4 ms·
Interestingly, patent law agrees with you — mathematical theorems, for example, cannot be patented. In principle, a patent should cover specific machinery/proc
by InefficientRed 4y ago
Interestingly, patent law agrees with you — mathematical theorems, for example, cannot be patented.
In principle, a patent should cover specific machinery/process/material designed for a task rather than the underlying more ephemeral/indefinite concept powering the invention.
The interesting thing is that, of those, machine and process seem like the least conceited. Composition of matter seems more like sticking a flag in infinite ground. But in practice it’s the former two that power most of what I consider an abuse of the spirit of patent law. But perhaps that’s just my personal bias and the bio or materials people will disagree.
What can we say? Profit motive is a strong incentive and lawyers/judges are clever.
Anyways, with 7B people and counting, a term limited right to one idea in the infinite space of ideas seems less harmful than perpetual rights to a piece of land.
- j-pb 4y agoExcept that they are in the form of software patents. We live in this complexity nightmare partly because all the simple and obvious solutions are easily patented.
- onedognight 4y ago> seems less harmful than perpetual rights to a piece of land. Interestingly, society agrees with you; for the most part, we don’t grant perpetual rights to a piece of land. Instead we charge property tax to ensure you are doing something productive with it. You have to generate enough free cash flow to pay the taxes or you lose the land.
- InefficientRed 4y agoNot really. The property taxes on a piece of land I own are about $200 per year, which can be paid in perpetuity with a low five figure endowment stored in zero risk FDIC-insured CDs. In most counties, property taxes are fairly marginal and come nowhere near necessitating that land is used productively.