You can't. But you can't in the patent system either
predictable much. your saying that because patents aren't completely effective that we may as well have no protection at all. i can come up with your counterarguments myself, and then provide counter-counterarguments that you will then predictably face plant with some more bullshit.
i'd rather go argue with a brick wall than with a dipshit like you
You are making erroneous assumptions about the nature of invention
this was however unexpected, and hilarious:)
you won't believe me (you're so predictable) but at least i've actually invented something worth considering patenting. i chose to keep it to myself because in the current environment, patents aren't worth the paper they are printed on and its easier to just work as an employee for somebody else. it doesn't mean that the concept of a patent is wrong though, hence why i'm a patent reformist and you are a moron
Startups can't afford to engage in lengthy court battles
i expect you will never understand, and that's ok because you're getting boring anyway, and Levine sounds like as much a dipshit as you (maybe you should try reading books by a more intelligent author).
if i invent a widget and want to start up a new company to manufacture and sell it, how can i be sure that a large established company like kmart or walmart wont acquire a widget and mass-produce and sell copies of it (claiming it as their own) and use their much larger market share and resources to drive me out of business?
if you can answer that question reasonably, then you might have a case, but at the moment you're just sound like an idiot (who has never invented anything worth patenting).
court battles are expensive, but currently patents are the ONLY defense that a startup has against giants like walmart. without them there is no point in inventors creating anything if they expect to get any recognition or return on investment.
chock full of examples of how patents and copyright have consistently resulted in worse results than free competition, and the examples include both industries and individuals within them in both the past and modern times
i'm sure there are lots of examples of patents gone bad, and patents that should never have been issued, which is all the more reason to be a patent reformist rather than a patent abolitionist, because while the patent system has been abused (more often by large companies than the small ones that the system meant to protect), they do still have a purpose, and my previous point still stands regardless of what some moron UCLA student wrote (the professor was more likely to have merely supervised, and may not have even read it nor authorized the use of his name in an attempt to garner credibility for such garbage); without patents, new innovation would ground to a halt. with patents, at least there is a minimal level of protection for small startups against giants like walmart who are quite happy to reverse engineer products and mass-produce and sell their own sub-standard ripoff.
Even that worthless asshole Isaac Newton blatantly admitted to such horrendous behavior
i'll bet "that worthless asshole" (you're joking right) was simply being modest, or joking himself, but in any case it doesn't matter because as i've said elsewhere in comments for this article, all current innovation stands on the shoulders of giants. it doesn't than current innovation is in any way inferior to the innovation before it, and innovation still costs huge sums of time and money that few would be willing to give up without recompense of any sort. also, i don't know if newton received any financial compensation for his work, but he certainly gained personal recognition, with is another right that patents are intended to protect (as opposed to some other moron stealing his work and claiming it as his own, which may have happened back then too).
at the end of the day, patents exist and they aren't going to go away in the foreseeable future because thankfully fruitloop "abolitionists" like you are few and far between. software patents and some other abstract patents (for things like business methods) are obviously bad and there is growing support for reform to the patent system to restore it as a tool to protect real innovators of all sizes rather than merely a weapon of choice for exclusive use by trolls and megacorporations.
Because there isn't a problem with this 'free riding.' In fact, the ability to 'free ride' is undeniably far more important than the patent system.
yes there is. if i spend thousands of dollars and many hours of my time, skill and knowledge to invent something, why the hell would i give it to you to freely use and make money from?
a free competitive market wouldn't work without patents, because only the largest companies would ever make any money and new business ventures wouldn't be viable due to poor return on investment.
you clearly don't understand economics at all, loser
...but go ahead and keep whining about how patents make it hard for you to blatantly rip off people who can actually invent things. you suck so bad that its funny
still make be making an argument based upon certain parties benefiting from positive externalities without bearing a cost
had to chuckle at that one
so i guess the word "freeload" isn't the reason why my argument is baseless any more?
"certain parties benefiting from positive externalities without bearing a cost" being roughly equivalent to "freeload" (obviously) doesn't actually introduce anything new, so you've basically made the same argument as your previous reply
is there some reason why you think making such an argument is "baseless", or is all you got some reference to some "excellent paper" written by a retard who has never invented anything worth patenting?
i know your argument is baseless. if any organisation (be it corporate or government) has a patent, they should be free to license the use of that patent. whether that patent should have been granted is a different issue, and many patents shouldn't be granted, but in this case I think CSIRO have innovated and deserve their patent, and anyone who thinks they should be able to make money from CSIRO's work without paying royalties doesn't deserve to be in business. perhaps you are one of them?
as far as operation of an organisation (any, be it private, profitable, utility) there is no functional difference between maximizing profit and maximizing cost efficiency (because as you would no doubt be aware, profit=revenue less expenses).
if a government owned utility improves its operational efficiency, then it can "make a profit", but for a utility profit is really just a cash asset, so it offers the opportunity to reduce prices for consumers, or reduce funding required from government (does this sound like what CSIRO is doing yet?).
many government agencies/organisations/utilities are so poorly run that they wind up being privatized just to offload the financial black holes. we should be cherishing and promoting any government organisation that operates more like a business, because otherwise you end up with bureaucratic inefficient financial black holes that while may be performing an essential service, has an unsustainable cost to benefit ratio and winds up requiring tax hikes or new taxes to cover them.
csiro is really full of kangaroos that invented a patented wifi technology, and everyone knows that you don't dare take on the kangaroos (they kick, hard). america can fire its nukes and tanks and delta force jarheads can swear and stream tough-guy abuse at them, but the kangaroos will just keep kicking. they are nuclear, tank and jarhead-proof don't you know
the real question is, what would a "third-world country" like Australia wan't with anything to do with wi-fi? don't they use didgeridoos for communication? do they even have computers in australia? how the hell could they even know what a patent is let alone successfully apply for one, and, in the UNITED STATES OF AWESOMENESS, no less! someone should lock up those convicts before they drag us all back to the stone age.
if you make a company bear a direct cost, that cost and more will be added to the price
you're dead right there; it's called "user pays" and applies everywhere (not just australia), which is better than other countries and corporations merely freeloading off hard-earned aussie taxpayer dollars
Australian citizens are still having to pay the same fees
they do, but they would be anyway even if csiro wasn't licensing patents. do you really think wifi hardware manufacturers would cut aussie consumers a deal for the right to use aussie innovation? that's not the way the corporate world works
if csiro wasn't making money from patents, aussie taxpayers would be subsidising foreign companies
I'm a patent abolitionist
that's fine, but it doesn't mean you're right. patents do have very important purpose, even if the system that administers it isn't the greatest. surely you would understand this; if you had invented anything you would understand. consumers with no appreciation for patents and copyright are just as greedy as leeching corporate rip offs. why are you a patent abolitionist rather than a patent reformist? eliminating patents altogether will merely ground investment in innovation to a grinding halt and people with ideas will simply keep them to themselves out of fear of being ripped off and having no legal recourse to protect their investment.
The government isn't intended to be just a business that has citizens as shareholders
perhaps not, but it would be a hell of a lot more efficient and productive if it were
How the hell do you figure there would be a greater cost to the public to not be taxed on wifi devices?
the aussie taxpayer isn't taxed on wifi devices, they are making money from wifi technology. where did you get the impression there was a wifi tax?
if CSIRO was privatised, according to you patenting would be ok, but the aussie taxpayer would then get no benefit from its licensing, the profit would go offshore, and consumers would still get slugged the same. how the hell do you figure it would be better for the aussie taxpayer if CSIRO gave away its patent?
government funded R&D should be completely free and open
my point was that if private companies can make money for shareholders, then government agencies can make money for taxpayers
whatever your point, its not very pointy. its fine that you think that government research should be free, but i think that it shouldn't and that private companies can go to hell
if taxpayers, as consumers, saved 4c on every wifi device should CSIRO not charge licensing fees, then you might have a point, but we would be charged the same. companies charge what the market will bear, which in many cases has little resemblance of what it actually costs.
actually, it might only cost wifi device manufacturers 4c per device, but you can be sure as hell the aussie consumer gets slugged more than that out of spite. companies can be that petty, but the aussie market can probably also bear a much higher price than many other countries, but i don't know whether that's because we're better off or because we're just too easy going and take whatever crap flies our way even if we don't like it. putting up with the politicians that we do it's probably the latter.
unfortunately, while i see your point, the csiro not charging fees would make things much better. the corporate world is just that greedy.
exactly the point i was trying to make (hence why there isn't much point in trying, including comparison to other transportation tech)
How many man-hours have to be used in a launch of a vehicle that doesn't require a pilot?
for a space launch, many more man-hours are required than would be required for any other type of transportation, manned or not. when you go flying in an airplane, you don't pass through a region of 2000 degrees celsius as in reentry, which then requires many man-hours of inspection and refurbishment (hence the huge turnaround time for the old space shuttle, and will also delay spacex launches). there are entire control centers designated to a single vehicle, with multitudes of support, maintenance and development personnel, and then there are those actually involved in the launch. you may not believe me, but spacecraft aren't comparable to aircraft or cars, and won't be for the foreseeable future.
space tethers will require even more personnel than earth to orbit shuttles, because they will require an orbiting station, so you may as well compare the resources for a space tether system to those required to operate the ISS.
But the technology isn't the same. You also have to include social factors such as the respective leadership of the two groups. The Russians are ultimately run by politicians with no particular competence in this area, while SpaceX is currently run by Elon Musk.
but my hypothetical argument was that if the technology were the same, the two would be different. this was precisely to highlight that propellant isn't the variable, but social factors and politics etc (what I originally wrapped up in "people factors") are what make the difference, which you have appeared to grasp now which is good. don't be too quick to denounce russian politics, which have been crucial in russians becoming by far the best spacecraft engineers in the world. even the ISS depends on the life support and ferry support from the russians. they mass produce spacecraft like the US (and the rest of the world, including spacex) could only dream of. in the big scheme of space tech and politics, Elon Musk is a nobody, yet to really prove his worth, while the rest of the world has trailed the russians from the very beginning (even the moon landings by the US were not beyond russia, especially if russia had comparable funding to nasa).
Just like I outsourced all my grocery store trips to China?
if the difference in price was thousands of dollars, you would be stupid not to, and you of course would, and companies vying to survive and make a buck for their shareholders will sure as hell use chinese launch services instead of US-based if the price is cheaper. companies have no loyalty to anybody but their major multinational shareholders.
Chinese or Russian launch vehicles are less useful to US or European customers because the customers are elsewhere
don't be naive. shipping a satellite across the countryside in a truck or across the ocean costs fuck all compared to the cost of launching. US or European customers would use Russian or Chinese launchers in a heartbeat
payload needs to be insured
only in the US or Europe, which is even more reason to launch elsewhere
intangible costs like industrial espionage and liabilty
intangible costs don't mean much to companies because they don't translate directly to figures in a profit/loss statement, but in any case industrial espionage isn't restricted by geopolitical boundaries and hasn't been fore years, and liability insurance is far more expensive in western countries than in russia or china.
SpaceX is doing things that these other players can't replicate, such as launches with vastly fewer people involved
spaceshipone by scaled composites, but also the russian program involves far fewer people than any nasa launch. its difficult to compare spacex because they aren't really launching commercially yet
minimal, but still greater than none. what company invents a completely new technology without standing on the shoulders of those that came before them? most innovation nowadays is incremental, but that doesn't mean that incremental innovation isn't patentable
happens to have been used by others before they patented it
less taxpayer money is going to CSIRO than would be necessary if there was no return on investment from patent licensing, so they are saving taxpayer money
how is the aussie taxpayer denied access to inventions made with this money? wifi is commonplace in Australia
i didn't claim they did invent wifi, but there are a lot of patents covering the technology that makes up wifi. no single company or organisation invented wifi. they did invent something that refined wifi, regardless of where it come from. all current invention is standing on the shoulders of those that came before them. most patents cover a relatively small level of innovation that is based on previous innovation. there are very few major breakthrough innovations nowadays (like invention of the light bulb or integrated circuit, but even these major breakthroughs required previous innovation to assist in understanding, such as electrical theory and invention of materials that made light bulbs and IC's possible)
Had an american company done this, even a publicly funded one, you would have been all over them as patent trolls
whatever your point here, an american company didn't invent it, and i'm not "all over" companies that patent algorithms like mp3 and gif either. you're starting to sound like a dipshit
instead of setting up a company or licensing others to set up companies to produce products they publicized their work, waited till it was widely adopted, then started suing people
try doing your homework first dipshit. from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commonwealth_Scientific_and_Industrial_Research_Organisation#802.11_patent "In 1997 Macquarie University Professor David Skellern and his colleague Neil Weste established the company Radiata, Inc., which took a nonexclusive licence to the CSIRO patent for the purpose of developing commercially viable integrated circuit devices implementing the patented technology.". the patent was granted in 1996, so there was no "waiting until it was widely adopted". now you're just a fucking retard troll.
If it was tax payer funded, it already belongs to the people
wrong again fucktard. it belongs to the australian taxpayer, not leeching american corporate shareholders. the CSIRO doesn't work for american anything
Is CSIRO returning any monies to the Aussie Taxpayer?
less taxpayer money is going to CSIRO than would be necessary if there was no return on investment from patent licensing, so they are saving taxpayer monies
profit based incentives of a business do not work in that area
funny, it has worked just fine for the CSIRO for years. got any examples of the failure you speak of?
the public would have greater prosperity
actually, company shareholder would have greater prosperity, at greater cost to the public
agencies like CSIRO can make research decisions based upon what is best for the public to research, as opposed to partially or wholly avoiding research that isn't patentable
all their research is automatically covered by copyright anyway, but regardless, profitable companies don't research in the public interest either; they are actually worse than the CSIRO because not only do they focus on what is patentable, but they only research what they can make a significant profit from, and most of that profit goes to a select few major shareholders.
if your point was that profitable companies do R&D in the public interest moreso than a government R&D organisation, its a lost cause. if you were being sarcastic, i don't get it.
i think you have that the wrong way around; it's double-dipping when companies do what the csiro are doing (R&D with government money) because tax-payers pay twice (once as a tax-payer and again as a consumer).
as a government R&D organisation, CSIRO are taking tax-payer money and then saving tax-payer money; they are actually working for their tax-paying shareholders by making money from patents, which by the way happens to be what every private and public company does.
There is little incentive for companies to commit significant investment in long term research and development projects because of the significant risk of industrial espionage or another large company simply cornering the market first when the technology becomes known. Patents are barely worth the paper they are printed on as there are a multitude of ways to get around them and even blatent violations must be defended which is difficult if the return on investment cannot fund the legal battle.
The CSIRO is able to defend their research because they have been around for a long time (almost a century) so they have a lot of innovation experience, and they have a government as a shareholder. If they were small private company, they would be toast.
Slashdot Mirror
You can't. But you can't in the patent system either
predictable much. your saying that because patents aren't completely effective that we may as well have no protection at all. i can come up with your counterarguments myself, and then provide counter-counterarguments that you will then predictably face plant with some more bullshit.
i'd rather go argue with a brick wall than with a dipshit like you
You are making erroneous assumptions about the nature of invention
this was however unexpected, and hilarious :)
you won't believe me (you're so predictable) but at least i've actually invented something worth considering patenting. i chose to keep it to myself because in the current environment, patents aren't worth the paper they are printed on and its easier to just work as an employee for somebody else. it doesn't mean that the concept of a patent is wrong though, hence why i'm a patent reformist and you are a moron
Startups can't afford to engage in lengthy court battles
i expect you will never understand, and that's ok because you're getting boring anyway, and Levine sounds like as much a dipshit as you (maybe you should try reading books by a more intelligent author).
if i invent a widget and want to start up a new company to manufacture and sell it, how can i be sure that a large established company like kmart or walmart wont acquire a widget and mass-produce and sell copies of it (claiming it as their own) and use their much larger market share and resources to drive me out of business?
if you can answer that question reasonably, then you might have a case, but at the moment you're just sound like an idiot (who has never invented anything worth patenting).
court battles are expensive, but currently patents are the ONLY defense that a startup has against giants like walmart. without them there is no point in inventors creating anything if they expect to get any recognition or return on investment.
chock full of examples of how patents and copyright have consistently resulted in worse results than free competition, and the examples include both industries and individuals within them in both the past and modern times
i'm sure there are lots of examples of patents gone bad, and patents that should never have been issued, which is all the more reason to be a patent reformist rather than a patent abolitionist, because while the patent system has been abused (more often by large companies than the small ones that the system meant to protect), they do still have a purpose, and my previous point still stands regardless of what some moron UCLA student wrote (the professor was more likely to have merely supervised, and may not have even read it nor authorized the use of his name in an attempt to garner credibility for such garbage); without patents, new innovation would ground to a halt. with patents, at least there is a minimal level of protection for small startups against giants like walmart who are quite happy to reverse engineer products and mass-produce and sell their own sub-standard ripoff.
Even that worthless asshole Isaac Newton blatantly admitted to such horrendous behavior
i'll bet "that worthless asshole" (you're joking right) was simply being modest, or joking himself, but in any case it doesn't matter because as i've said elsewhere in comments for this article, all current innovation stands on the shoulders of giants. it doesn't than current innovation is in any way inferior to the innovation before it, and innovation still costs huge sums of time and money that few would be willing to give up without recompense of any sort. also, i don't know if newton received any financial compensation for his work, but he certainly gained personal recognition, with is another right that patents are intended to protect (as opposed to some other moron stealing his work and claiming it as his own, which may have happened back then too).
at the end of the day, patents exist and they aren't going to go away in the foreseeable future because thankfully fruitloop "abolitionists" like you are few and far between. software patents and some other abstract patents (for things like business methods) are obviously bad and there is growing support for reform to the patent system to restore it as a tool to protect real innovators of all sizes rather than merely a weapon of choice for exclusive use by trolls and megacorporations.
Because there isn't a problem with this 'free riding.' In fact, the ability to 'free ride' is undeniably far more important than the patent system.
yes there is. if i spend thousands of dollars and many hours of my time, skill and knowledge to invent something, why the hell would i give it to you to freely use and make money from?
...but go ahead and keep whining about how patents make it hard for you to blatantly rip off people who can actually invent things. you suck so bad that its funny
a free competitive market wouldn't work without patents, because only the largest companies would ever make any money and new business ventures wouldn't be viable due to poor return on investment.
you clearly don't understand economics at all, loser
still make be making an argument based upon certain parties benefiting from positive externalities without bearing a cost
had to chuckle at that one
so i guess the word "freeload" isn't the reason why my argument is baseless any more?
"certain parties benefiting from positive externalities without bearing a cost" being roughly equivalent to "freeload" (obviously) doesn't actually introduce anything new, so you've basically made the same argument as your previous reply
is there some reason why you think making such an argument is "baseless", or is all you got some reference to some "excellent paper" written by a retard who has never invented anything worth patenting?
i could have easily made the same argument without using the words "freeloading" or "free riding"
wtf is your point?
i know your argument is baseless. if any organisation (be it corporate or government) has a patent, they should be free to license the use of that patent. whether that patent should have been granted is a different issue, and many patents shouldn't be granted, but in this case I think CSIRO have innovated and deserve their patent, and anyone who thinks they should be able to make money from CSIRO's work without paying royalties doesn't deserve to be in business. perhaps you are one of them?
as far as operation of an organisation (any, be it private, profitable, utility) there is no functional difference between maximizing profit and maximizing cost efficiency (because as you would no doubt be aware, profit=revenue less expenses).
if a government owned utility improves its operational efficiency, then it can "make a profit", but for a utility profit is really just a cash asset, so it offers the opportunity to reduce prices for consumers, or reduce funding required from government (does this sound like what CSIRO is doing yet?).
many government agencies/organisations/utilities are so poorly run that they wind up being privatized just to offload the financial black holes. we should be cherishing and promoting any government organisation that operates more like a business, because otherwise you end up with bureaucratic inefficient financial black holes that while may be performing an essential service, has an unsustainable cost to benefit ratio and winds up requiring tax hikes or new taxes to cover them.
csiro is really full of kangaroos that invented a patented wifi technology, and everyone knows that you don't dare take on the kangaroos (they kick, hard). america can fire its nukes and tanks and delta force jarheads can swear and stream tough-guy abuse at them, but the kangaroos will just keep kicking. they are nuclear, tank and jarhead-proof don't you know
the real question is, what would a "third-world country" like Australia wan't with anything to do with wi-fi? don't they use didgeridoos for communication? do they even have computers in australia? how the hell could they even know what a patent is let alone successfully apply for one, and, in the UNITED STATES OF AWESOMENESS, no less! someone should lock up those convicts before they drag us all back to the stone age.
privately held for profit electrical companies
but government-owned organisations aren't privately owned. duh!
how did you come to compare the failure of privatisation to the success of government-owned institutions being run in a business-like fashion?
aliens that kept her alive
if you make a company bear a direct cost, that cost and more will be added to the price
you're dead right there; it's called "user pays" and applies everywhere (not just australia), which is better than other countries and corporations merely freeloading off hard-earned aussie taxpayer dollars
Australian citizens are still having to pay the same fees
they do, but they would be anyway even if csiro wasn't licensing patents. do you really think wifi hardware manufacturers would cut aussie consumers a deal for the right to use aussie innovation? that's not the way the corporate world works
if csiro wasn't making money from patents, aussie taxpayers would be subsidising foreign companies
I'm a patent abolitionist
that's fine, but it doesn't mean you're right. patents do have very important purpose, even if the system that administers it isn't the greatest. surely you would understand this; if you had invented anything you would understand. consumers with no appreciation for patents and copyright are just as greedy as leeching corporate rip offs. why are you a patent abolitionist rather than a patent reformist? eliminating patents altogether will merely ground investment in innovation to a grinding halt and people with ideas will simply keep them to themselves out of fear of being ripped off and having no legal recourse to protect their investment.
The government isn't intended to be just a business that has citizens as shareholders
perhaps not, but it would be a hell of a lot more efficient and productive if it were
How the hell do you figure there would be a greater cost to the public to not be taxed on wifi devices?
the aussie taxpayer isn't taxed on wifi devices, they are making money from wifi technology. where did you get the impression there was a wifi tax?
if CSIRO was privatised, according to you patenting would be ok, but the aussie taxpayer would then get no benefit from its licensing, the profit would go offshore, and consumers would still get slugged the same. how the hell do you figure it would be better for the aussie taxpayer if CSIRO gave away its patent?
government funded R&D should be completely free and open
my point was that if private companies can make money for shareholders, then government agencies can make money for taxpayers
whatever your point, its not very pointy. its fine that you think that government research should be free, but i think that it shouldn't and that private companies can go to hell
if taxpayers, as consumers, saved 4c on every wifi device should CSIRO not charge licensing fees, then you might have a point, but we would be charged the same. companies charge what the market will bear, which in many cases has little resemblance of what it actually costs.
actually, it might only cost wifi device manufacturers 4c per device, but you can be sure as hell the aussie consumer gets slugged more than that out of spite. companies can be that petty, but the aussie market can probably also bear a much higher price than many other countries, but i don't know whether that's because we're better off or because we're just too easy going and take whatever crap flies our way even if we don't like it. putting up with the politicians that we do it's probably the latter.
unfortunately, while i see your point, the csiro not charging fees would make things much better. the corporate world is just that greedy.
The future is by its nature hard to predict
exactly the point i was trying to make (hence why there isn't much point in trying, including comparison to other transportation tech)
How many man-hours have to be used in a launch of a vehicle that doesn't require a pilot?
for a space launch, many more man-hours are required than would be required for any other type of transportation, manned or not. when you go flying in an airplane, you don't pass through a region of 2000 degrees celsius as in reentry, which then requires many man-hours of inspection and refurbishment (hence the huge turnaround time for the old space shuttle, and will also delay spacex launches). there are entire control centers designated to a single vehicle, with multitudes of support, maintenance and development personnel, and then there are those actually involved in the launch. you may not believe me, but spacecraft aren't comparable to aircraft or cars, and won't be for the foreseeable future.
space tethers will require even more personnel than earth to orbit shuttles, because they will require an orbiting station, so you may as well compare the resources for a space tether system to those required to operate the ISS.
But the technology isn't the same. You also have to include social factors such as the respective leadership of the two groups. The Russians are ultimately run by politicians with no particular competence in this area, while SpaceX is currently run by Elon Musk.
but my hypothetical argument was that if the technology were the same, the two would be different. this was precisely to highlight that propellant isn't the variable, but social factors and politics etc (what I originally wrapped up in "people factors") are what make the difference, which you have appeared to grasp now which is good. don't be too quick to denounce russian politics, which have been crucial in russians becoming by far the best spacecraft engineers in the world. even the ISS depends on the life support and ferry support from the russians. they mass produce spacecraft like the US (and the rest of the world, including spacex) could only dream of. in the big scheme of space tech and politics, Elon Musk is a nobody, yet to really prove his worth, while the rest of the world has trailed the russians from the very beginning (even the moon landings by the US were not beyond russia, especially if russia had comparable funding to nasa).
Just like I outsourced all my grocery store trips to China?
if the difference in price was thousands of dollars, you would be stupid not to, and you of course would, and companies vying to survive and make a buck for their shareholders will sure as hell use chinese launch services instead of US-based if the price is cheaper. companies have no loyalty to anybody but their major multinational shareholders.
Chinese or Russian launch vehicles are less useful to US or European customers because the customers are elsewhere
don't be naive. shipping a satellite across the countryside in a truck or across the ocean costs fuck all compared to the cost of launching. US or European customers would use Russian or Chinese launchers in a heartbeat
payload needs to be insured
only in the US or Europe, which is even more reason to launch elsewhere
intangible costs like industrial espionage and liabilty
intangible costs don't mean much to companies because they don't translate directly to figures in a profit/loss statement, but in any case industrial espionage isn't restricted by geopolitical boundaries and hasn't been fore years, and liability insurance is far more expensive in western countries than in russia or china.
SpaceX is doing things that these other players can't replicate, such as launches with vastly fewer people involved
spaceshipone by scaled composites, but also the russian program involves far fewer people than any nasa launch. its difficult to compare spacex because they aren't really launching commercially yet
CSIRO's contribution to wifi is very minimal
minimal, but still greater than none. what company invents a completely new technology without standing on the shoulders of those that came before them? most innovation nowadays is incremental, but that doesn't mean that incremental innovation isn't patentable
happens to have been used by others before they patented it
got any examples you would like to share?
so you understand the pointlessness of your original reply. good for you
from http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2889701&cid=40197219
less taxpayer money is going to CSIRO than would be necessary if there was no return on investment from patent licensing, so they are saving taxpayer money
how is the aussie taxpayer denied access to inventions made with this money? wifi is commonplace in Australia
they didn't invent wifi
i didn't claim they did invent wifi, but there are a lot of patents covering the technology that makes up wifi. no single company or organisation invented wifi. they did invent something that refined wifi, regardless of where it come from. all current invention is standing on the shoulders of those that came before them. most patents cover a relatively small level of innovation that is based on previous innovation. there are very few major breakthrough innovations nowadays (like invention of the light bulb or integrated circuit, but even these major breakthroughs required previous innovation to assist in understanding, such as electrical theory and invention of materials that made light bulbs and IC's possible)
Had an american company done this, even a publicly funded one, you would have been all over them as patent trolls
whatever your point here, an american company didn't invent it, and i'm not "all over" companies that patent algorithms like mp3 and gif either. you're starting to sound like a dipshit
instead of setting up a company or licensing others to set up companies to produce products they publicized their work, waited till it was widely adopted, then started suing people
try doing your homework first dipshit. from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commonwealth_Scientific_and_Industrial_Research_Organisation#802.11_patent "In 1997 Macquarie University Professor David Skellern and his colleague Neil Weste established the company Radiata, Inc., which took a nonexclusive licence to the CSIRO patent for the purpose of developing commercially viable integrated circuit devices implementing the patented technology.". the patent was granted in 1996, so there was no "waiting until it was widely adopted". now you're just a fucking retard troll.
If it was tax payer funded, it already belongs to the people
wrong again fucktard. it belongs to the australian taxpayer, not leeching american corporate shareholders. the CSIRO doesn't work for american anything
Is CSIRO returning any monies to the Aussie Taxpayer?
less taxpayer money is going to CSIRO than would be necessary if there was no return on investment from patent licensing, so they are saving taxpayer monies
you really are just a wanker
you got modded down because nobody has any idea what you're on about, including you
...and if your a company that rips off government-funded research to boost your otherwise dwindling profit-margins, it's just business right?
profit based incentives of a business do not work in that area
funny, it has worked just fine for the CSIRO for years. got any examples of the failure you speak of?
the public would have greater prosperity
actually, company shareholder would have greater prosperity, at greater cost to the public
agencies like CSIRO can make research decisions based upon what is best for the public to research, as opposed to partially or wholly avoiding research that isn't patentable
all their research is automatically covered by copyright anyway, but regardless, profitable companies don't research in the public interest either; they are actually worse than the CSIRO because not only do they focus on what is patentable, but they only research what they can make a significant profit from, and most of that profit goes to a select few major shareholders.
if your point was that profitable companies do R&D in the public interest moreso than a government R&D organisation, its a lost cause. if you were being sarcastic, i don't get it.
i think you have that the wrong way around; it's double-dipping when companies do what the csiro are doing (R&D with government money) because tax-payers pay twice (once as a tax-payer and again as a consumer).
as a government R&D organisation, CSIRO are taking tax-payer money and then saving tax-payer money; they are actually working for their tax-paying shareholders by making money from patents, which by the way happens to be what every private and public company does.
There is little incentive for companies to commit significant investment in long term research and development projects because of the significant risk of industrial espionage or another large company simply cornering the market first when the technology becomes known. Patents are barely worth the paper they are printed on as there are a multitude of ways to get around them and even blatent violations must be defended which is difficult if the return on investment cannot fund the legal battle.
The CSIRO is able to defend their research because they have been around for a long time (almost a century) so they have a lot of innovation experience, and they have a government as a shareholder. If they were small private company, they would be toast.