innovation and letting Blizzard profit from actually delivering what people want on a competitive market. The copycats would still have to bear all costs for operating servers, bandwidth, marketing and so on. In time, they would start making their own unique content and people could *gasp* choose which they wanted to use. Fan-created universes, mods abound, open source servers... Does this actually sound like a BAD idea to you? Compared to letting Blizzard lock their customers down to their servers, their content and their marketing schemes?
Extend it to 14 years and we have a deal (just to keep the fixes here simple.)
I could live with that.:-) The point is to reduce it to a reasonable level and decouple it from the author's lifetime. After all, the exact length of time is arbitrary and might perhaps even be different for different types of work (ie songs, movies, books, games, applications).
And what is to protect the inventor from the manufacturer just taking his idea and giving him nothing?
Trade secrets do not rely on patents to stay secret. In fact, they are nominally at odds. I say nominally because most patent applications are so muddled as to not actually reveal the workings of the invention they seek to protect.
Why borrow/invest $100,000 if it's going to be lost, taken over by "all humanity"?
Because patents DO NOT guarantee him a profit in any way, shape or form. To imply otherwise is just perpetuating a myth.
Actually, the authors of many empirical studies point out that patents do not play anything like a dominant role among the various mechanisms by which returns from innovation are captured. Indeed, for most firms trade secrets, know-how, lead time to markets, continuing technological innovation, licensing, name recognition, service capabilities and the use of complementary marketing and manufacturing capabilities are often deemed more effective than patent protection. In the end, in virtually all branches of industry, the absence of patent protection would have had little or no impact on the innovative efforts of a majority of firms (Mazzoleni and Nelson, 1998; Cohen et al., 2000). Pierre Desrochers, Johns Hopkins University
Not an unlimited chance, you understand, but a chance.
But he would still have that chance. He can still have Honda sign a NDA, he can still outsource manufacturing, he can still sell the idea to someone who'll take it further... None of those options actually depend on patents. People still invented and got rich off their inventions before patents were invented and people still get rich off non-patented inventions today.
Indeed, for most firms trade secrets, know-how, lead time to markets, continuing technological innovation, licensing, name recognition, service capabilities and the use of complementary marketing and manufacturing capabilities are often deemed more effective than patent protection. Pierre Desrochers, Johns Hopkins University
But, remember that "humanity" did not develop the engine
As many psychologists and historians of technology have shown,
innovation does not proceed through major breakthroughs by specific
individuals, but rather through the collaboration of different people
who, through small and cumulative improvements, yield novel and useful
artifacts over time (Basalla, 1988). All of patent law, on the other
hand, is based on the assumption that an invention is a discrete and
novel entity that can be assigned to the individual who is determined by
the courts to be its legitimate creator. The associations of an
invention with other existing or past artifacts are therefore obscured.
Despite its philosophical foundation, however, the patent system cannot
entirely obscure the true nature of technological change. As I have
already mentioned, virtually every new patent infringes in some way on
other patents. Furthermore, most patented innovation are typically very
minor improvements. Pierre Desrochers, Johns Hopkins University
Yes, there should be provisions in patent law that say, "if you choose to do nothing with this invention you forfeit your patent rights", but this example does not invalidate patents as a whole.
And how would you enforce that provision? No, that example alone does not invalidate the patent system, but that in combination with all the others, do. Like the one where two companies invent the same thing at the same time, but only one can be awarded a patent, effectively "stealing" the work of the other. And yes, this is actually a pretty common occurance since most inventions seem to come about when they are "ready", ie when the inventors get the necessary creative sparks from the rest of the world. Or like the examples of the patent trolls, the hoarders and the minefield layers...
There are very real situations when a patent system is beneficial
Name three.
pinko ideas
Let's see here; I want a free market for ideas and knowledge, while you want the government to control it and you call ME a pinko? That's pretty rich.
to prevent undercutting and market espionage
Aha! But patents do NOT prevent any of those. There are separate laws against them which have nothing whatsoever to do with patents.
I suggest you read up on the mounting criticism against the whole notion of locking up ideas. You can start with that old pinko Thomas Jefferson:
It would be curious then, if an idea, the fugitive fermentation of an individual brain, could, of natural right, be claimed in exclusive and stable property. If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it.
You basically have a pile of small companies taking as much venture capital as they can and researching as quickly as they can to build a viable product.
Exactly. Speed is much more important than patents. We see that all the time in the telecom and software industries too. No one even has the time to seek patents on the good stuff anymore, because by the time the application goes through, there's something new on the market anyway. Then again, we have a functioning patent office that doesn't just rubberstamp anything that comes their way. Prior art searches take a while.
But, what if you infringe on someone else's patent? Since you're in such a hurry to patent everything, how can you take the time to do proper prior art searches? In fact, that's what we hear from VCs; they are wary to enter new fields exactly because they don't know the patent risks involved.
Steve Andriole, a venture capitalist who was most recently CTO of Safeguard Scientifics, offered the perspective of a VC investing in software and information technology. "In a way, intellectual property and patents are in the eye of the beholder," he said, noting that while entrepreneurs looking to raise capital often ascribe great value to their patents and patents pending, venture capitalists are not that impressed. "In the thousands of pitches I experienced personally, patents were considered one of the least important factors. Entrepreneurs would talk about the need to seize the marketplace within six months, but they didn't realize that this makes the patent process pretty much irrelevant," said Andriole, referring to the fact that patents take years to receive. Why High-Tech Firms Can't Afford to Ignore Patents
For example, it's relatively trivial for a competing pharma company to determine the structure of a small molecule drug(which pretty much every commercial pharmaceutical is) given a sample.
Yes. It is however, insanely difficult to synthezise this molecule in industrial quantities at a profit. This is in fact the second largest cost in pharma R&D (the largest being the clinical trials, which can not be patented) and it is often this method, not the substance itself, that gets patented. And, since there are at least tens and often hundreds of different ways to synthesize any given molecule, manufacturing patents don't work that good anyway. Application patents, OTOH, where the use of a specific substance to combat a specific symptom/syndrome works a lot better. But they don't protect against similar substances. So you get a lot of costs for obtaining patents, buying licenses and trying really hard not to step on any patent minefields, and for what?
About the only thing the patent system does is create a lot of work for patent lawyers. It sure doesn't promote innovation.
"The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons"
Actually, old Fyodor missed one crucial point: The degree of civilization in a society can only accurately be judged by in what state you GET OUT OF its prisons.
Check the numbers again. Many big movies now make more money from the merchandising deals and product placements than they do showing, renting or selling the actual movie. Cutting the salaries for a few of the biggest stars would more than account for the rest of the possible shortfall.
Fashion designs use a special kind of patent known as a "design patent":
It's possible that they are valid (for the design of clothes) in the US, but they are not in the EU. And the Italian fashion houses don't seem to mind H&M copying "their" creations.
Without copyright, people could start knocking off dupes of film reels without issue. They could then show the movies without ever paying the studios.
OK, but think that one through. Don't stop there. Let's say you're right. What would happen when the public and movie theaters runs out of movies to watch/show like the alarmists say they will (just like the record industry died when home taping killed it)? They'd want to pay for new movies to be made. If they don't, there was no need for any of it to start with. And if they do, there's a market for creating new movies. And someone who pays for it. And there will be methods for getting it done. I'm just saying that state-enforced monopolies are NOT the way to build a thriving marketplace for ideas, culture and knowledge.
Again, without the protections people would quickly take advantage of your work and show you nothing for it. Guaranteed.
I actually don't think everyone is a record company exec.
Sure, people will pay for games. But they'll also warez the hell out of them.
So, the only difference from today would be that millions of people won't be criminalized for helping with distribution.:-)
Developers would be forced to compete with copies of their own game being sold retail, while recieving no money for it at all.
Check the numbers. How much of WoW's cash flow is from copy sales and how much is from monthly fees? Go on, check it.
Besides, we want to keep a commercial copyright for five years. That's more than enough time to sell games retail if that's what tickles your fancy.
The point is that copyrights create bad business models. Bad for consumers and bad for creators. In fact, the way the copyright laws are written, about the only ones who make it out ahead are the distributors. Distributors that should be dead as the dodo by now, but use their ill-gotten copyright gains to claw themselves back on the market. A market that don't want them there.
The only incentive I see in developing such an engine is to actually improve vehicle emissions and help people
So, you're agreeing that patents aren't an actually acting as an incentive?
who are you to say that anything belongs to humanity? We are entitled to nothing.
When this hypothetical person can attend to his own birth, school himself and then invent this engine alone, without ever drawing upon the ideas, concepts or help from anyone else in the society around him, alive or dead, sure he can have his engine for himself.
Meanwhile, in the real world, he will receive medical help, schooling and access to any number of tools, methods, ideas and knowledge developed, refined and released by thousands upon thousands of humans that came before him. Why then shall he alone bear the fruits of this vast collaboration if he but receives one single spark of inspiration which in turn was inspired by us all? Riddle me that, Batman.
The industrial revolution occurred immediately after the institution of a patent system in the UK.
Looking at the Wikipedia article about the Industrial Revolution, one can not but notice this part about the causes of it:
Transmission of innovation: Knowledge of new innovation was spread by several means. Workers who were trained in the technique might move to another employer, or might be poached. A common method was for someone to make a study tour, gathering information where he could.
Doesn't sound like patents would have helped there, would it? After all, the whole point of patents is to prevent the transmission of information. In fact, it has been said that the revolution didn't take place until after James Watt's patent ran out:
Prior to the start of Watt's commercial production in 1776, there were 510 steam engines in the U.K., most using the inefficient Newcomen design. These engines generated about 5,000 horsepower. By 1800, when Watt's patents expired, there were still only 2,250 steam engines used in the U.K., of which only 449 were the superior Boulton and Watt engines, the rest being old Newcomen engines. The total horsepower of these engines was 35,000 at best. In 1815, fifteen years after the expiration of the Watt patents, it is estimated that nearly 100,000 horsepower was installed in the U.K., while by 1830 the horsepower coming from steam engines reached 160,000. The fuel efficiency of steam engines is not thought to have changed at all during the period of Watt's patent; while between 1810 and 1835 it is estimated to have increased by a factor of five. After the expiration of the patents in 1800, not only was there an explosion in the production of engines, but steam power finally came into its own as the driving force of the industrial revolution. In the next 30 years steam engines were modified and improved, and such crucial innovations as the steam train, the steamboat and the steam jenny all came into wide usage. Against Intellectual Monopoly
Even more interesting is the fact that during the time that his patent was valid, Watt himself had little time to spare for making new inventions, he was too busy fending off "infringers" and trying to get a license to use the Pickard crack/flywheel, also patented. This mirrors the experiences of modern-day Swedish inventor Håkan Lans, who haven't been able to work since 1995 because he's been tied up in patent litigation. This effect alone should warrant an immediate abolishment for all patents as they create a terrible tax on humanity's resources.
All through history it has been the strongest economies that have had sound patent systems
Ah, but what is cause and what is effect? And what is a "sound patent system"? Does it really exist? You didn't read the links in the post you quoted, did you? Strong economies are created by strong market forces, the very same market forces who then seek to consolidate their own power by... waitforit......"protecting their IP".
the bulk of the R&D funding should be footed by the government as a social good
The scary part is that it already is.
the $30 billion that the United States federal government pays each year to support bio-medical research at its National Institutes of Health (NIH) is approximately 20 percent larger than the $25 billion that its pharmaceutical industry claims to spend on research. While this research is primarily directed towards more basic science (in order not to interfere with the efforts of the drug industry), there are many instances of new drugs being developed almost entirely through NIH support.
The basic numbers are very striking. If drug prices in the United States were to fall by 70 percent in the absence of patent protection, it would amount to savings of more than $140 billion a year, given 2005 spending levels. This is almost six times as much as the industry claims it is currently spending on research. Since half of this money may go to research copycat drugs of little social value, the savings from eliminating drug patents in the United States may be more than 10 times as large as the spending necessary to replace the useful research performed by the pharmaceutical industry.
Let's say some guy develops that mythical 100 MPG gasoline engine. Shouldn't he be able to patent it?
No, he should under no circumstance ever be allowed to patent it. Patenting it would virtually guarantee that the patent would be bought by (insert major oil pumping megacorp) and stuffed on a shelf until it's forgotten, 20 years later. And, adding inslut to injury, the patent lawyers would make damn sure that the patent isn't actually revealing enough to create said engine, but detailed enough to stop anyone else from independently inventing a similar engine.
An engine like that belongs to humanity, not a single individual or single corporation.
It would end high cost movies and probably end computer games as we know them
Not necessarily. The whole movie theatre experience has proven very hard to copy at home, and those industrious Singaporeans may have shown the way to go. While movie copying is rampant, movie theaters thrive - they offer luxurious seats and serve meals during the show. Alas, capitalism once again beats out state-controlled monopolies (which is, ecenomically, what copyrights and patents actally are). Giving people what they want will always be a marketable property. Same thing with games, people do pay for the development of games (as seen by several shareware/hostageware/otherware projects) and they do pay for content (WoW, basically any online game) and enduring gameplay and innovation. People want what's new, that's a major driver in the warez scene - getting stuff out before anyone else. Patents slow releases something fierce. Just using the time-to-market incentive works. Just look at the fashion designer industry - they churn out new stuff at a break-neck pace. With no IP protection in sight. Food recipes. We've eaten for tens of thousands of years but humans STILL invent new foods, create new recipes and drinks, without any kind of protection for the creators. And they still get rich occasionally.
this could be related to a kid whining about not getting what he wants.
On the contrary, we're proposing 500% more than what professor Joost Smiers suggests here (Op-Ed in the International Herald Tribune). I think that's being more than fair.
On the other hand, do we really want music made only by people who are in it for the money? Who are created by record companies to appeal to a mass market? Ready-made instant megastars who drain the resources from all deserving garage bands out there?
Or do we want music created by people who really want to create, who have something to say and can make a decent living out of it? Maybe not creating a market where ten people earn enough to buy a LearJet, but where tens of thousand earn enough to get a really nice car.
Developing and testing a new drug costs nearly $1B. Copying one costs a few 100K.
Only for the most easy-to-copy substances, and those really shouldn't have been patentable in the first place, even under the current system. Add to that all the years and money spent for FDA approval (yes, the copycat drugs do need those too) and you have a natural monopoly of several years with none of the harmful side-effects of the patent system, like what happens if two companies develop the same drug at the same time. With patents, only one of them are allowed to profit from the invention while effectively "stealing" a billion from the other. How's that fair?
In real life, ouside the reality distortion field of patent bureaus, it's quite expensive to manufacture, distribute and market a drug. Actually, only about 15% of Big Pharma's expenses are spent on R&D, the rest is marketing, patent bureau fees, patent licensing fees, manufacturing, distribution and overhead costs. Check their annual reports.
And, as we can clearly see anytime a new drug's patent runs out, the original drug still outsells the copycats, despite often quite large differences in price as the new-comers try to muscle in on the market. The original's trade mark is obviously much more valuable than the patent.
In fact, our very own Ericsson was founded by copying a Siemens telephone design. History shows, repeatedly, that countries and/or markets with little or no IP protection flourish for the simple reason that time-to-market and true innovation are much stronger incentives for the making of new creations than the stale state-imposed monopolies of patent and copyright.
No country, Schiff notes, has ever contributed "as many basic inventions in this field as did Switzerland during her patentless period".
Slashdot Mirror
The best we've come up with so far is a free market within fairly wide but strict societal guidelines. State-imposed monopolies don't really cut it.
In this were even remotely true, no one would be able to do work-for-hire. The key point here is "contract". The contract stipulates (hopefully clearly) what needs to be delivered and what needs to be paid. Copyright never enters into it, unless you suggest that the artist would attempt to get paid twice (or more) for working once, but that would be deeply immoral and counter to the working ethic of modern man. Right?
So why stop with one step? Take two. Read up on Big Pharma's annual reports and pay close attention to the R&D costs column. Most of them have a number there corresponding to around 15% of their total costs. Now check how much R&D is paid for by the federal government and how much of Big Pharma's sales is paid for by federal money (ie your tax money).
Here, I'll help you get started:
because they are guaranteed to not make a return on their investment.
You keep repeating that, as if repeating it makes it true. It does not. Again, check the facts and the numbers. That patents could in some magical way provide inventors with a income guarantee is a myth, not to mention that the proposition that patents somehow could be the only way to reap profits from an invention is a complete and total fabrication. It simply is not true. Patents are one of the most ineffective wealth distributors ever created, unless you're a patent lawyer or a patent troll. Please, don't be a troll.
Meanwhile, in the real world, IBM's patents LOST to Compaq's copying, which spurred the computer revolution as we know it. If IBM had been successful in "protecting their IP", you would probably be sitting at a 486 right now. Running OS/2.
Patents do not drive profits. Innovation does. Innovation does not depend on patents, they depend on being first-to-market. Patents slow down that process. These processes are in fact very well studied. R&D does NOT substantially rely on patent protection.
If they don't write a single new song during these five years, I'd say that yes, it is fair. Copyrights were supposed to be an incentive to create, not to sit on your ass and hope some record exec would take pity in you and release your album. Copyrights are supposed to expire. If they don't, then the contract that we, the people, have with creators has been violated.
But five years is just an arbitrary number to get the discussion going. How about 14 years? That's what the US had under Nixon. Seems to me lots of music, movies and books were created between 1923 and 1973.
Exactly. We're looking at making copyrights inalienable. Artists/bands would not be able to sell their soul^H^H^H^Hcopyrights to Big Media, instead, Big Media would have to come crawling and offer the bands services like management, promotion, financing and tour planning. Competing on an open market where the artists suddenly are on a much more even footing with Big Media. Put that in yer pipe and smoke it, Sony!
However, there's no reason not to shorten the life of patents from the 14(20?) years they currently are, depending upon the application.
The problem with that is the length of time it takes to get a patent approved (when it's done properly, that is) and the length of time you can reasonably expect a time-to-market gap to close. In both cases, patents that expire in shorter time than around five to ten years (dependant on the industry and scope of the patent, of course) are irrelevant because you get the same kind of "natural protection" just from being first on the market with the new thing - you can plan marketing strategies, set up distribution channels, run ad campaigns, build a brand, whatever, looong before the copycats catch up. Just look at generic drugs - the originals almost always outsell the copycats, even though they typically are more expensive. Or look at all markets and industries that do not offer IP protection or products that are out of patent. They flourish.
Adding in the hidden transaction costs of patents; applications, cross-licensing and prior art searches among them, you wind up with having to have 10-15 years of patent protection to make economic sense even for the patent holder. This does NOT factor in the associated risks of patent litigation because they are too erratic, but judging by the kind of numbers bandied about, we're looking at maybe 20 additional years (since most patents just sit there, never pulling in any dough at all, very few patents have to earn the keep for all patents, making most of them a losing proposition and thus skewing ROI for all patents).
Add to THAT the costs to society where the competitors are barred from utilizing the patent and we're looking at nightmare, from a national-economical standpoint.
At this point in time, I shall cop out and direct you to a much smarter man than I; David Martin - The Deck-chairs speech. Because you NEED to read that. You all do. And when you've read that, read this.
Extend it to 14 years and we have a deal (just to keep the fixes here simple.)
I could live with that. :-) The point is to reduce it to a reasonable level and decouple it from the author's lifetime. After all, the exact length of time is arbitrary and might perhaps even be different for different types of work (ie songs, movies, books, games, applications).
Trade secrets do not rely on patents to stay secret. In fact, they are nominally at odds. I say nominally because most patent applications are so muddled as to not actually reveal the workings of the invention they seek to protect.
Because patents DO NOT guarantee him a profit in any way, shape or form. To imply otherwise is just perpetuating a myth.
But he would still have that chance. He can still have Honda sign a NDA, he can still outsource manufacturing, he can still sell the idea to someone who'll take it further... None of those options actually depend on patents. People still invented and got rich off their inventions before patents were invented and people still get rich off non-patented inventions today.
But, remember that "humanity" did not develop the engine
Yes, there should be provisions in patent law that say, "if you choose to do nothing with this invention you forfeit your patent rights", but this example does not invalidate patents as a whole.
And how would you enforce that provision? No, that example alone does not invalidate the patent system, but that in combination with all the others, do. Like the one where two companies invent the same thing at the same time, but only one can be awarded a patent, effectively "stealing" the work of the other. And yes, this is actually a pretty common occurance since most inventions seem to come about when they are "ready", ie when the inventors get the necessary creative sparks from the rest of the world. Or like the examples of the patent trolls, the hoarders and the minefield layers...
There are very real situations when a patent system is beneficial
Name three.
pinko ideas
Let's see here; I want a free market for ideas and knowledge, while you want the government to control it and you call ME a pinko? That's pretty rich.
to prevent undercutting and market espionage
Aha! But patents do NOT prevent any of those. There are separate laws against them which have nothing whatsoever to do with patents.
I suggest you read up on the mounting criticism against the whole notion of locking up ideas. You can start with that old pinko Thomas Jefferson:
Exactly. Speed is much more important than patents. We see that all the time in the telecom and software industries too. No one even has the time to seek patents on the good stuff anymore, because by the time the application goes through, there's something new on the market anyway. Then again, we have a functioning patent office that doesn't just rubberstamp anything that comes their way. Prior art searches take a while.
But, what if you infringe on someone else's patent? Since you're in such a hurry to patent everything, how can you take the time to do proper prior art searches? In fact, that's what we hear from VCs; they are wary to enter new fields exactly because they don't know the patent risks involved.
Some more VCs speak out:One venture capitalist's view on software patents
VC Cliché of the Week
Yes. It is however, insanely difficult to synthezise this molecule in industrial quantities at a profit. This is in fact the second largest cost in pharma R&D (the largest being the clinical trials, which can not be patented) and it is often this method, not the substance itself, that gets patented. And, since there are at least tens and often hundreds of different ways to synthesize any given molecule, manufacturing patents don't work that good anyway. Application patents, OTOH, where the use of a specific substance to combat a specific symptom/syndrome works a lot better. But they don't protect against similar substances. So you get a lot of costs for obtaining patents, buying licenses and trying really hard not to step on any patent minefields, and for what? About the only thing the patent system does is create a lot of work for patent lawyers. It sure doesn't promote innovation.
Actually, old Fyodor missed one crucial point: The degree of civilization in a society can only accurately be judged by in what state you GET OUT OF its prisons.
Check the numbers again. Many big movies now make more money from the merchandising deals and product placements than they do showing, renting or selling the actual movie. Cutting the salaries for a few of the biggest stars would more than account for the rest of the possible shortfall.
Fashion designs use a special kind of patent known as a "design patent":
It's possible that they are valid (for the design of clothes) in the US, but they are not in the EU. And the Italian fashion houses don't seem to mind H&M copying "their" creations.
OK, but think that one through. Don't stop there. Let's say you're right. What would happen when the public and movie theaters runs out of movies to watch/show like the alarmists say they will (just like the record industry died when home taping killed it)? They'd want to pay for new movies to be made. If they don't, there was no need for any of it to start with. And if they do, there's a market for creating new movies. And someone who pays for it. And there will be methods for getting it done. I'm just saying that state-enforced monopolies are NOT the way to build a thriving marketplace for ideas, culture and knowledge.
Again, without the protections people would quickly take advantage of your work and show you nothing for it. Guaranteed.
I actually don't think everyone is a record company exec.
Sure, people will pay for games. But they'll also warez the hell out of them.
So, the only difference from today would be that millions of people won't be criminalized for helping with distribution. :-)
Developers would be forced to compete with copies of their own game being sold retail, while recieving no money for it at all.
Check the numbers. How much of WoW's cash flow is from copy sales and how much is from monthly fees? Go on, check it.
Besides, we want to keep a commercial copyright for five years. That's more than enough time to sell games retail if that's what tickles your fancy.
The point is that copyrights create bad business models. Bad for consumers and bad for creators. In fact, the way the copyright laws are written, about the only ones who make it out ahead are the distributors. Distributors that should be dead as the dodo by now, but use their ill-gotten copyright gains to claw themselves back on the market. A market that don't want them there.
So, you're agreeing that patents aren't an actually acting as an incentive?
who are you to say that anything belongs to humanity? We are entitled to nothing.
When this hypothetical person can attend to his own birth, school himself and then invent this engine alone, without ever drawing upon the ideas, concepts or help from anyone else in the society around him, alive or dead, sure he can have his engine for himself.
Meanwhile, in the real world, he will receive medical help, schooling and access to any number of tools, methods, ideas and knowledge developed, refined and released by thousands upon thousands of humans that came before him. Why then shall he alone bear the fruits of this vast collaboration if he but receives one single spark of inspiration which in turn was inspired by us all? Riddle me that, Batman.
See "China, present day".
The industrial revolution occurred immediately after the institution of a patent system in the UK.
Looking at the Wikipedia article about the Industrial Revolution, one can not but notice this part about the causes of it:
Doesn't sound like patents would have helped there, would it? After all, the whole point of patents is to prevent the transmission of information. In fact, it has been said that the revolution didn't take place until after James Watt's patent ran out: Even more interesting is the fact that during the time that his patent was valid, Watt himself had little time to spare for making new inventions, he was too busy fending off "infringers" and trying to get a license to use the Pickard crack/flywheel, also patented. This mirrors the experiences of modern-day Swedish inventor Håkan Lans, who haven't been able to work since 1995 because he's been tied up in patent litigation. This effect alone should warrant an immediate abolishment for all patents as they create a terrible tax on humanity's resources.All through history it has been the strongest economies that have had sound patent systems
Ah, but what is cause and what is effect? And what is a "sound patent system"? Does it really exist? You didn't read the links in the post you quoted, did you? Strong economies are created by strong market forces, the very same market forces who then seek to consolidate their own power by... waitforit... ..."protecting their IP".
The scary part is that it already is.
Dean BakerNo, he should under no circumstance ever be allowed to patent it. Patenting it would virtually guarantee that the patent would be bought by (insert major oil pumping megacorp) and stuffed on a shelf until it's forgotten, 20 years later. And, adding inslut to injury, the patent lawyers would make damn sure that the patent isn't actually revealing enough to create said engine, but detailed enough to stop anyone else from independently inventing a similar engine.
An engine like that belongs to humanity, not a single individual or single corporation.
Not necessarily. The whole movie theatre experience has proven very hard to copy at home, and those industrious Singaporeans may have shown the way to go. While movie copying is rampant, movie theaters thrive - they offer luxurious seats and serve meals during the show. Alas, capitalism once again beats out state-controlled monopolies (which is, ecenomically, what copyrights and patents actally are). Giving people what they want will always be a marketable property. Same thing with games, people do pay for the development of games (as seen by several shareware/hostageware/otherware projects) and they do pay for content (WoW, basically any online game) and enduring gameplay and innovation. People want what's new, that's a major driver in the warez scene - getting stuff out before anyone else. Patents slow releases something fierce. Just using the time-to-market incentive works. Just look at the fashion designer industry - they churn out new stuff at a break-neck pace. With no IP protection in sight. Food recipes. We've eaten for tens of thousands of years but humans STILL invent new foods, create new recipes and drinks, without any kind of protection for the creators. And they still get rich occasionally.
Copyright ain't a business case.
Yeah, well... Um. We moved it. And made it a three day affair. Starting on the 17th. Yeah, that's it. Right. Arr?
On the contrary, we're proposing 500% more than what professor Joost Smiers suggests here (Op-Ed in the International Herald Tribune). I think that's being more than fair.
On the other hand, do we really want music made only by people who are in it for the money? Who are created by record companies to appeal to a mass market? Ready-made instant megastars who drain the resources from all deserving garage bands out there?
Or do we want music created by people who really want to create, who have something to say and can make a decent living out of it? Maybe not creating a market where ten people earn enough to buy a LearJet, but where tens of thousand earn enough to get a really nice car.
Only for the most easy-to-copy substances, and those really shouldn't have been patentable in the first place, even under the current system. Add to that all the years and money spent for FDA approval (yes, the copycat drugs do need those too) and you have a natural monopoly of several years with none of the harmful side-effects of the patent system, like what happens if two companies develop the same drug at the same time. With patents, only one of them are allowed to profit from the invention while effectively "stealing" a billion from the other. How's that fair?
In real life, ouside the reality distortion field of patent bureaus, it's quite expensive to manufacture, distribute and market a drug. Actually, only about 15% of Big Pharma's expenses are spent on R&D, the rest is marketing, patent bureau fees, patent licensing fees, manufacturing, distribution and overhead costs. Check their annual reports.
And, as we can clearly see anytime a new drug's patent runs out, the original drug still outsells the copycats, despite often quite large differences in price as the new-comers try to muscle in on the market. The original's trade mark is obviously much more valuable than the patent.
...if he took the time to fake his IP address for every vote. I'd like to meet this industrious individual.
No we don't, for the simple reason that it isn't true. Do the math yourself. Or, read up on some people who have:
Dean Baker
George Monbiot
In fact, our very own Ericsson was founded by copying a Siemens telephone design. History shows, repeatedly, that countries and/or markets with little or no IP protection flourish for the simple reason that time-to-market and true innovation are much stronger incentives for the making of new creations than the stale state-imposed monopolies of patent and copyright.
No country, Schiff notes, has ever contributed "as many basic inventions in this field as did Switzerland during her patentless period".