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Razors and Intellectual Property (Patents)

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40hz:
With the desire of American businesses to move their manufacturing overseas (in order to benefit from cheap non-unionized labor, weak environmental regulation, and virtually non-existent worker safety rules) abusive patents and other IP laws have become critical to the USA's new business model. Primarily because IP is all that's left once businesses no longer want to...um...actually make things.

I expect nothing significant when it comes to US patent reform. The entire future of US business depends on the world seeing things the "New American Way" when it comes to patents and IP.

Regardless of what patents were originally created for, the reality is that their present purpose is to keep things exactly the way they are. (i.e. the USA and its key industries and 'favored son' companies on top)

And innovation is so disruptive anyway....
 :-\

mouser:
I have been on the receiving end of a patent troll who tried to (unsuccessfully) extort/intimidate me away from a software program on an absolutely silly basis.  Despite the fact that the patent troll failed, I came out of the experience firmly convinced that the patent system is completely broken, and is yet another industry which has built a fiefdom out of extracting maximum legal costs, and benefit those corporations with the largest bank reserves.

Having said that -- I have to disagree with those who say that the very idea of intellectual property protection is unimportant.  I think that without some system to ensure that inventors are properly compensated for their discoveries, the result would be large corporate marketing giants what come in like vampires and simply do a better job of mass producing/marketing/monopolizing/bullying/etc than the original inventors.

So I believe there has to be some middle ground.  I don't have the answers but we could start by removing the middlemen between the inventors and the producers.

40hz:
^The main problem with patents (as a legal safeguard) is that it's a system that favors the biggest and most powerful at the expense of the smaller innovator.

In a perfect world, some version of a patent enforcement service would level the playing field since individual patent holders soon learn that enforcement isn't a viable option unless you have very deep pockets. And that was how many of these patent trolls got started. They approached smaller patent holders with a story about how they could provide 'the muscle' an individual lacked for making sure their patent was enforceable.

But real problem began when the PTO began issuing patents for what amounts to nothing more than ideas or concepts instead of specific solutions - which is something patents were never supposed to cover. Once that happened, things rapidly got out of control and landed us in the mess we're currently strugging with.

Patents and IP law has it's downside. Humanity has traditionally advanced by adopting and expanding on discoveries that went before. In many respects, the whole concept of "free open source" software was an attempt to codify that historic practice. Patents work against that.

But while the traditional practice of simply appropriating successful innovations may have worked out well for the human race as a whole - it's definitely lacking when it comes to providing incentives for the individual innovator - which, in turn, slows progress.

Talk about a paradox. :huh:

There really is no easy solution to this issue. :(

SeraphimLabs:
^The main problem with patents (as a legal safeguard) is that it's a system that favors the biggest and most powerful at the expense of the smaller innovator.
-40hz (October 20, 2013, 12:48 PM)
--- End quote ---

This exactly.

I'm sitting on an invention over here that actually has the potential to do something, but because patents cost so much to get and keep I have like no chance of actually obtaining one for it.

Not having one means that I can't go looking for investors to finish the R&D on this thing and actually see about finding buyers, leading to a paradox of money that is only solved by either winning the lottery or giving away my invention to someone with the financial resources to follow through- and never seeing a good payout from it. Shame too, because it really wouldn't take much to finish. I have it to a point now where it demonstrates proper operating cycle, it just doesn't sustain because my budget prototype is too shoddy. For a proof of concept though, its gone further than I expected.

If you ask me, fortune 500 companies should not be allowed to benefit from patents. At that point they are sufficiently large to not need that protection. But if you try to implement that, they'll all sell their patents off to 'holding companies' below the limit and then license the designs back to themselves.

Kickstarter might actually be a saving grace though for the small inventor like me. I just have to figure out how to represent my concept on it without revealing its internal details- which would enable other people to beat me to the patent office. I've been searching the internet for 5 years now, and not seen anything quite like this.

Vurbal:
I have been on the receiving end of a patent troll who tried to (unsuccessfully) extort/intimidate me away from a software program on an absolutely silly basis.  Despite the fact that the patent troll failed, I came out of the experience firmly convinced that the patent system is completely broken, and is yet another industry which has built a fiefdom out of extracting maximum legal costs, and benefit those corporations with the largest bank reserves.

Having said that -- I have to disagree with those who say that the very idea of intellectual property protection is unimportant.  I think that without some system to ensure that inventors are properly compensated for their discoveries, the result would be large corporate marketing giants what come in like vampires and simply do a better job of mass producing/marketing/monopolizing/bullying/etc than the original inventors.-mouser (October 20, 2013, 11:00 AM)
--- End quote ---

There's a legitimate debate to be made WRT that issue but there's an equally compelling argument on the other side that the mass production and marketing bits are not particularly effective at fending off competition based on actual innovation. That leaves bullying and market manipulation, neither of which is specific to patents.

So I believe there has to be some middle ground.  I don't have the answers but we could start by removing the middlemen between the inventors and the producers.

--- End quote ---

I look at it this way. The first hurdle to overcome is simply taking back the language. For decades there has been a lot of talk, and by talk I mean propaganda, about so-called "free markets." No such animal exists in nature. The question isn't whether there are restraints on the market but rather who controls them.

What we need to be striving for is not freedom but liberty, which in this case means competition. That is the government's proper minimal role in all markets - to provide an environment where competition has space to flourish. I'm not talking about a particular formula per se, but rather a general philosophy. In some cases - perhaps most - it may be best accomplished with a light regulatory touch. In others - particularly those with significant public policy implications - wide open performance biased competition for lucrative government contracts may be more appropriate.

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