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> To this day, the patent — which Franklin says is for fairly mundane technology This is just so wrong. A patent for mundane tech should be flat out denied.

pm 12y ago
I would think that by "mundane" Franklin means "not that interesting".
- venomsnake 12y ago
  A patent should be novel, non obvious, contain inventive step and useful. I think that anything that answers that 4 criteria is that interesting by default.
  - dalke 12y ago
    There are some 570 patents for barbed wire. I'm pretty sure only a very select few would consider each one interesting.
    - Karunamon 12y ago
      That implies that all 570 validly deserve patent protection. Going to go out on a limb here and say that a large chunk of them, if not a majority, should not have been granted. Look at the BS in the software patents world.. it almost certainly extends to other fields.
      - dalke 12y ago
        The claim is that "novel, non obvious, contain inventive step and useful" implies "interesting". My counter-claim is that the label "interesting" is only going to be true for a very few people. Perhaps even only the inventor. Even if only 100 of them "deserve" patent protection, how do you conclude that all of them will be interesting? And how many people do you think need to find it interesting? My underlying point is that patents are nothing to be in awe of. Just because it's patented doesn't mean it's interesting. I get the feeling that you want "interesting" to be a requirement of the patent office. If so, how do you define it?
  - njharman 12y ago
    That is your opinion. And one I'd be is not widely held. "Interesting" is not an objective criteria.
rayiner 12y ago
Like 95% of engineering R&D is on things that most people would consider pretty mundane. There's armies of people working on degreasers and coagulants and emulsifiers and all sorts of things that aren't per se interesting, but represent the yeoman's work that makes the world go around.
- venomsnake 12y ago
  Organic chemistry is very interesting and one of the more patentable stuff because the result and technological processes are not trivially reproducible. The patent has always been a trade off of disclosure vs exclusivity. You make something innovative tell the public how you do it, you can monetize it for a couple of years - that is your reward for disclosing how stuff works. But if I can see in a glance what the improvement is and can reproduce it without the need of your disclosure, than it should not be patentable. Right now we are given the right to patent the outcome, not the road to get there. Of course with your previous background you could crush me with legal information why the law is the way it is and how everything is legal. And I would not even bother to double check you - you will be right. But for me the system is broken horribly now. To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries We have lost the limited times clause. Copyright is virtually infinite right now. Nothing written by the time we were kids will enter public domain before the time we die. And with clever patent extensions for drugs ... this is going in a bad direction. I am not constitutional scholar, but for me this clause strongly implies that patent and copyright are for the progress of society and not the authors. So if we are in point where they stifle innovation and progress - the system must be reformed.
- CamperBob2 12y ago
  If only there were a way to compensate people for R&D that most people would consider pretty mundane but that nevertheless makes the world go around. I know! We could call it a "market."
  - rayiner 12y ago
    The whole point of creating a property right in the fruits of R&D is enabling the market to compensate people for producing R&D. Markets don't work if people can use what you produce without having to pay for it.
njharman 12y ago
You're confusing definition of mundane. It doesn't mean trivial or obvious or without value.

pm 12y ago

I would think that by "mundane" Franklin means "not that interesting".

venomsnake 12y ago
A patent should be novel, non obvious, contain inventive step and useful. I think that anything that answers that 4 criteria is that interesting by default.
- dalke 12y ago
  There are some 570 patents for barbed wire. I'm pretty sure only a very select few would consider each one interesting.
  - Karunamon 12y ago
    That implies that all 570 validly deserve patent protection. Going to go out on a limb here and say that a large chunk of them, if not a majority, should not have been granted. Look at the BS in the software patents world.. it almost certainly extends to other fields.
    - dalke 12y ago
      The claim is that "novel, non obvious, contain inventive step and useful" implies "interesting". My counter-claim is that the label "interesting" is only going to be true for a very few people. Perhaps even only the inventor. Even if only 100 of them "deserve" patent protection, how do you conclude that all of them will be interesting? And how many people do you think need to find it interesting? My underlying point is that patents are nothing to be in awe of. Just because it's patented doesn't mean it's interesting. I get the feeling that you want "interesting" to be a requirement of the patent office. If so, how do you define it?
- njharman 12y ago
  That is your opinion. And one I'd be is not widely held. "Interesting" is not an objective criteria.

rayiner 12y ago

Like 95% of engineering R&D is on things that most people would consider pretty mundane. There's armies of people working on degreasers and coagulants and emulsifiers and all sorts of things that aren't per se interesting, but represent the yeoman's work that makes the world go around.

venomsnake 12y ago
Organic chemistry is very interesting and one of the more patentable stuff because the result and technological processes are not trivially reproducible. The patent has always been a trade off of disclosure vs exclusivity. You make something innovative tell the public how you do it, you can monetize it for a couple of years - that is your reward for disclosing how stuff works. But if I can see in a glance what the improvement is and can reproduce it without the need of your disclosure, than it should not be patentable. Right now we are given the right to patent the outcome, not the road to get there. Of course with your previous background you could crush me with legal information why the law is the way it is and how everything is legal. And I would not even bother to double check you - you will be right. But for me the system is broken horribly now. To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries We have lost the limited times clause. Copyright is virtually infinite right now. Nothing written by the time we were kids will enter public domain before the time we die. And with clever patent extensions for drugs ... this is going in a bad direction. I am not constitutional scholar, but for me this clause strongly implies that patent and copyright are for the progress of society and not the authors. So if we are in point where they stifle innovation and progress - the system must be reformed.
CamperBob2 12y ago
If only there were a way to compensate people for R&D that most people would consider pretty mundane but that nevertheless makes the world go around. I know! We could call it a "market."
- rayiner 12y ago
  The whole point of creating a property right in the fruits of R&D is enabling the market to compensate people for producing R&D. Markets don't work if people can use what you produce without having to pay for it.

njharman 12y ago

You're confusing definition of mundane. It doesn't mean trivial or obvious or without value.