Four notes is certainly enough to embed expression. Everyone recognizes beethoven's 5th opening, and that is only four notes. It is not the length, but the distinctiveness and the obviousness of whether it was copied. Courts take many factors into account to determine "substnatial similarity," the standard for copyright infringement.
But there is no "four notes precedent." The stuff about "it appears that the only reason songwriters haven't exhausted the melody space [baen.com] is that the big "all your right are belong to us" publishers have entered into cross-licensing agreements with one another," is misleading. As is the 30,000 permutations stuff. This has nothing to do with copyright. It sounds like if you had the same four notes in the same order, you infringe. This is not true. There are an infinite number of ways to arrange four notes, if you include their placement in a song, rests, rythm, volume, tone, blah blah blah. Just using "A, A, A, B-flat" does not mean you infringe. Only if the WAY you use them evokes the ORIGINAL EXPRESSION of the copyright holder can you infringe. In other words, you have to make your music sound like theirs.
Likewise, even if you use different notes, you could still infringe music. All you have to do is copy the expressive content. This expresive content is embodied in musical notes written on paper or performed, but literal copying is NOT requried, and just because you didn't literally copy does NOT mean you didn't infringe. All these things you mention are just evidence that go into the "substantial similarity" determination.
From Stallman's words and actions that is not what he believes. He is the one pushing for the GPL, the license which does everything but keep software a secret. Your argument is irrevelant or poorly defined and incorrect.
That may be what he says he favors, but eliminating patents won't accomplish that. This is my point: it is fine to advocate for open license, but eliminating patents won't make all software open license. Eliminating patents will cause the companies who rely on them to keep their work secret if possible, because it will be the only remaining way (if you abolish patents) for them to exploit it in the market effectively.
GPL does require that modifications be made public. But unless you are going to enforce GPL on ALL SOFTWARE WRITTEN (which no one has proposed), then GPL does not give us availability to all code. Only code under the GPL. Which will NOT include new code written by people who want to keep it secret so they can exploit it before free riders can.
Would you care to read the article? Stallman defines the difference a software patent and patents on physical objects. If we are to have a critical argument, you are going to have to do a bit of research otherwise you will make incorrect statements and not completely understand what is being said.
I did read the article. His explanation of the difference was no more meaningful than yours. Basically your model (which I am not reproducing for fear of spreading such b.s.) assumes that the only cost to these companies is the reproduction cost--the cost of either making millions of chairs or the cost of making copies. This is NOT the cost I am talking about. True, technology has made copying easy, but it has not made research and development any easier or cheaper. It has not alleviated the cost of developing code, paying programmers, etc. All it has done is made it so we don't have to burn a million CDs. But that was never the real cost anyway. Any fool can burn a CD. But fools can't produce innovative program. It is to provide incentive to invest in this endeavor that IP laws exist--the endeavor of creation, not the endeavor of copying or mass producing the creation. This difference points out that it is you who lack a full understanding of all the forces at work here.
Your assumption that "if copying is easy then we don't need property laws" completely misses the reason for the existence of IP laws. They are to allow companies to invest in both R&D, AND in dissemination to the public. To illustrate this, an example:
You are a programmer who spends time and effort to develop your code. You want to now make money off your code, because that is why you are in business--to make money, NOT TO PERFORM A PUBLIC SERVICE FOR FREE.
Now, after you have invested your valuable time, you have a product. But as soon as you publish that product, i.e., as soon as you sell the first copy or make it available to the public, anyone else in the world can also make a copy of your code. We will call this person the Free Rider. The Free Rider can sell your code WITHOUT INCURRING R&D EXPENSES, SO HE IS AT A MARKET ADVANTAGE OVER YOU, THE CREATOR. Such a system does not sustainably promote the creation of the technology we are after. It promotes theft of the code, it promotes waiting for others to create, while the Free Rider only copies and sells, incurring only that business cost, and avoiding the business cost of creation. It makes R&D a public service, a donation. It is too expensive to donate. No one can afford to do that.
Now you want to go public with your program. You go to investors and ask for money, both to recoup the time you have already invested, and to get money to advertise and distribute, etc. They ask you, "how do you plan to profit?"
Your answer: "I intend to not patent my code, and not protect it legally, and make it publicly available. I still intend to sell it though, that is where I will make money."
The investors have a question: "What is to keep anyone from just copying your code and selling it? Or just copying it and spreading it around?"
Your only answer: "Nothing."
This example is oversimplified, I will be the first to admit, but it points out that we need a sustainable economic model for promoting the creation of the technology the public wants. You cannot do this without property rights, plain and simple. If you come up with a way, please alert the Nobel people, you are in for a prize.
I have to say again, I do not believe the IP system is perfect, not at all. It is subject to abuse, there are many problems with it. But people who advocate the abolition of these property rights are just plain ignorant of what the consequences would be. Fix'em if they don't work the way you want them to. Capitalism, corporations, property laws, they are all legal entities created by the public through lawmaking. They are tools for our society, intended to accomplish designated goals. They behave the way the law causes them to behave, in the context of market forces. If they are not behaving the way you want, then change the law. But don't eliminate the system. In a few years, you would see you had made a big mistake. When no technology companies are around, you will wonder, "Where did they go?" The answer will be that you elimianted their only asset--their ideas, their ownership of those ideas. Without ownership of their ideas, they can't afford to keep creating those ideas.
"As Stallman said, "Before software patents, most developers published new ideas they thought they would get credit for." So patents do not necessarily promote a developing market, assuming Stallman's statement is true."
It isn't true. Ever heard of microsoft? The fact that they keep part of their OS code secret is a serious issue for lots of companies. Stallman apparently thinks the industry would be served if the ONLY way to protect software was to keep it secret. He is incorrect.
"And remember, we are talking about software patents, not patents on physical objects. There is a difference."
Would you care to explain that difference, and exactly why it matters? Explain why innovation in software deserves no protection, but innovation in other areas does? Are the economic incentives different? Nope. The idea that a free rider can more cheaply exploit an idea than someone who is already behind research and development cost? Nope, that applies to software just like it does other areas.
"As Stallman pointed out in this article, patents don't protect the little guys at all. IBM has so many patents that the small independent developer is almost certainly infringing on some of them (since any software app uses so many ideas in so many combinations). So when said developer asks IBM for a license fee, IBM just says "Not so fast, you're infringing on our patents X, Y, and Z, so how 'bout we just crosslicense instead?" The little guy gets no protection at all from IBM taking his idea."
You mean the little guy only gets his licence fee from IBM implementing his idea? He only makes money off his intellectual property?
Large corps also pay individuals for their ideas, to assign the patent rights. I have seen this happen, where an outside inventor got $10,000 from a texas company when he floated an idea he had in front of them. His idea wasn't even patented yet, they paid him the money so he would assign the patent to them once he patented it.
Likewise, if you have a new idea and show it to a company, if they want to use it, they must pay you. More importantly, if htey want to OWN the idea, they must pay you. And they DO want to own it, to keep their competitors from using the idea.
So they must pay the little guy for assigning the idea.
By the way, all this talk about the little guy, how many peoducts has the little guy actually put on the market? I am not talking about little guy ideas that were put on themarket by big guys, but little guys actually creating, manufacturing, promoting, and selling the result of the idea to the public? There may be many, I honestly don't have the data on this. BUT I suspect it is not that many. Large companies are usually the only ones who can bring something from an idea all the way to the market. Especially in technology.
I like technology, don't you?
Then support IP.
I agree IP is abused, especially in recent copyright issues like hardware copy protection, diminishing fair use, etc. But IP, and patenst especially, do more good than harm.
"How about the obscure legalese in which patents are written? The lawyers who draft these things are desperate to minimise the amount of useable information contained in a patent, with a great deal of success"
You truly have no idea what you are talking about. Patents are required, by law, to teach one of ordinary skill in the art how to practice the invention. If these engineers can't read the patents, then they aren't real engineers. Plain and simple. Wanna know why? Because if a patent can't be understood by an engineer in the relevant field, IT IS AN INVALID PATENT. If the patent owner tried to enforce this "incomprehensible" patent on you, you could just get your experts (engineers who can't understand what the patent teaches) on the stand to testify that the patent makes no sense. If the other side can't show you engineers who claim, under oath, that the patent DOES make sense, then they won't be able to enforce the patent.
There were plenty of other ridiculous assertions in the article too. Like the idea that patents don't promote innovation. For one thing, guess how these patent owners would protect their ideas if there were no patents? They would keep as much of it trade secret as they possibly could. Patents MUST be published, by law. This creates a repository of technical knowledge to which the public has access. Many engineers I know regularly read patents to keep up on innovation.
A second point on the idea that patents don't help innovation and growth: Investors measure a company by its assets. IP is an asset. If a company can OWN its research, and can exclude the free rider from making using and selling the product ofthat research, then the research is worth money. It can be effectively exploited. This means that the company has something of value. This means that investors are more likely to invest in that company. Which allows the company to continue its research.
Are you understanding these BASIC economic principles yet?
I don't deny that IP laws are abused, JUST LIKE EVERY OTHER LAW THAT HAS EVER BEEN MADE. But you should realize the benefit of the system before you pick at its flaws. The benefits are large scale, they keep our economy going, they keep technology in the marketplace. Sure there are abuses and bad side effects. But don't throw out the baby with the bathwater. Don't miss the forest for the trees. Don't gut the goose that laid the golden egg.
I know I shouldn't reply, but who the hell modded this thing "4 interesting"? The links are to NOTHING and the premise is RIDICULOUS. Slashdot, get your act together! If this is how your system works, it sucks. You must have four year olds picking these posts.
No, not government controlled and directed research, but (free) academic research, as used to exist until the 1980s, and as partly still exists.
Free? I thought you wanted taxpayers to pay for it. Which means the government controls where the money goes. Which means government controlled. Who do you think runs state universities?
Not that State universities are bad at all, that is not what I am trying to say. But trying to gut corporate research and force it all into the university setting is bad. Lots of good research is done in universities, but lots is also done by the private sector. Which universities will be producing the constant upgrades on semiconductor manufacturing processes? That is just an example. Most of the technology we rely on is developed by private companies, because they have incentive to improve the products--so they can stay competitive. You sound like you want to do away with this competition. I could have misinterpreted you though. Not trying to mischaracterize you.
Noone would forbid corporations to do research or development. And they can use others research for free and develop interesting products; because of less investiments necessary, those products can be cheaper.
Why would less investment be necessary? To improve products, research must still be done. Just having access to other information will do nothing, because there is already access. Patents don't prevent access to research, they PROMOTE it. Without patent protection, a company must keep their research secret to protect it. With patent protection, you MUST DISCLOSE your innovation to even get a patent, which puts it out there for others to work with (research with patented ideas is not infringement, so patents don't limit access or research on patented ideas).
What incentive did michelangelo have to create, or Newton, or Pascal, Einstein? Do you really need patents for that?
No, not for basic scientific research. But to constantly improve products, as the public demands, you have to invest lots of money. THAT DOES REQUIRE INCENTIVE. Profit incentive from investors, which is what patents are all about--not to get a scientist to decide he wants to investigate, but to get investors to pay him the money he needs in order to do that investigating.
And if Edison didn't actually conceive the ideas he patented, he broke the law. Don't blame the law for being broken.
The best inventions and discoveries were never finished by one person, and unless you allow for other people to use/develop/compete with your work, you have no incentive to make your work better because people can't buy anything else.
But you can patent an improvement on anything, even if the original invention is already patented. True, you would have to license the original invention to sell the improved invention, but you would also be able to prevent the original maker from manufacturing the improvement. There is still incentive to create even in heavily patented fields. It's all about licensing.
Re:I'm not against IP laws, but...
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Patent Nonsense
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· Score: 1
The high cost of drugs is not due to the investment costs. I saw an investigation on one of the TV networks that the cost was basically due to the HUGE profits taken by the drug companies and the marketing costs-junikets for doctors, salesmen, etc
Right, it's cheap to develop drugs. That's why everyone is doing it. That's why third world countries are developing AIDS treatment drugs.
I tend to agree with this as I come from a third-world country and I am always wondering why many drugs are at least five times as much here in the US than in the country where I came from for exactly the same product.
This should indicate the problem to you. Those drugs are cheaper in countries who ignore patent rights because they don't have to recoup investment cost. Companies can infringe patents and sell the drugs generically for much less than they are sold in the US becasue patent laws are obeyed in the US, licenses must be paid, etc. But notice that those same companies manufacturing knock-offs are not themselves developing these drugs. This should tell you something. It is not easy to develop them.
We could and are ignoring patent laws in favor of humanitarian purposes, but this is a dangerous area, and a balance must be struck. If I am an investor, and I know that a company develops drugs that are not protectable, then I am not going to invest in them, plain and simple, because I won't be making much return on my money. I'd rather invest in technology or companies that are doing soemthing less speculative.
In the end it will turn out to be its own category, I suspect, with a whole new set of compromises. The existing patent and copyright laws are already difficult to interpret; for example, how much do you have to change a manufacturing process before you can claim it's a whole new one?
Good point about software needing its own IP category. It is more a tool than expression, which should make it subject to the restrictions of patent law--which has a MUCH higher standard to get protection than copyright. In copyright, all you have to do is fix your original expression and it is already automatically protected, no government filing or intervention required.
On the question of how much you must change a process before it is a new one, the question is hard to answer. An easier way to look at it is that if you fulfill all the elements of a claim in someone's patent, you infringe that patent, whether you have added elements or not. If you don't actually fulfill all the elements of the claim, you don't infringe and your process is not owned by that patent. You can also patent an improved process by adding elements, though you would still infringe the originally patented process since you would still have all their elements in your design.
Again, read paragraph 8 of the article. I'm not talking about Commu-Facist rhetoric, I'm talking about paragraph 8 of the article - examples of people innovating without the patent "carrot." In the real world.
They just had a different carrot. I would be willing to bet that they kept their recipes as trade secrets. That is another way to protect your IP. This example--para 8--bypasses the real issue: how to protect ideas that are evident in the product. I can drink innovative chocolate milk and not know how to make it. So it doesn't need patent protection.
Not everything can be protected by keeping it secret. Reverse engineering is a fine art. Also, under your idea, the recipes of those foodstuffs would never ever come into the public domain. They would remain secret forever, like the Coke formula. At least patents are fully disclosed to the public before they are granted, and they go into the public domain after a term. You suggest a system where it is in business's best interest not to publish their results. And they would most definitely want to keep their research secret, for fear of others appropriating their ideas without having invested in them.
Where does the tax money come from? By no longer recognizing patents, the price of many products (such as medicines) shall drop massively. The people save large amounts of money, which can be spent on taxes instead, to fund R&D...
Maybe this sounds like utopia,...
Utopia? Hardly. You suggest increasing taxes on people so the GOVERNMENT can fund research that is currently paid for by corporations. Your "Utopia" plan also sounds like government controlled and directed research, with none in the private sector. Instead of providing incentive for investors to volunatarily give their money to the kind of research they think will work or which they want to support, you seem to think that compulsory investment (that is what taxes are--compulsory) by everyone, controlled by the government, will be better.
Hey, why have corporations at all? Wouldn't a structured economy work much better?
The article itself makes points against its own thesis. They claim they are showing us how you can fluorish without patents, but the companies who "flourished without patent protection" only flourished because THERE WERE NO LAWS TO PREVENT THEM FROM STEALING OTHER PEOPLE'S IDEAS. Ever heard of a free rider? Ever heard of recouping investment cost? OF COURSE THOSE THIEVES MADE MONEY! THEY PAID NOTHING TO DEVELOP THEIR PRODUCTS, THEY JUST STOLE THEM FROM THE PEOPLE WHO DID DEVELOP THEM. When you get to sell something you got for free, it's easy to make a profit. Basically, the article shows that its profitable to be a thief. I already knew that, thanks.
The current state of affairs makes me really sad and depressed. It is a disgrace for our generation that information that can benefit many (such as how to produce cheap medicines that can save many lives) is hidden only because of a supposed need to protect the current economic system.
Protect the current economic system? Have you heard of the goose that laid the golden eggs? Well, some fool decided he's gut the goose to get all the gold out of it. Problem was that the goose wasn't just full of gold, IT MADE THE GOLD. He destroyed his means of production.
This is what you suggest. Hey, why provide incentive to create? The gubbament will take care of us.
Patents are not copyrights. Copyright law is seriously screwed up right now, because technology has advanced much more quickly than the law has reacted. But patents are a good thing. It lets you invest literally millions of dollars with the assurance that whatever you end up developing won't be stolen by your competitor, who paid nothing to develop it. If you do away with this protection, you do away with the incentive to create. The IC in your computer has lots and lots of patented technology in it. You wouldn't have that IC were it not for patent laws. Sure, we could do away with patent law now, and we'd still have ICs for a while. But we would stop growing, and in forty years our technology would be significantly less than it would were there property rights for ideas.
Sorry for the rant, I don't mean to attack anyone personally. But some people on these boards are missing the point of IP law. There are abuses, of course, but the system is robust and generates more wealth for society than any of the socialist systems that have been advocated here.
Sorry, but naturally occuring magnetic fields aren't very exciting stuff anymore. No one cares about them except the most hardcore geek.
Earth has a naturally occuring magnetic field. It is partially responsible for deflecting harmful particles and radiation from the sun. These particles and radiation cause damage to satellites, both public and private. Understanding other natural magnetic fields may be useful in our own endeavor to understand the earth, and how to protect the hardware we put into orbit--which is not exactly cheap.
I of course don't know that this particular research will be useful in this way, but it is an example, a possibility. It is often hard to determine the benefits that will arise from discovery. But I really don't see how someone typing on a computer can say with a straight face that since this doesn't seem to have an immediate practical application, it is therefore useless. We live in a world shaped by discoveries that, at the time, had no practical applications.
Besides, some of us are hardcore geeks. That's why we're at/. reading on the space forum.
Wouldn't it be far better to leave this in the hands of the corporation, who if they care about copying will put copy-protection measures into place? And if the copy protection measures go too far and the citizens don't buy - well, that's the way a free, open market works!
That would be great if the market worked perfectly. It really doesn't though. You assume that consumers can act in concert the same way that a corporation (or the oligopoly that is the RIAA) does.
Once copy protected CDs are standard, how will consumers "vote" against it by purchasing non-protected CDs? There will be none to purchase. And consumers will still want CDs. So we will eat whatever they give us--copy protected CDs.
Meanwhile, many legal, non-infringing uses of copyrighted material will become impossible. In order to stop criminal acts, they will restrict many legal activities.
There is some hope, though only a little. The Supreme Court protected Sony (I think it was Sony) when they were sued for contributory infringement for making VCRs. They industry argued that VCRs were copyright violation machines that would be used for illegal copying by consumers. Which is true. However, the Supremes, in their infinite wisdom, pointed out that there are substantial non-infringing uses for a VCR, like taping a show and watching it once later. For this kind of reason, Sony won the suit under the Fair Use defense. And we therefore have VCRs now.
One problem: If they make it impossible to copy with Hollingsworth's hardware modification law (which will REQUIRE that ALL digital devices have and use certified copy protection hardware), then the record industry won't have to sue anyone like they did in the Sony case. Instead, a consumer would have to complain to the court and try to sue the RIAA. This is a VERY different situation. Instead of the industry trying to claim infringement, a consumer will have to try to claim that the copy protection is illegal. However, it is not illegal under current law. Even if it limits non-infringing activities, we don't have a RIGHT to those activities--those activities are just protected under Fair Use doctrine, which only means that we have a DEFENSE AGAINST INFRINGEMENT. It does NOT give us a right to those fair uses.
What is needed is a great political backlash against the record industry (and the companies like Intel who are also planning to implement the hardware copy protection). Technology has made some of these industries obsolete (like the middlemen between artists and the consumer--since we can get music via the net, and since CDs are now cheap and easy to burn, why do we need them at all? They have been made parasites by technological advances). But money is hard to dislodge, and these companies won't die without a fight. They would rather restrict access to free material than die and let free material be free. I guess we can't blame them for doing all they can within the law to save themselves and profit. We need to change the laws, I guess, so they can no longer do it. The incentive provided by copyright law is really no longer needed, because mass producing copies for the public to enjoy is no longer an expensive endeavor. We don't need the record industry. Artists will still sing. Music will still be produced. The public will still get copies. Bands make all their money off touring nowadays anyway, not off record proceeds. Record proceeds benefit the record industry. Which, as I have argued, is more a parasite nowadays than a benefit to anyone (other than people making money off this parasitism--people who unfortunately are at the bargaining table in all this, while the public, whom the law was written to benefit, is not).
Not that I am advocating abolition of copyright law, just an overhaul in this area (and in software, don't get me started on that...)
The future isn't cascading, so why is Lucent still working on this dead-end technology?? Anyone with a PhD in physics care to comment??
Not a PhD, so go ahead and discount this before you read it.
Anyway, I don't know what "nanodes" are, nor a "beam" effect--are these dumbed down terms for your PhD-only audience? So I'm not sure what you're saying about the visible spectrum limitations. I do know this laser is reported to work at 6-8 micron wavelength, which is IR and right in the range of low loss troughs in modern optical fibers. So this thing is exactly the wavelength it needs to be for telecom.
To answer your question, they are working on this "dead end" technology because it has produced a broadband semiconductor laser, the first one that I know of. Has your prof's "more advanced technology" produced a working broadband laser yet? If not, what is the point of your question? If so, where was it reported? I'd be interested to read about it.
They build the laser with a plurality of quantum wells, each of a slightly different width (and therefore of slightly different energy band). They then pump electrons across these quantum wells, with reflectors of some kind at either end of the cavity (they use cleaved facets for reflectors--probably because gratings would only reflect one wavelength well). The quantum wells are made by sandwiching semiconductor layers of different materials and different widths.
As electrons are pumped across these different layers, they drop in energy (because of the different work functions between the two materials). When they drop in energy, they give off a photon that bounces back and forth off the morrors until it is coupled out (usually through transmission through a mirror). Many electrons dropping across many DIFFERENT energy levels gives off photons of different wavelengths.
I don't think you should be able to patent "transmission of text data within a TV signal", but you should be able to patent the way you did it (and the specifics should be fairly narrow).
You have basically pegged the way patent law actually is in the US. Their claims don't claim "transferring student data via RF", they claim something much narrower, namely their particular method of collecting and reporting student attendance data. Your examples of how it should be are actually the way the system is intended to work. Occasionally overbroad claims are patented, but that is why we have infringement suits and invalidation proceedings--to filter out the bad ones that make it through. If people want a better filter (i.e., better PTO), then give'em more money. Then they can hire PhDs and give them enough time to actually search the art carefully.
How can wireless data transfer of any specific type of data be patentable when we've had wireless digital transmission for decades? Perhaps starting with Aloha wireless ethernet in Hawaii done with university, state and federal cooperation? This seems patently absurd!
They did not patent "wireless data transfer" of any specific type of data, they patented a set of steps invovled in reporting student attendance data using RF frequencies. In order to infringe their patent, you would have to actually fulfill each and every element of their claims. Their claims are not nearly as broad as you would think. Here is their first claim. Remember you would have to fulfill each and every element in order to infringe.
1. A method of electronically registering student attendance data comprising:
(a) storing a plurality of student names in a central collection station;
(b) downloading at least one set of student names from said plurality of student names stored in said central data collection station to at least one portable data collection device using a wireless radio-frequency link and storing the downloaded set of student names in said at least one portable data collection device;
(c) accessing said set of student names stored in said portable data collection device;
(d) displaying one select student name from said set of student names on a visual display of said portable data collection device;
(e) prompting an operator of said portable data collection device to input attendance data for said select student name into said portable data collection device, said input attendance data including one of a first input indicating that the student having the select displayed name is present, a second input indicating that the student having the select displayed name is absent, and a third input indicating that the student having the select displayed name is tardy;
(f) storing said input attendance data for each select student name in said at least one portable data collection device;
(g) repeating steps (d)-(f) for each student name in said downloaded set of student names;
(h) uploading said input student attendance data from said portable data collection device to said central data collection station using said wireless radio-frequency link;
(i) storing said input attendance data in said central data collection station; and,
(j) generating a student attendance report using said attendance data stored in said central data collection station.
You are correct, but it has been my impression that most people make a distinction between transmissions in the radio range and transmissions in the "light" range, at least enough of a distinction that a case could be made that it is different enough to cause the patent to not be applicable when using infrared.
The claims themselves (there were 2 independent claims) state "radio" frequency, which should technically limit the device to what is commonly understood as RF to those of skill in this art (i.e., telecom).
In their specification, they say that although they refer to RF as the way to do it, other ways can be used. However, this is in conflict with their claims, which specifically say RF, and which would probably be interpreted to limiting the scope of the claims to using actual RF frequencies. The problem: You won't really know for sure what the scope is until you go to court and ask the judge.
The claims in the patent look pretty narrow anyway, and there are several steps one would have to fulfill in order to actually infringe on their patent.
Because the range of useable frequencies is limited, they are parsed out by the government who grants licenses to use a given frequency band. If there were infinite bandwidth out there for all to use, I would agree with you. But if there were no regulations, then whoever had the most powerful transmitter could just take over all the airwaves. Which would be MUCH worse than it is now, where whoever has the most MONEY takes over....
Re:Should I send this to my congressmen?
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SSSCA Hearing
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There is a provision in the draft I saw that exempts devices made before enactment. So currently existing devices would not become illegal, though you are right that this law would require many many consumer products to be re-manufactured. If a device can store digital information, it is included. That includes virtually all electronics that use chips.
But if your point is that it's the whole system that needs reform, not just the PTO in isolation, then I strongly share your view.
Actually, I don't necessarily think the whole system needs reform, though I do think there are some areas that have turned the wrong direction. Business methods is one easy example. We probably have one the best patent systems in the world, as indicated by the success of licencing in the US. With bad patent systems, you get bad patents that are not easy to liscense, nor worth much if you can license them. Japan is an example of this, there is little enforcement there and patents are less valued.
> Don't fault lawyers for getting paid any more than you fault yourself for getting paid.
Don't worry, I only fault them for making it cheaper to ignore real problems than to actually analyse and solve them by way of an impartial judicial system. Then I fault the companies for placing all of their shareholders value in a concept that would cost crudloads to defend. And then I fault shareholders for being more interested in the success of their stock than the improvements that the technology their money is behind makes to life in general.
And then do you fault yourself as part of this massive machine since you elected the legislators who enacted/perpetuate this system? You are as culpable as any of those you "fault."
The damage from what you suggest (letting incompetent lawyers practice and just cleaning up the mess later) would create more problems than it solves. Do you think the market works fine by itself in all cases? Are you for lazaisse faire (sp?) capitalism? The market does not work perfectly. Intervention is frequently required. Artificial market restriction does not mean less freedom. Totally free market does not mean more freedom. Bargaining power is seldom equal.
And the market still does its job fine with the "restriction" of the bar exam. Which is not a bad restriction anyway, since it is performance based and not based on income or gender or any other irrelevant factor. I can't believe this, people are always complaining about how awful lawyers are, but now we are arguing that we need more of them and lower quality ones at that! By all means, please remove any potential barrier to becoming a lawyer. That will improve them.
Except that the guild does as little as possible to discipline crooked members...
What other profession expels its own members for purely ethical violations? Not lawbreaking, but ethical violations? Lawyers are held to a higher standard than any other occupation or profession. Who else can lose the right to practice their profession without even breaking any laws?
People hate those with a little power. Knowledge is power. Therefore people hate lawyers.
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But there is no "four notes precedent." The stuff about "it appears that the only reason songwriters haven't exhausted the melody space [baen.com] is that the big "all your right are belong to us" publishers have entered into cross-licensing agreements with one another," is misleading. As is the 30,000 permutations stuff. This has nothing to do with copyright. It sounds like if you had the same four notes in the same order, you infringe. This is not true. There are an infinite number of ways to arrange four notes, if you include their placement in a song, rests, rythm, volume, tone, blah blah blah. Just using "A, A, A, B-flat" does not mean you infringe. Only if the WAY you use them evokes the ORIGINAL EXPRESSION of the copyright holder can you infringe. In other words, you have to make your music sound like theirs.
Likewise, even if you use different notes, you could still infringe music. All you have to do is copy the expressive content. This expresive content is embodied in musical notes written on paper or performed, but literal copying is NOT requried, and just because you didn't literally copy does NOT mean you didn't infringe. All these things you mention are just evidence that go into the "substantial similarity" determination.
That may be what he says he favors, but eliminating patents won't accomplish that. This is my point: it is fine to advocate for open license, but eliminating patents won't make all software open license. Eliminating patents will cause the companies who rely on them to keep their work secret if possible, because it will be the only remaining way (if you abolish patents) for them to exploit it in the market effectively.
GPL does require that modifications be made public. But unless you are going to enforce GPL on ALL SOFTWARE WRITTEN (which no one has proposed), then GPL does not give us availability to all code. Only code under the GPL. Which will NOT include new code written by people who want to keep it secret so they can exploit it before free riders can.
Would you care to read the article? Stallman defines the difference a software patent and patents on physical objects. If we are to have a critical argument, you are going to have to do a bit of research otherwise you will make incorrect statements and not completely understand what is being said.
I did read the article. His explanation of the difference was no more meaningful than yours. Basically your model (which I am not reproducing for fear of spreading such b.s.) assumes that the only cost to these companies is the reproduction cost--the cost of either making millions of chairs or the cost of making copies. This is NOT the cost I am talking about. True, technology has made copying easy, but it has not made research and development any easier or cheaper. It has not alleviated the cost of developing code, paying programmers, etc. All it has done is made it so we don't have to burn a million CDs. But that was never the real cost anyway. Any fool can burn a CD. But fools can't produce innovative program. It is to provide incentive to invest in this endeavor that IP laws exist--the endeavor of creation, not the endeavor of copying or mass producing the creation. This difference points out that it is you who lack a full understanding of all the forces at work here.
Your assumption that "if copying is easy then we don't need property laws" completely misses the reason for the existence of IP laws. They are to allow companies to invest in both R&D, AND in dissemination to the public. To illustrate this, an example:
You are a programmer who spends time and effort to develop your code. You want to now make money off your code, because that is why you are in business--to make money, NOT TO PERFORM A PUBLIC SERVICE FOR FREE.
Now, after you have invested your valuable time, you have a product. But as soon as you publish that product, i.e., as soon as you sell the first copy or make it available to the public, anyone else in the world can also make a copy of your code. We will call this person the Free Rider. The Free Rider can sell your code WITHOUT INCURRING R&D EXPENSES, SO HE IS AT A MARKET ADVANTAGE OVER YOU, THE CREATOR. Such a system does not sustainably promote the creation of the technology we are after. It promotes theft of the code, it promotes waiting for others to create, while the Free Rider only copies and sells, incurring only that business cost, and avoiding the business cost of creation. It makes R&D a public service, a donation. It is too expensive to donate. No one can afford to do that.
Now you want to go public with your program. You go to investors and ask for money, both to recoup the time you have already invested, and to get money to advertise and distribute, etc. They ask you, "how do you plan to profit?"
Your answer: "I intend to not patent my code, and not protect it legally, and make it publicly available. I still intend to sell it though, that is where I will make money."
The investors have a question: "What is to keep anyone from just copying your code and selling it? Or just copying it and spreading it around?"
Your only answer: "Nothing."
This example is oversimplified, I will be the first to admit, but it points out that we need a sustainable economic model for promoting the creation of the technology the public wants. You cannot do this without property rights, plain and simple. If you come up with a way, please alert the Nobel people, you are in for a prize.
I have to say again, I do not believe the IP system is perfect, not at all. It is subject to abuse, there are many problems with it. But people who advocate the abolition of these property rights are just plain ignorant of what the consequences would be. Fix'em if they don't work the way you want them to. Capitalism, corporations, property laws, they are all legal entities created by the public through lawmaking. They are tools for our society, intended to accomplish designated goals. They behave the way the law causes them to behave, in the context of market forces. If they are not behaving the way you want, then change the law. But don't eliminate the system. In a few years, you would see you had made a big mistake. When no technology companies are around, you will wonder, "Where did they go?" The answer will be that you elimianted their only asset--their ideas, their ownership of those ideas. Without ownership of their ideas, they can't afford to keep creating those ideas.
It isn't true. Ever heard of microsoft? The fact that they keep part of their OS code secret is a serious issue for lots of companies. Stallman apparently thinks the industry would be served if the ONLY way to protect software was to keep it secret. He is incorrect.
"And remember, we are talking about software patents, not patents on physical objects. There is a difference."
Would you care to explain that difference, and exactly why it matters? Explain why innovation in software deserves no protection, but innovation in other areas does? Are the economic incentives different? Nope. The idea that a free rider can more cheaply exploit an idea than someone who is already behind research and development cost? Nope, that applies to software just like it does other areas.
You mean the little guy only gets his licence fee from IBM implementing his idea? He only makes money off his intellectual property?
Large corps also pay individuals for their ideas, to assign the patent rights. I have seen this happen, where an outside inventor got $10,000 from a texas company when he floated an idea he had in front of them. His idea wasn't even patented yet, they paid him the money so he would assign the patent to them once he patented it.
Likewise, if you have a new idea and show it to a company, if they want to use it, they must pay you. More importantly, if htey want to OWN the idea, they must pay you. And they DO want to own it, to keep their competitors from using the idea.
So they must pay the little guy for assigning the idea.
By the way, all this talk about the little guy, how many peoducts has the little guy actually put on the market? I am not talking about little guy ideas that were put on themarket by big guys, but little guys actually creating, manufacturing, promoting, and selling the result of the idea to the public? There may be many, I honestly don't have the data on this. BUT I suspect it is not that many. Large companies are usually the only ones who can bring something from an idea all the way to the market. Especially in technology.
I like technology, don't you?
Then support IP.
I agree IP is abused, especially in recent copyright issues like hardware copy protection, diminishing fair use, etc. But IP, and patenst especially, do more good than harm.
You truly have no idea what you are talking about. Patents are required, by law, to teach one of ordinary skill in the art how to practice the invention. If these engineers can't read the patents, then they aren't real engineers. Plain and simple. Wanna know why? Because if a patent can't be understood by an engineer in the relevant field, IT IS AN INVALID PATENT. If the patent owner tried to enforce this "incomprehensible" patent on you, you could just get your experts (engineers who can't understand what the patent teaches) on the stand to testify that the patent makes no sense. If the other side can't show you engineers who claim, under oath, that the patent DOES make sense, then they won't be able to enforce the patent.
There were plenty of other ridiculous assertions in the article too. Like the idea that patents don't promote innovation. For one thing, guess how these patent owners would protect their ideas if there were no patents? They would keep as much of it trade secret as they possibly could. Patents MUST be published, by law. This creates a repository of technical knowledge to which the public has access. Many engineers I know regularly read patents to keep up on innovation.
A second point on the idea that patents don't help innovation and growth: Investors measure a company by its assets. IP is an asset. If a company can OWN its research, and can exclude the free rider from making using and selling the product ofthat research, then the research is worth money. It can be effectively exploited. This means that the company has something of value. This means that investors are more likely to invest in that company. Which allows the company to continue its research.
Are you understanding these BASIC economic principles yet?
I don't deny that IP laws are abused, JUST LIKE EVERY OTHER LAW THAT HAS EVER BEEN MADE. But you should realize the benefit of the system before you pick at its flaws. The benefits are large scale, they keep our economy going, they keep technology in the marketplace. Sure there are abuses and bad side effects. But don't throw out the baby with the bathwater. Don't miss the forest for the trees. Don't gut the goose that laid the golden egg.
You may want another egg someday.
I know I shouldn't reply, but who the hell modded this thing "4 interesting"? The links are to NOTHING and the premise is RIDICULOUS. Slashdot, get your act together! If this is how your system works, it sucks. You must have four year olds picking these posts.
Free? I thought you wanted taxpayers to pay for it. Which means the government controls where the money goes. Which means government controlled. Who do you think runs state universities?
Not that State universities are bad at all, that is not what I am trying to say. But trying to gut corporate research and force it all into the university setting is bad. Lots of good research is done in universities, but lots is also done by the private sector. Which universities will be producing the constant upgrades on semiconductor manufacturing processes? That is just an example. Most of the technology we rely on is developed by private companies, because they have incentive to improve the products--so they can stay competitive. You sound like you want to do away with this competition. I could have misinterpreted you though. Not trying to mischaracterize you.
Noone would forbid corporations to do research or development. And they can use others research for free and develop interesting products; because of less investiments necessary, those products can be cheaper.
Why would less investment be necessary? To improve products, research must still be done. Just having access to other information will do nothing, because there is already access. Patents don't prevent access to research, they PROMOTE it. Without patent protection, a company must keep their research secret to protect it. With patent protection, you MUST DISCLOSE your innovation to even get a patent, which puts it out there for others to work with (research with patented ideas is not infringement, so patents don't limit access or research on patented ideas).
What incentive did michelangelo have to create, or Newton, or Pascal, Einstein? Do you really need patents for that?
No, not for basic scientific research. But to constantly improve products, as the public demands, you have to invest lots of money. THAT DOES REQUIRE INCENTIVE. Profit incentive from investors, which is what patents are all about--not to get a scientist to decide he wants to investigate, but to get investors to pay him the money he needs in order to do that investigating.
And if Edison didn't actually conceive the ideas he patented, he broke the law. Don't blame the law for being broken.
But you can patent an improvement on anything, even if the original invention is already patented. True, you would have to license the original invention to sell the improved invention, but you would also be able to prevent the original maker from manufacturing the improvement. There is still incentive to create even in heavily patented fields. It's all about licensing.
Right, it's cheap to develop drugs. That's why everyone is doing it. That's why third world countries are developing AIDS treatment drugs.
I tend to agree with this as I come from a third-world country and I am always wondering why many drugs are at least five times as much here in the US than in the country where I came from for exactly the same product.
This should indicate the problem to you. Those drugs are cheaper in countries who ignore patent rights because they don't have to recoup investment cost. Companies can infringe patents and sell the drugs generically for much less than they are sold in the US becasue patent laws are obeyed in the US, licenses must be paid, etc. But notice that those same companies manufacturing knock-offs are not themselves developing these drugs. This should tell you something. It is not easy to develop them.
We could and are ignoring patent laws in favor of humanitarian purposes, but this is a dangerous area, and a balance must be struck. If I am an investor, and I know that a company develops drugs that are not protectable, then I am not going to invest in them, plain and simple, because I won't be making much return on my money. I'd rather invest in technology or companies that are doing soemthing less speculative.
Good point about software needing its own IP category. It is more a tool than expression, which should make it subject to the restrictions of patent law--which has a MUCH higher standard to get protection than copyright. In copyright, all you have to do is fix your original expression and it is already automatically protected, no government filing or intervention required.
On the question of how much you must change a process before it is a new one, the question is hard to answer. An easier way to look at it is that if you fulfill all the elements of a claim in someone's patent, you infringe that patent, whether you have added elements or not. If you don't actually fulfill all the elements of the claim, you don't infringe and your process is not owned by that patent. You can also patent an improved process by adding elements, though you would still infringe the originally patented process since you would still have all their elements in your design.
They just had a different carrot. I would be willing to bet that they kept their recipes as trade secrets. That is another way to protect your IP. This example--para 8--bypasses the real issue: how to protect ideas that are evident in the product. I can drink innovative chocolate milk and not know how to make it. So it doesn't need patent protection.
Not everything can be protected by keeping it secret. Reverse engineering is a fine art. Also, under your idea, the recipes of those foodstuffs would never ever come into the public domain. They would remain secret forever, like the Coke formula. At least patents are fully disclosed to the public before they are granted, and they go into the public domain after a term. You suggest a system where it is in business's best interest not to publish their results. And they would most definitely want to keep their research secret, for fear of others appropriating their ideas without having invested in them.
Maybe this sounds like utopia, ...
Utopia? Hardly. You suggest increasing taxes on people so the GOVERNMENT can fund research that is currently paid for by corporations. Your "Utopia" plan also sounds like government controlled and directed research, with none in the private sector. Instead of providing incentive for investors to volunatarily give their money to the kind of research they think will work or which they want to support, you seem to think that compulsory investment (that is what taxes are--compulsory) by everyone, controlled by the government, will be better.
Hey, why have corporations at all? Wouldn't a structured economy work much better?
The article itself makes points against its own thesis. They claim they are showing us how you can fluorish without patents, but the companies who "flourished without patent protection" only flourished because THERE WERE NO LAWS TO PREVENT THEM FROM STEALING OTHER PEOPLE'S IDEAS. Ever heard of a free rider? Ever heard of recouping investment cost? OF COURSE THOSE THIEVES MADE MONEY! THEY PAID NOTHING TO DEVELOP THEIR PRODUCTS, THEY JUST STOLE THEM FROM THE PEOPLE WHO DID DEVELOP THEM. When you get to sell something you got for free, it's easy to make a profit. Basically, the article shows that its profitable to be a thief. I already knew that, thanks.
The current state of affairs makes me really sad and depressed. It is a disgrace for our generation that information that can benefit many (such as how to produce cheap medicines that can save many lives) is hidden only because of a supposed need to protect the current economic system.
Protect the current economic system? Have you heard of the goose that laid the golden eggs? Well, some fool decided he's gut the goose to get all the gold out of it. Problem was that the goose wasn't just full of gold, IT MADE THE GOLD. He destroyed his means of production.
This is what you suggest. Hey, why provide incentive to create? The gubbament will take care of us.
Patents are not copyrights. Copyright law is seriously screwed up right now, because technology has advanced much more quickly than the law has reacted. But patents are a good thing. It lets you invest literally millions of dollars with the assurance that whatever you end up developing won't be stolen by your competitor, who paid nothing to develop it. If you do away with this protection, you do away with the incentive to create. The IC in your computer has lots and lots of patented technology in it. You wouldn't have that IC were it not for patent laws. Sure, we could do away with patent law now, and we'd still have ICs for a while. But we would stop growing, and in forty years our technology would be significantly less than it would were there property rights for ideas.
Sorry for the rant, I don't mean to attack anyone personally. But some people on these boards are missing the point of IP law. There are abuses, of course, but the system is robust and generates more wealth for society than any of the socialist systems that have been advocated here.
Earth has a naturally occuring magnetic field. It is partially responsible for deflecting harmful particles and radiation from the sun. These particles and radiation cause damage to satellites, both public and private. Understanding other natural magnetic fields may be useful in our own endeavor to understand the earth, and how to protect the hardware we put into orbit--which is not exactly cheap.
I of course don't know that this particular research will be useful in this way, but it is an example, a possibility. It is often hard to determine the benefits that will arise from discovery. But I really don't see how someone typing on a computer can say with a straight face that since this doesn't seem to have an immediate practical application, it is therefore useless. We live in a world shaped by discoveries that, at the time, had no practical applications.
Besides, some of us are hardcore geeks. That's why we're at /. reading on the space forum.
That would be great if the market worked perfectly. It really doesn't though. You assume that consumers can act in concert the same way that a corporation (or the oligopoly that is the RIAA) does.
Once copy protected CDs are standard, how will consumers "vote" against it by purchasing non-protected CDs? There will be none to purchase. And consumers will still want CDs. So we will eat whatever they give us--copy protected CDs.
Meanwhile, many legal, non-infringing uses of copyrighted material will become impossible. In order to stop criminal acts, they will restrict many legal activities.
There is some hope, though only a little. The Supreme Court protected Sony (I think it was Sony) when they were sued for contributory infringement for making VCRs. They industry argued that VCRs were copyright violation machines that would be used for illegal copying by consumers. Which is true. However, the Supremes, in their infinite wisdom, pointed out that there are substantial non-infringing uses for a VCR, like taping a show and watching it once later. For this kind of reason, Sony won the suit under the Fair Use defense. And we therefore have VCRs now.
One problem: If they make it impossible to copy with Hollingsworth's hardware modification law (which will REQUIRE that ALL digital devices have and use certified copy protection hardware), then the record industry won't have to sue anyone like they did in the Sony case. Instead, a consumer would have to complain to the court and try to sue the RIAA. This is a VERY different situation. Instead of the industry trying to claim infringement, a consumer will have to try to claim that the copy protection is illegal. However, it is not illegal under current law. Even if it limits non-infringing activities, we don't have a RIGHT to those activities--those activities are just protected under Fair Use doctrine, which only means that we have a DEFENSE AGAINST INFRINGEMENT. It does NOT give us a right to those fair uses.
What is needed is a great political backlash against the record industry (and the companies like Intel who are also planning to implement the hardware copy protection). Technology has made some of these industries obsolete (like the middlemen between artists and the consumer--since we can get music via the net, and since CDs are now cheap and easy to burn, why do we need them at all? They have been made parasites by technological advances). But money is hard to dislodge, and these companies won't die without a fight. They would rather restrict access to free material than die and let free material be free. I guess we can't blame them for doing all they can within the law to save themselves and profit. We need to change the laws, I guess, so they can no longer do it. The incentive provided by copyright law is really no longer needed, because mass producing copies for the public to enjoy is no longer an expensive endeavor. We don't need the record industry. Artists will still sing. Music will still be produced. The public will still get copies. Bands make all their money off touring nowadays anyway, not off record proceeds. Record proceeds benefit the record industry. Which, as I have argued, is more a parasite nowadays than a benefit to anyone (other than people making money off this parasitism--people who unfortunately are at the bargaining table in all this, while the public, whom the law was written to benefit, is not).
Not that I am advocating abolition of copyright law, just an overhaul in this area (and in software, don't get me started on that...)
Just one man's opinion.
Not a PhD, so go ahead and discount this before you read it.
Anyway, I don't know what "nanodes" are, nor a "beam" effect--are these dumbed down terms for your PhD-only audience? So I'm not sure what you're saying about the visible spectrum limitations. I do know this laser is reported to work at 6-8 micron wavelength, which is IR and right in the range of low loss troughs in modern optical fibers. So this thing is exactly the wavelength it needs to be for telecom.
To answer your question, they are working on this "dead end" technology because it has produced a broadband semiconductor laser, the first one that I know of. Has your prof's "more advanced technology" produced a working broadband laser yet? If not, what is the point of your question? If so, where was it reported? I'd be interested to read about it.
As electrons are pumped across these different layers, they drop in energy (because of the different work functions between the two materials). When they drop in energy, they give off a photon that bounces back and forth off the morrors until it is coupled out (usually through transmission through a mirror). Many electrons dropping across many DIFFERENT energy levels gives off photons of different wavelengths.
You have basically pegged the way patent law actually is in the US. Their claims don't claim "transferring student data via RF", they claim something much narrower, namely their particular method of collecting and reporting student attendance data. Your examples of how it should be are actually the way the system is intended to work. Occasionally overbroad claims are patented, but that is why we have infringement suits and invalidation proceedings--to filter out the bad ones that make it through. If people want a better filter (i.e., better PTO), then give'em more money. Then they can hire PhDs and give them enough time to actually search the art carefully.
They did not patent "wireless data transfer" of any specific type of data, they patented a set of steps invovled in reporting student attendance data using RF frequencies. In order to infringe their patent, you would have to actually fulfill each and every element of their claims. Their claims are not nearly as broad as you would think. Here is their first claim. Remember you would have to fulfill each and every element in order to infringe.
1. A method of electronically registering student attendance data comprising:
(a) storing a plurality of student names in a central collection station;
(b) downloading at least one set of student names from said plurality of student names stored in said central data collection station to at least one portable data collection device using a wireless radio-frequency link and storing the downloaded set of student names in said at least one portable data collection device;
(c) accessing said set of student names stored in said portable data collection device;
(d) displaying one select student name from said set of student names on a visual display of said portable data collection device;
(e) prompting an operator of said portable data collection device to input attendance data for said select student name into said portable data collection device, said input attendance data including one of a first input indicating that the student having the select displayed name is present, a second input indicating that the student having the select displayed name is absent, and a third input indicating that the student having the select displayed name is tardy;
(f) storing said input attendance data for each select student name in said at least one portable data collection device;
(g) repeating steps (d)-(f) for each student name in said downloaded set of student names;
(h) uploading said input student attendance data from said portable data collection device to said central data collection station using said wireless radio-frequency link;
(i) storing said input attendance data in said central data collection station; and,
(j) generating a student attendance report using said attendance data stored in said central data collection station.
It doesn't look so bad now, does it?
The claims themselves (there were 2 independent claims) state "radio" frequency, which should technically limit the device to what is commonly understood as RF to those of skill in this art (i.e., telecom).
In their specification, they say that although they refer to RF as the way to do it, other ways can be used. However, this is in conflict with their claims, which specifically say RF, and which would probably be interpreted to limiting the scope of the claims to using actual RF frequencies. The problem: You won't really know for sure what the scope is until you go to court and ask the judge.
The claims in the patent look pretty narrow anyway, and there are several steps one would have to fulfill in order to actually infringe on their patent.
Because the range of useable frequencies is limited, they are parsed out by the government who grants licenses to use a given frequency band. If there were infinite bandwidth out there for all to use, I would agree with you. But if there were no regulations, then whoever had the most powerful transmitter could just take over all the airwaves. Which would be MUCH worse than it is now, where whoever has the most MONEY takes over....
There is a provision in the draft I saw that exempts devices made before enactment. So currently existing devices would not become illegal, though you are right that this law would require many many consumer products to be re-manufactured. If a device can store digital information, it is included. That includes virtually all electronics that use chips.
Actually, I don't necessarily think the whole system needs reform, though I do think there are some areas that have turned the wrong direction. Business methods is one easy example. We probably have one the best patent systems in the world, as indicated by the success of licencing in the US. With bad patent systems, you get bad patents that are not easy to liscense, nor worth much if you can license them. Japan is an example of this, there is little enforcement there and patents are less valued.
And then do you fault yourself as part of this massive machine since you elected the legislators who enacted/perpetuate this system? You are as culpable as any of those you "fault."
The damage from what you suggest (letting incompetent lawyers practice and just cleaning up the mess later) would create more problems than it solves. Do you think the market works fine by itself in all cases? Are you for lazaisse faire (sp?) capitalism? The market does not work perfectly. Intervention is frequently required. Artificial market restriction does not mean less freedom. Totally free market does not mean more freedom. Bargaining power is seldom equal. And the market still does its job fine with the "restriction" of the bar exam. Which is not a bad restriction anyway, since it is performance based and not based on income or gender or any other irrelevant factor. I can't believe this, people are always complaining about how awful lawyers are, but now we are arguing that we need more of them and lower quality ones at that! By all means, please remove any potential barrier to becoming a lawyer. That will improve them.
What other profession expels its own members for purely ethical violations? Not lawbreaking, but ethical violations? Lawyers are held to a higher standard than any other occupation or profession. Who else can lose the right to practice their profession without even breaking any laws?
People hate those with a little power. Knowledge is power. Therefore people hate lawyers.