Trent Shipley wrote:
David Hobby wrote:
John Williams wrote:
...
Sounds like you have a problem with the government-run patent system.
Yes. He's saying it doesn't actually work the
way you think it would, since there's latitude
for people to game the system.
How would a non-government-run patent system
(whatever it was) not be just as flawed?
Or better, how would you design a patent system
that did not give a significant advantage to the
side with the best lawyers? (Feel free to propose
changes to the legal system too, if you want.)
---David
You could go with the radical Linuxers and Pirate Party types and decide
that intellectual property is an anachronism that should be put out of
its misery.
Trent--
Hi. You're talking about intellectual property in
general. This includes copyright. I could agree that
copyright should be pretty much abolished.
Patents are different, though. The problem is that
without patents, companies tend to just keep innovations
secret. It's pointless to keep secret the kinds of
things you can copyright--the whole point is that you
WANT people to see them.
I don't have examples, but I'd argue that without
patents A LOT of recent advances would have been kept
as trade secrets. And that because of that, the advances
that built on them would not yet have happened. There's
a large economic cost to Society at large when most
advances are kept secret. It stifles progress.
That's why the patent system was set up in the first
place, to "foster innovation".
---David
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