You notice the problem that it is much easier to analyze inventions and copy them than it is to hide the invention. Why would anybody innovate products that require significant R&D then?
In general, differentiation. If nobody develops anything, instead choosing to use what everyone else has already developed, the field will stagnate and all products will gradually become the same. This could lead to a few outcomes, unfortunately:
1. Pure price competition. Could be beneficial to consumers, but I don't think this would be the *only* thing happening.
2. Increased advertisement of everything. If your product is the same as your competitor's, advertise! This would be bad; one can only hope that the public consciousness will become more resilient against advertising and defeat this approach. We're already seeing people ignoring banner/popup ads and eliminate TV ads with their Tivos...
3. Actual product differentiation. In this model, everybody has something different to offer. This is what competition really means -- one approach to one problem may or may not work, but out of a thousand approaches to the same problem, a few probably will work quite well. The solutions that do work will be adopted (copied, stolen, whatever), and then people will *move past them* and start the cycle all over again. I hope.
You point out that drugs are at one extreme, having high development costs and low manufacturing costs. This applies with just about any information technology, and that's what recipies are: information. I'm not quite sure what to do about that;)
Perhaps getting rid of patents wouldn't be the best idea. What about simply reducing the time period? Fourteen years may have been a reasonable time in the early 1800s, but today it's an eternity. Patents that lasted for only a few years (maybe more or less for certain products?) could be a suitable compromise.
"...farmer Percy Schmeiser of Bruno, Sask., was ordered to pay $19,000 in damages for using Roundup Ready canola. He was also ordered to cover Monsanto's court costs of $153,000."
Cost of sowing somebody else's seeds: $19,000. Cost of being forced to pay: $153,000. Seriously haywire justice system... I think you know the rest.
"However, they also rejected a bid by Monsanto to see the damages raised to more than $100,000."
Oh, that's better.
Is there any good reason to even have patents anymore? They're meant to promote competition, but how much are they actually doing that? It seems that research is becoming increasingly cumulative, with each advance based on the next; software exemplifies this, but it applies elsewhere too. Taking an entirely different route, while occasionally eye-opening, eats up a lot more time and resources. And the more people who enter a given field of research, the harder it is for every newbie to find a completely different approach that doesn't infringe on any patents.
On the other hand, thousands of people independently working on the same idea (sans patents) are likely to collectively come up with some pretty cool improvements and developments.
Of course, without patents, trade secrets might become more common. But considering how easy it is becoming to analyze (and how hard it is to obfuscate,) how much of a problem would that be?
a) Data necessary to follow and identify the source of a communication;
b) Data necessary to identify the destination of a communication;
c) Data necessary to identify the time of a communication;
d) Data necessary to identify the subscriber;
e) Data necessary to identify the communication device.
And:
These types of data shall not concern the content of the exchanged correspondence or the consulted information, in any form...
So, they couldn't read my e-mail, but they could get a complete list of everyone I've exchanged e-mail with in the last 12-24 months?
What I really wanna know is how this will affect communications between parties outside the EU that just happen to pass through EU routers. I couldn't find any specific mention of this (granted, I didn't comb through the draft too carefully.)
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1) "Your opinions are flawed." Opinions, by their very nature, cannot be flawed. Facts can be, but not opinions.
Any statement can be flawed. If you state your opinion, you open yourself up to the possibility of other people pointing out how off-track you are.
3) "I was home schooled...Nothing dysfuncitonal." And your source/proof that there's nothing dysfunctional? I'm not arguing with you, but an individual is not able to decide if he or she is functional (unless fully trained in psychology or medicine, and even then, there are many exceptions.) Every student I taught in residential treatment told me how they were really functional and everyone else was messed up.
It can be hard for someone to self-analyze to that extent, yes. But your statement that advanced training in psychology or medicine is required to make a determination of social functionality is just another symptom of the institutionalization of, well, just about everything.
How do you think societies decided whether or not people were normal and functional before there were degrees in psychology in medicine? Hmm?
One good egg does not prove the entire bunch is not rotton.
Very, very true. Also, one "rotton" egg does not justify throwing out the whole carton. Your own comments earlier pertained only to a small group of students you had worked with -- special ed students, at that!
Some other posters have already discussed studies and test scores, so I won't go there.
For the record, I was homeschooled -- from the time my parents pulled me out of first grade because they didn't like the kinds of socialization I was being involved in to the time I was accepted to a local technical college at the age of 14. I'm now quite happily pursuing a Comp Sci major at the University of Wisconsin.
(Speaking of which, Wisconsin is a very good state for homeschooling. Massachusetts, unless it's changed since I was there, is not. Plug alert: If you're interested in homeschooling in Wisconsin, check out the Wisconsin Parents Association. That's my name at the bottom of the website.)
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You notice the problem that it is much easier to analyze inventions and copy them than it is to hide the invention. Why would anybody innovate products that require significant R&D then?
;)
In general, differentiation. If nobody develops anything, instead choosing to use what everyone else has already developed, the field will stagnate and all products will gradually become the same. This could lead to a few outcomes, unfortunately:
1. Pure price competition. Could be beneficial to consumers, but I don't think this would be the *only* thing happening.
2. Increased advertisement of everything. If your product is the same as your competitor's, advertise! This would be bad; one can only hope that the public consciousness will become more resilient against advertising and defeat this approach. We're already seeing people ignoring banner/popup ads and eliminate TV ads with their Tivos...
3. Actual product differentiation. In this model, everybody has something different to offer. This is what competition really means -- one approach to one problem may or may not work, but out of a thousand approaches to the same problem, a few probably will work quite well. The solutions that do work will be adopted (copied, stolen, whatever), and then people will *move past them* and start the cycle all over again. I hope.
You point out that drugs are at one extreme, having high development costs and low manufacturing costs. This applies with just about any information technology, and that's what recipies are: information. I'm not quite sure what to do about that
Perhaps getting rid of patents wouldn't be the best idea. What about simply reducing the time period? Fourteen years may have been a reasonable time in the early 1800s, but today it's an eternity. Patents that lasted for only a few years (maybe more or less for certain products?) could be a suitable compromise.
"...farmer Percy Schmeiser of Bruno, Sask., was ordered to pay $19,000 in damages for using Roundup Ready canola. He was also ordered to cover Monsanto's court costs of $153,000."
Cost of sowing somebody else's seeds: $19,000. Cost of being forced to pay: $153,000. Seriously haywire justice system... I think you know the rest.
"However, they also rejected a bid by Monsanto to see the damages raised to more than $100,000."
Oh, that's better.
Is there any good reason to even have patents anymore? They're meant to promote competition, but how much are they actually doing that? It seems that research is becoming increasingly cumulative, with each advance based on the next; software exemplifies this, but it applies elsewhere too. Taking an entirely different route, while occasionally eye-opening, eats up a lot more time and resources. And the more people who enter a given field of research, the harder it is for every newbie to find a completely different approach that doesn't infringe on any patents.
On the other hand, thousands of people independently working on the same idea (sans patents) are likely to collectively come up with some pretty cool improvements and developments.
Of course, without patents, trade secrets might become more common. But considering how easy it is becoming to analyze (and how hard it is to obfuscate,) how much of a problem would that be?
From the draft:
a) Data necessary to follow and identify the source of a communication;
b) Data necessary to identify the destination of a communication;
c) Data necessary to identify the time of a communication;
d) Data necessary to identify the subscriber;
e) Data necessary to identify the communication device.
And:
These types of data shall not concern the content of the exchanged correspondence or the consulted information, in any form...
So, they couldn't read my e-mail, but they could get a complete list of everyone I've exchanged e-mail with in the last 12-24 months?
What I really wanna know is how this will affect communications between parties outside the EU that just happen to pass through EU routers. I couldn't find any specific mention of this (granted, I didn't comb through the draft too carefully.)
Tired of 5-7-5?
Make your haiku inches longer!
With new herbal cure.
Send me five dollars.
Add your name to this haiku.
Hit "send" and get rich.
As leaves change color,
E-mail marketers move in.
Bright forests of spam.
1) "Your opinions are flawed." Opinions, by their very nature, cannot be flawed. Facts can be, but not opinions.
Any statement can be flawed. If you state your opinion, you open yourself up to the possibility of other people pointing out how off-track you are.
3) "I was home schooled...Nothing dysfuncitonal." And your source/proof that there's nothing dysfunctional? I'm not arguing with you, but an individual is not able to decide if he or she is functional (unless fully trained in psychology or medicine, and even then, there are many exceptions.) Every student I taught in residential treatment told me how they were really functional and everyone else was messed up.
It can be hard for someone to self-analyze to that extent, yes. But your statement that advanced training in psychology or medicine is required to make a determination of social functionality is just another symptom of the institutionalization of, well, just about everything.
How do you think societies decided whether or not people were normal and functional before there were degrees in psychology in medicine? Hmm?
One good egg does not prove the entire bunch is not rotton.
Very, very true. Also, one "rotton" egg does not justify throwing out the whole carton. Your own comments earlier pertained only to a small group of students you had worked with -- special ed students, at that!
Some other posters have already discussed studies and test scores, so I won't go there.
For the record, I was homeschooled -- from the time my parents pulled me out of first grade because they didn't like the kinds of socialization I was being involved in to the time I was accepted to a local technical college at the age of 14. I'm now quite happily pursuing a Comp Sci major at the University of Wisconsin.
(Speaking of which, Wisconsin is a very good state for homeschooling. Massachusetts, unless it's changed since I was there, is not. Plug alert: If you're interested in homeschooling in Wisconsin, check out the Wisconsin Parents Association. That's my name at the bottom of the website.)