I'm just happy that research scientists still have some moral against patenting, or at least against abusing the patents. What if Cooley and Tukey had patented their fast Fourier transform and sold the rights to a single company? (FFT stands at the center of signal processing, encompassing everything from satellite communications to medical imaging, from acoustics to spectroscopy...) Patenting is fundamentally an artificial impediment of free competition and natural selection of products. It may allow inferior products to dominate and is a waste of resources (especially in small companies). Without patents, technology products would be forced to compete more with qualities like usability, aesthetics or environmental issues (which applies to traditional goods like clothes and food). Of course there are also other views and patent laws can't simply be nuked in practise, but in my opinion at least 1. "The idea behind patents is that the fundamentals of an invention are made public while the inventor for a limited time has the exclusive right to make, use or sell the invention" Publicity of the information is the principle that somewhat justifies patenting, but it can be questioned, because the patents are often made as ambiguous and illegible as possible. This has become an art in itself and the patent engineers are getting better and better in it. The patent application should definately not be accepted until it is made as plain and simple as possible and complies to a certain set of style rules. It should be considered as a scientific publication among others. Going through obfuscated patents consumes a lot of resources but is necessary when planning product development. 2. The life span of patents should be shortened, as well as the time during which the information must be applied in a commercial product. 3. Too all-encompassing patents should not be possible. I don't know how, perhaps the patent holder should have the exclusive right to use the invention only in the kind of applied products explicitly specified in the patent application? Furthermore, the maximum number of the specified products could be restricted. This would allow the patent holder to release his/her killer product but would encourage others to think of new uses for the invention.
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I'm just happy that research scientists still have some moral against patenting, or at least against abusing the patents. What if Cooley and Tukey had patented their fast Fourier transform and sold the rights to a single company? (FFT stands at the center of signal processing, encompassing everything from satellite communications to medical imaging, from acoustics to spectroscopy...) Patenting is fundamentally an artificial impediment of free competition and natural selection of products. It may allow inferior products to dominate and is a waste of resources (especially in small companies). Without patents, technology products would be forced to compete more with qualities like usability, aesthetics or environmental issues (which applies to traditional goods like clothes and food). Of course there are also other views and patent laws can't simply be nuked in practise, but in my opinion at least 1. "The idea behind patents is that the fundamentals of an invention are made public while the inventor for a limited time has the exclusive right to make, use or sell the invention" Publicity of the information is the principle that somewhat justifies patenting, but it can be questioned, because the patents are often made as ambiguous and illegible as possible. This has become an art in itself and the patent engineers are getting better and better in it. The patent application should definately not be accepted until it is made as plain and simple as possible and complies to a certain set of style rules. It should be considered as a scientific publication among others. Going through obfuscated patents consumes a lot of resources but is necessary when planning product development. 2. The life span of patents should be shortened, as well as the time during which the information must be applied in a commercial product. 3. Too all-encompassing patents should not be possible. I don't know how, perhaps the patent holder should have the exclusive right to use the invention only in the kind of applied products explicitly specified in the patent application? Furthermore, the maximum number of the specified products could be restricted. This would allow the patent holder to release his/her killer product but would encourage others to think of new uses for the invention.