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"We recognize that innovation has a value, and patents are the way to protect that." Innovation has no value to the public if you don't produce and ship a good
by jsz0 16y ago
"We recognize that innovation has a value, and patents are the way to protect that."
Innovation has no value to the public if you don't produce and ship a good product. In my opinion the company that actually ships something should always have the upper hand because it's good for consumers. Patent reform should follow a use-it-or-lose-it model. If a company comes up with an innovative idea, ships a product, and that product stays on the market (in one form or another) for many years they probably deserve to own the patent. If people are buying it then it must be halfway decent. If they never produce a shipping product they shouldn't be able to hold the patent hostage. If they decide to stop selling a product that uses the patent someone else should have the opportunity to dust it off.
- _delirium 16y agoI mostly agree, but patents were partly intended to protect small-fry scientists/inventors who came up with good ideas that they couldn't necessarily commercialize themselves, by providing a legal mechanism to keep manufacturers from just ripping off the idea as they shopped it around. It makes more sense when it's not a portfolio company holding hundreds of patents, though, and when the inventions are genuine breakthroughs: e.g. if a biotech researcher comes up with something that really would improve pharmaceutical research greatly, it seems okay to me if there's a legal mechanism to make pharmaceutical firms pay him licensing fees if they want to use the invention, even if he himself never ramps up into pharmaceutical research. This becomes much more of a minefield if the bar to novelty/nonobviousness is low, though, because then you just get people preemptively "inventing" a bunch of things that other people would've found anyway, and then demanding licensing fees.
- narrator 16y agoPatents are good for protecting inventions that require a large amount of capital investment to bring to production. Fashion and food were traditionally not protected by patents because to make a cake or a dress, one only needed an oven or a sowing machine. On the other hand, complicated manufactured goods needed patent protection because the factories needed to produce them would cost millions to build, and a small inventor could never raise the money without patent protection. In the age of computing, the cost of the equipment to create software is negligible, so it's far more optimal to not grant patent protection.
- sandipagr 16y ago"Fashion and food were traditionally not protected by patents because to make a cake or a dress, one only needed an oven or a sowing machine. " Is that really true? I don't know I am just asking. I personally don't think capital investment should have anything to do with the patent. It's like giving no value to the innovative technologies made by people in garage. Just doesn't make sense to me. On a side note, do you consider time as capital investment?
- metamemetics 16y ago>Is that really true? Yes. Or more precisely because clothes and food are too "utilitarian". "Lessons from fashion's free culture" http://ca.ted.com/talks/johanna_blakley_lessons_from_fashion_s_free_culture.html http://ca.ted.com/talks/johanna_blakley_lessons_from_fashion... "Copyright law's grip on film, music and software barely touches the fashion industry ... and fashion benefits in both innovation and sales, says Johanna Blakley."
- sandipagr 16y agothanks for the link. That was very interesting. It's really amazing how the entire fashion industry even without any sort of protection is running well.
- mhd 16y agoWhile the fashions themselves aren't protected, the names of the labels etc. are trademarked. That's why you're seeing the Gucci and Dolce & Gabbana names on everything. And the Luis Vuitton luggage pattern contains their logo. A lot of stuff produced is basically nothing but a vehicle for the logo itself, without much fashion/innovation around it.
- metamemetics 16y agoTrue. However analogously software companies also have trade-secret protection from employees divulging source code independent of the software patent process.
- nooneelse 16y agoI agree that a straight "use it or loose it" is too harsh... how about a mechanism for forced licensing with the fee based with upon some reasonable criteria, including but not limited to attempts to use the patient well? Oh wait... I forgot this is the USA, can't assume a competent ability to set up good bureaucracy with fair rules.