3 ms·
I think the task has to be shared which is how it is set up to work. Patent office employees & judges are people. But, laws don't just lay out their goal and l
by netcan 14y ago
I think the task has to be shared which is how it is set up to work. Patent office employees & judges are people.
But, laws don't just lay out their goal and let people get to work. They break it down into much smaller judgments. Things like novelty, non-obviousness, subject matter & applicability.
"Would have probably been invented regardless of patent law" is to vague to be a law and too difficult to ask bureaucrats to ascertain.
- 001sky 14y agoIdeas of "principle" vs "rules" based decisionmaking have a long history of debate. As you note, writing perfect rules to cover all scenarios ex-ante is nearly impossible. That leaves us the task to debate virtue of new and existing principles, and find a way to incorporate discretion and expertise. The issue is making sure that discretion doe not get manipulated/gamed as well. How do we do that? Society today is very much every man/special interest for himself.
- netcan 14y agoIt could also be that the system of laws, lawmakers, courts & bureaucrats is just not very good at this sort of thing. Imagine that for some reason we needed this system to make decisions based on niceness or sexiness.
- 001sky 14y ago"Obviousness" is in the eyes of the beholder The irony of bureaucrats judging (lack of) inventiveness