4 ms·
Correct, the goal: "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts", i.e. make trade secrets public, Science is a public endeavor, the goal here is the publ
by gnaritas 13y ago
Correct, the goal: "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts", i.e. make trade secrets public, Science is a public endeavor, the goal here is the public good, not the inventors good. The means of obtaining that goal: " by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries." They key word here is "by" which makes it clear we're now discussing means and not the goal. The goal is the first phrase of the sentence.
- dllthomas 13y agoIn an environment where inventors were not sufficiently motivated to produce sans patents, patents might quite legitimately be "promot[ing] the progress of Science and useful Arts" in part by providing that motivation.
- gnaritas 13y agoThat doesn't conflict with anything I said; I never said patents don't motivate inventors; I said motivating inventors was not the purpose of patents, it's merely the side effect of the method used to get inventors to give up their trade secrets.
- dllthomas 13y agoYou as much as said it's not a goal at all, whereas it can absolutely be an instrumental goal (which is what I'd read the parent as responding to, and how the issue is often - though not always - framed) without being a terminal goal.
- guelo 13y agoHere's an argument against the purpose of patent law being disclosure, http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20070321/021508.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20070321/021508.shtml But back to software patents, if the real societal good of patent law is disclosure than there is no need for it at all in the software world. As soon as Visicalc sold their first spreadsheet every programmer knew how to build one. There is no benefit to society to grant the monopoly in exchange for instructions on how to build a software idea.
- gnaritas 13y agoNo, that's an argument against patents functioning well to achieve disclosure. The purpose of patents is clear: To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts and requires no debate nor arguments.
- dllthomas 13y agoThe part you are emphasizing is not the part that anyone here is disputing.
- guelo 13y agoWe are discussing two ways to promote progress. The straight forward way is to give a financial incentive for inventors to tinker and come up with new ideas. The way you're suggesting is to give inventors (that are already inventing without need of incentive) an incentive to disclose their invention and then that will promote other inventors to build on top of the invention even though they will have pay the original inventor for the privilege. My point is that neither of these methods are effective at promoting progress in software.
- gnaritas 13y ago> We are discussing two ways to promote progress. No, we're discussing the reason patents exist. > The way you're suggesting is to give inventors I'm not suggesting anything, I'm simply stating why patents exist. > My point is that neither of these methods are effective at promoting progress in software. Software should not be patentable at all, so we're not in disagreement there.
- dllthomas 13y ago> No, we're discussing the reason patents exist. The reason patents exist, as you've repeatedly asserted, is to promote the progress of science and useful arts. We are discussing two mechanisms by which that might be accomplished (and by which it is quite arguably accomplished in some fields).
- sanderjd 13y agoThe original claim was that patents exist "in order to encourage people to invent". You claim that that is wrong, and they exist in order to "encourage inventors to make their inventions public knowledge". Someone responds and says that they actually exist in order "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts". You then say: > Correct, the goal: "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts", i.e. make trade secrets public I could just as easily say: Correct, the goal: "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts", i.e. encourage people to invent. My point is that it was left up to us as a society to interpret those words, and just claiming that your interpretation is the correct one does not make it so.
- gnaritas 13y ago> I could just as easily say: Correct, the goal: "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts", i.e. encourage people to invent. No you can't, inventions that aren't public don't promote the progress of Science. Science is by it's very nature a public endeavor. > My point is that it was left up to us as a society to interpret those words, and just claiming that your interpretation is the correct one does not make it so. It is so because words have meaning and under no interpretation can promoting science simply mean to encourage invention because invention alone, without making the knowledge public, does not promote science.
- shasta 13y agoAnd by the symmetry of that clause in the constitution, I assume you believe copyright was included to get writers to divulge their writing.