From: Robert J. Bradbury (bradbury@www.aeiveos.com)
Date: Wed Dec 22 1999 - 06:43:10 MST
On Wed, 22 Dec 1999, Charlie Stross wrote:
> [snip ... lots of good stuff about examples of patent law going astray]
>
> The vast majority of patents today seem
> to be filed by large corporations for use as weapons to keep interlopers
> out of a field they want to monopolise, or to extort taxes.
And they seem to have systems for "exchanging" these inventions.
The semiconductor manufacturers seem to have worked out ways of
working through this without it being a tremendous burden on the
industry or stifling innovation. I don't think there will be
any "interlopers" in these industries because its virtually impossible
for anyone not in the game to get the funding to start a new semiconductor
fab (or even worse get the "name recognition" required to compete).
> (Witness
> attempts to patent large chunks of the human genome, for example.)
This is interesting, because you would never have gotten the funding
to accelerate progress in these areas (Human Genome Sciences or Celera
for example) if there was not a perception that these companies *would*
have patentable "products". But in the long run it looks like the
patent office and governments may effectively work to prevent
the patenting of genomes. So here you have a case where investors
have actually significantly benefited humanity (by accelerating progress
in these areas) but are being forced to accept a lower ROI than they
initially expected.
>
> Patents and copyright were originally designed as defenses. The problem
> is that they've been extended and misapplied until they also constitute
> very handy weapons.
This is a good point. Perhaps it may be the *key* determinant of
good use vs. bad use of patents. If you are defending your market
its probably good. If you are trying to prevent the development
of other markets or trying to extort royalties then they may be bad.
>
> And I don't know about you, but my idea of _good_ capitalism is a deal
> where both sides walk away knowing they've benefited -- a positive sum
> game. There's nothing very extropian against playing the market as a
> zero-sum or negative-sum game for your own benefit.
>
It isn't so much that it is played as zero or negative-sum, but that
broad application of patents increases the cost of doing business and
that may slow down innovation or increases costs to the consumer. Its
great however from the perspective of the ROI of investors holding stock
in the companies who benefit from broad application of their patents.
It is probably worth considering that if patents exist and are known,
they may *encourage* innovation because people just figure out ways
around them. As the saying goes, necessity is the mother of invention.
Robert
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