"What patents allow for is to claim ownership of something and then prevent anyone else from doing anything else vaguely similar."
Yes, so they can exclusively profit from it. Remember, this is a GOOD thing because innovators have incentive to innovate, even if only for a limited period of time. The key is "limited" because eventually they go into the public domain. Then it benefits everyone.
The problem is that the patent office is not technologically sophisticated enough to evaluate patent apps for complex things like software.
The real argument isn't the value of the patent system since it clearly provides value to society, it's whether software should be patentable vs copyrightable.
Patent law is not central planning but quite the opposite: it's how we allow innovators in a free market to profit from their innovation. Invent something, bring it to market and profit from it without competition for a legally specified period of time. And the beauty of it is that eventually the design goes off patent and everyone benefits from it's production in a free, competitive market. Take away patents and copyrights and nobody has incentive to innovate. Bigger, more established manufacturers simply steal your product design and undercut your price.
Patent law has nothing to do with central planning or china's economic success, it's rather the opposite - they deliberately flout international patent and copyright as their industries churn out knock offs in a move designed to destroy industry anywhere but china. Central planning has worked in china primarily because of their unique advantage - a nearly endless supply of extremely cheap and well educated labor. Now that costs have begun to rise for them, their "miracle growth" engine is slowing. Once they get to a point where they actually have to compete with more mature and efficient economies they'll run into a wall. The other thing underpinning their "growth" is a collective willingness among government officials to put all other considerations secondary to economic expansion. Basically, they've made their economy the world's biggest bubble at expense of environmental and labor conditions. Beijing's air quality is so bad they had to shut down local industry for weeks before the Olympic games and workers at places like foxconn throw themselves off the building with such regularity that they had to install nets to catch them all.
The only way central planning can help isn't by setting targets, it's by tweaking the rules so a free market can more easily meet them. You can legally oblige carmakers to produce X many electric cars per year but there is no guarantee that anyone will buy them (hellooooo chevy volt). The smartest thing any government can do is to try to preserve a competitive free market.
In order for the market to remain competitive and dynamic instead of moribund and dominated by a few big players, you MUST allow innovators an advantage and that means patents.
Assuming you are referring to the "castle doctrine", the basic problem is that there is no practical way to determine the intent of someone who has broken into your home. What if they decide not to leave witnesses? Why is it incumbent upon the homeowner to prove intent in that regard? Breaking and entering is a pretty good indicator that the perpetrator is not feeling particularly bound by any law or ethics.
Once it becomes ingrained into the criminal mind that homeowners are legally prevented from defending themselves and their property, all they have to do is make sure they bring enough people/force to physically overpower the residents. So long as they manage a getaway they go scot free. Additionally, if they are of a violent bent (as they so often are) they will ignore firearms bans/restrictions (because they're criminals, duh) and simply use that advantage to coerce people to their will or murder them as their whims dictate.
Free men have the right to defend themselves and their property; All you people "over there" who are merely "subjects to the crown" or whatever are legally forced to bend to the will of any criminal who deems you a mark. Bring lube, because your only recourse is to hope they let you live so you can file a police report. Who knows, maybe the police will actually do something!
Enjoy your servitude, perhaps the powers that be will take pity someday.
No question. I don't even like really like ipads or tablets in general but this is the right answer. A little bracket to mount it on the wall and you're done.
A decent android tablet would fill the bill nicely, too.
Exactly! The aircraft didn't fail because it couldn't fly or be controlled. It failed because the assumptions made about the stresses and temperatures on the skin were inadequate.
Adjust accordingly and try again - the end result of this sequence of trials and improvements is a usable hypersonic aircraft, far in advance of anything anyone has flown before.
Yep. Pretty much the entire western world has a spending problem, not a revenue problem. Yet the politicians and policy makers consistently get it backwards.
It's the kind of magical thinking that caused Kagan to say "It's just a pile of federal money", apparently not realizing that it all comes from taxes on you.
Except solyndra was about payback for democratic political donors rather than developing tech.
If they really want to spur domestic production they should simply tie any subsidies or tax breaks for solar installations to using US made products. The chinese are deliberately trying to crush manufacturers of everything in the US. It's economic warfare and they're winning because we aren't even trying to play.
Taxing the chinese products is more proof that obama and the dems have absolutely no idea how to handle the economy. To them it's all magic, which is why so many of their policies turn out to be smoke and mirrors.
Yet another example of big government encroaching on personal liberties and freedoms in the name of safety. Soon we'll be so safe we won't need to leave our houses! We won't be allowed, either.
The game isn't liberal vs conservative - that's just a red herring. Freedom vs tyranny is the real issue.
Yes, listen to what comrad lenin has to say! He lives as one of the people!
This is all commie bullshit. Look under the hood: anything that places the individual at the mercy of an all powerful state...well if you don't get the picture you never will.
The capitalist economy is driven by greed and materialism because people are greedy and materialistic - and that's not a bad thing as it provides people with motivation. In fact, you can't really call the desire for financial security and a nice house in a decent area with good schools "greedy and materialistic" although it might technically fit the definitions.
This book is bullshit, written by a professor of bullshitology. Learn to recognize propaganda when you read it, peeps, especially when they say it's for your own good and is going to save the world.
You would be better off just talking to people who grew up behind the iron curtain.
Very true. A competitive free market is the most efficient. Government meddling with the best of intentions always results in unforeseen consequences.
Look at the entire mortgage industry collapse; the big push by barney frank & friends to "make housing more affordable" ignored the most basic economic fact of all: people who don't have a lot of money simply can't afford expensive things like houses. The influx of cheap, easy fannie mae home loans merely inflated prices, resulting in the biggest collapse since the great depression.
The private sector needs to lead; government intervention should be limited to keeping markets free and competitive.
After seeing websites like "khan academy" it may be that textbooks are obsolete. Why keep reinventing the wheel if there are excellent individual lessons available for free online? Clearly the textbook market is turning into a scam because of the disconnect between buyers and sellers.
Perhaps entities accrediting teaching institutions should begin accrediting textbooks - formalizing the process of textbook selection instead of pushing this crucial decision to the lowest levels.
Yep, it's reasonable but only the "rich people should pay for our free stuff" crown think it isn't. This is still relatively new tech and the bandwidth for universal high data consumption just doesn't exist. It reminds me of when DSL and cable internet first hit the market and your pervy neighbor would hog the shared connection downloading porn. Your phone still isn't a TV.
Africa remains a case study in unintended consequences. Nowhere else is the phrase "the road to hell is paved with good intentions" so pitifully demonstrated.
Western liberal arrogance leads us to condescendingly believe we know what's best for Africans. It's the worst racism of all.
If only they could figure out a way to make them self replicating, then set them up to turn the CO2 into something useful, I don't know, how about (and I know it's crazy) sugar? And the whole thing could be solar powered, yeah that's the ticket...
All of this wrangling ignores one basic economic fact: nobody likes driving underpowered econoboxes. And nobody likes living in countries where the government has the power to tell them they HAVE to drive underpowered econoboxes. You can argue global warming, death of mother earth, economic catastrophe all you want but the fact remains that consumer choice remains the single most powerful force driving the economy. Pass a law requiring mechanical limits on auto power and a thriving market will spring up devoted to getting around it. Why haven't we taxed gas yet? Because politicians who value their jobs know their constituents don't want it.
Oh. and look up the meaning of the word "fungible".
This is quite possibly the most stupid thing I've ever read on/. and that is saying a lot. How will an American drug manufacturer ever make a dime if they shoulder the cost of R&D, only to have the market stolen by low cost operators from china and India who pay workers pennies on the dollar compared to US workers?
Here's an example illustrating why you are not only so incredibly wrong but quite possibly in a delusional/hallucinatory state.
Imagine little Jonny has a hangnail and it's fatal. Fatal Hangnail Disease (FHD) happens to be extremely complex, so complex that it will take the entire worlds' population 1000 years of working 24/7 to figure it out. How soon would altruism find that cure? Please recall that these people need to be fed, clothed, sheltered, etc., for the duration.
The answer is pretty much never, particularly if you plan to treat Jonny for free once the cure is discovered.
Same result if you don't have IP to cover the cost of research. Why would anyone do all that work if someone else is simply going to start producing the drug, having paid nothing toward the cost of development. The drug companies have no incentive to do anything.
People here are whining that drug companies make profits over and above the cost of development. The key to understanding it is that unless there is money to be made, the smartest, brightest, best educated people in the world won't engage in a complex endeavor to do anything. Why? Because people have to look after their own interests first. No other economic system has ever produced such results so predictably. That's the way it is, that's the way it always will be.
Altruism can't hold a candle to self interest when it comes to motivation value.
Patents by design grant a TEMPORARY monopoly to cover the cost of R&D and to provide incentive for companies to actually do the R& D in the first place.
The problem with the drug industry is that in order to comply with the regulatory quagmire that is the FDA, they have to disclose essential details about their work publicly long before it can go to market. Hence patents must be acquired long before the drug can make any money. These days drugs cost literally billions of dollars to develop. Burning patent life during the R&D time robs the companies of profits they would have earned, driving up costs for the consumer as they must raise prices in order to recoup R&D expenses in the shortened time the product is on the market under patent. Remember, these drugs save lives and directly improve the quality of life for potentially billions of people. These same people will eventually get reduced cost access to the drug when it goes generic off patent.
Contrast this with the entertainment industry: Anyone can pen an idiotic ditty for virtually nothing, in basically no time at all. The product merely provides people with fleeting, momentary amusement. No lives are saved, no diseases cured. Even the biggest, most expensive blockbuster movie costs a fraction of what it cost to bring lipitor to market..
Now unless you're an idiotic, dirty, lazy hippie who thinks everything should be free, you will have to admit that unless people are going to get paid, there is no way they are going to spend all that time and effort on drug development even if the end result means lives are saved. After all they have mouths to feed, mortgages to pay, etc, and the pharmaceutical industry is one of the few areas left in the US consistently providing high paying jobs to smart, motivated and educated people.
Turns out the profit motive is a terrific way to get people to do useful things. Who'da thunk that people were willing to work so hard in order to get ahead. Amazing, isn't it?
You don't need to RTFA because the entire premise is bunk. The high court exists for interpretation of the law, heck, the entire legal system exists due to the need to interpret the meaning of written law. There is ultimately no "ideal" or "unbiased" way to make such decisions, nor should anyone try to pretend there is.
Slashdot Mirror
"What patents allow for is to claim ownership of something and then prevent anyone else from doing anything else vaguely similar."
Yes, so they can exclusively profit from it. Remember, this is a GOOD thing because innovators have incentive to innovate, even if only for a limited period of time. The key is "limited" because eventually they go into the public domain. Then it benefits everyone.
The problem is that the patent office is not technologically sophisticated enough to evaluate patent apps for complex things like software.
The real argument isn't the value of the patent system since it clearly provides value to society, it's whether software should be patentable vs copyrightable.
Patent law is not central planning but quite the opposite: it's how we allow innovators in a free market to profit from their innovation. Invent something, bring it to market and profit from it without competition for a legally specified period of time. And the beauty of it is that eventually the design goes off patent and everyone benefits from it's production in a free, competitive market. Take away patents and copyrights and nobody has incentive to innovate. Bigger, more established manufacturers simply steal your product design and undercut your price.
Patent law has nothing to do with central planning or china's economic success, it's rather the opposite - they deliberately flout international patent and copyright as their industries churn out knock offs in a move designed to destroy industry anywhere but china. Central planning has worked in china primarily because of their unique advantage - a nearly endless supply of extremely cheap and well educated labor. Now that costs have begun to rise for them, their "miracle growth" engine is slowing. Once they get to a point where they actually have to compete with more mature and efficient economies they'll run into a wall. The other thing underpinning their "growth" is a collective willingness among government officials to put all other considerations secondary to economic expansion. Basically, they've made their economy the world's biggest bubble at expense of environmental and labor conditions. Beijing's air quality is so bad they had to shut down local industry for weeks before the Olympic games and workers at places like foxconn throw themselves off the building with such regularity that they had to install nets to catch them all.
The only way central planning can help isn't by setting targets, it's by tweaking the rules so a free market can more easily meet them. You can legally oblige carmakers to produce X many electric cars per year but there is no guarantee that anyone will buy them (hellooooo chevy volt). The smartest thing any government can do is to try to preserve a competitive free market.
In order for the market to remain competitive and dynamic instead of moribund and dominated by a few big players, you MUST allow innovators an advantage and that means patents.
Assuming you are referring to the "castle doctrine", the basic problem is that there is no practical way to determine the intent of someone who has broken into your home. What if they decide not to leave witnesses? Why is it incumbent upon the homeowner to prove intent in that regard? Breaking and entering is a pretty good indicator that the perpetrator is not feeling particularly bound by any law or ethics.
Once it becomes ingrained into the criminal mind that homeowners are legally prevented from defending themselves and their property, all they have to do is make sure they bring enough people/force to physically overpower the residents. So long as they manage a getaway they go scot free. Additionally, if they are of a violent bent (as they so often are) they will ignore firearms bans/restrictions (because they're criminals, duh) and simply use that advantage to coerce people to their will or murder them as their whims dictate.
Free men have the right to defend themselves and their property; All you people "over there" who are merely "subjects to the crown" or whatever are legally forced to bend to the will of any criminal who deems you a mark. Bring lube, because your only recourse is to hope they let you live so you can file a police report. Who knows, maybe the police will actually do something!
Enjoy your servitude, perhaps the powers that be will take pity someday.
I don't know what you're smoking, but he mass media in the US is heavily slanted toward the left and the democratic party once you exclude fox news.
You're either deliberately spreading misinformation or terminally deluded.
You speak the truth. Coal fired power plants have spewed more radioactive isotopes into the atmosphere than all the nuclear disasters ever did.
The only rational thing to do is ignore the radical environmentalists and get on with building the next generation of nuclear plants.
Renewable energy remains a sick joke, coal and oil aren't going to last forever, nor should we wait until it reaches a crisis point.
No question. I don't even like really like ipads or tablets in general but this is the right answer. A little bracket to mount it on the wall and you're done.
A decent android tablet would fill the bill nicely, too.
Because people are happier using anecdote to support their opinions than they are changing their opinions when confronted by facts.
It's all about feelings.
Exactly! The aircraft didn't fail because it couldn't fly or be controlled. It failed because the assumptions made about the stresses and temperatures on the skin were inadequate.
Adjust accordingly and try again - the end result of this sequence of trials and improvements is a usable hypersonic aircraft, far in advance of anything anyone has flown before.
Research dollars very well spent.
Yep. Pretty much the entire western world has a spending problem, not a revenue problem. Yet the politicians and policy makers consistently get it backwards.
It's the kind of magical thinking that caused Kagan to say "It's just a pile of federal money", apparently not realizing that it all comes from taxes on you.
Except solyndra was about payback for democratic political donors rather than developing tech.
If they really want to spur domestic production they should simply tie any subsidies or tax breaks for solar installations to using US made products. The chinese are deliberately trying to crush manufacturers of everything in the US. It's economic warfare and they're winning because we aren't even trying to play.
Taxing the chinese products is more proof that obama and the dems have absolutely no idea how to handle the economy. To them it's all magic, which is why so many of their policies turn out to be smoke and mirrors.
Yet another example of big government encroaching on personal liberties and freedoms in the name of safety. Soon we'll be so safe we won't need to leave our houses! We won't be allowed, either.
The game isn't liberal vs conservative - that's just a red herring. Freedom vs tyranny is the real issue.
Yes, listen to what comrad lenin has to say! He lives as one of the people!
This is all commie bullshit. Look under the hood: anything that places the individual at the mercy of an all powerful state...well if you don't get the picture you never will.
The capitalist economy is driven by greed and materialism because people are greedy and materialistic - and that's not a bad thing as it provides people with motivation. In fact, you can't really call the desire for financial security and a nice house in a decent area with good schools "greedy and materialistic" although it might technically fit the definitions.
This book is bullshit, written by a professor of bullshitology. Learn to recognize propaganda when you read it, peeps, especially when they say it's for your own good and is going to save the world.
You would be better off just talking to people who grew up behind the iron curtain.
Very true. A competitive free market is the most efficient. Government meddling with the best of intentions always results in unforeseen consequences.
Look at the entire mortgage industry collapse; the big push by barney frank & friends to "make housing more affordable" ignored the most basic economic fact of all: people who don't have a lot of money simply can't afford expensive things like houses. The influx of cheap, easy fannie mae home loans merely inflated prices, resulting in the biggest collapse since the great depression.
The private sector needs to lead; government intervention should be limited to keeping markets free and competitive.
After seeing websites like "khan academy" it may be that textbooks are obsolete. Why keep reinventing the wheel if there are excellent individual lessons available for free online? Clearly the textbook market is turning into a scam because of the disconnect between buyers and sellers.
Perhaps entities accrediting teaching institutions should begin accrediting textbooks - formalizing the process of textbook selection instead of pushing this crucial decision to the lowest levels.
Yep, it's reasonable but only the "rich people should pay for our free stuff" crown think it isn't. This is still relatively new tech and the bandwidth for universal high data consumption just doesn't exist. It reminds me of when DSL and cable internet first hit the market and your pervy neighbor would hog the shared connection downloading porn. Your phone still isn't a TV.
The haters need to give up their computers, tv and air conditioning first. Then I'll listen. But they'll still be wrong.
Regardless, islaves make Apple money. Everything else is just spin and damage control.
But hey, did you hear about the features on the next ipad?
Africa remains a case study in unintended consequences. Nowhere else is the phrase "the road to hell is paved with good intentions" so pitifully demonstrated.
Western liberal arrogance leads us to condescendingly believe we know what's best for Africans. It's the worst racism of all.
iSlaves are still far cheaper. Also, human labor is surprisingly flexible, because people are smart.
Although the chinese workers might not exactly fit the definition of slaves, their price is right compared to foreign workers.
Yay dictatorships for keeping iphones cheap!
K, everybody give up electricity, home heating and cars. You go first!
If only they could figure out a way to make them self replicating, then set them up to turn the CO2 into something useful, I don't know, how about (and I know it's crazy) sugar? And the whole thing could be solar powered, yeah that's the ticket...
All of this wrangling ignores one basic economic fact: nobody likes driving underpowered econoboxes. And nobody likes living in countries where the government has the power to tell them they HAVE to drive underpowered econoboxes. You can argue global warming, death of mother earth, economic catastrophe all you want but the fact remains that consumer choice remains the single most powerful force driving the economy. Pass a law requiring mechanical limits on auto power and a thriving market will spring up devoted to getting around it. Why haven't we taxed gas yet? Because politicians who value their jobs know their constituents don't want it.
Oh. and look up the meaning of the word "fungible".
This is quite possibly the most stupid thing I've ever read on /. and that is saying a lot. How will an American drug manufacturer ever make a dime if they shoulder the cost of R&D, only to have the market stolen by low cost operators from china and India who pay workers pennies on the dollar compared to US workers?
Here's an example illustrating why you are not only so incredibly wrong but quite possibly in a delusional/hallucinatory state.
Imagine little Jonny has a hangnail and it's fatal. Fatal Hangnail Disease (FHD) happens to be extremely complex, so complex that it will take the entire worlds' population 1000 years of working 24/7 to figure it out. How soon would altruism find that cure? Please recall that these people need to be fed, clothed, sheltered, etc., for the duration.
The answer is pretty much never, particularly if you plan to treat Jonny for free once the cure is discovered.
Same result if you don't have IP to cover the cost of research. Why would anyone do all that work if someone else is simply going to start producing the drug, having paid nothing toward the cost of development. The drug companies have no incentive to do anything.
People here are whining that drug companies make profits over and above the cost of development. The key to understanding it is that unless there is money to be made, the smartest, brightest, best educated people in the world won't engage in a complex endeavor to do anything. Why? Because people have to look after their own interests first. No other economic system has ever produced such results so predictably. That's the way it is, that's the way it always will be.
Altruism can't hold a candle to self interest when it comes to motivation value.
Patents by design grant a TEMPORARY monopoly to cover the cost of R&D and to provide incentive for companies to actually do the R& D in the first place.
The problem with the drug industry is that in order to comply with the regulatory quagmire that is the FDA, they have to disclose essential details about their work publicly long before it can go to market. Hence patents must be acquired long before the drug can make any money. These days drugs cost literally billions of dollars to develop. Burning patent life during the R&D time robs the companies of profits they would have earned, driving up costs for the consumer as they must raise prices in order to recoup R&D expenses in the shortened time the product is on the market under patent. Remember, these drugs save lives and directly improve the quality of life for potentially billions of people. These same people will eventually get reduced cost access to the drug when it goes generic off patent.
Contrast this with the entertainment industry: Anyone can pen an idiotic ditty for virtually nothing, in basically no time at all. The product merely provides people with fleeting, momentary amusement. No lives are saved, no diseases cured. Even the biggest, most expensive blockbuster movie costs a fraction of what it cost to bring lipitor to market..
Now unless you're an idiotic, dirty, lazy hippie who thinks everything should be free, you will have to admit that unless people are going to get paid, there is no way they are going to spend all that time and effort on drug development even if the end result means lives are saved. After all they have mouths to feed, mortgages to pay, etc, and the pharmaceutical industry is one of the few areas left in the US consistently providing high paying jobs to smart, motivated and educated people.
Turns out the profit motive is a terrific way to get people to do useful things. Who'da thunk that people were willing to work so hard in order to get ahead. Amazing, isn't it?
You don't need to RTFA because the entire premise is bunk. The high court exists for interpretation of the law, heck, the entire legal system exists due to the need to interpret the meaning of written law. There is ultimately no "ideal" or "unbiased" way to make such decisions, nor should anyone try to pretend there is.