[p2p-research] CAD files at The PIrate Bay? (Follow up)

[Michel Bauwens]

Hi Stan,

I think your dual approach is really the way forward for open hardware
efforts ... Is it possible to formalize your thoughts for a blog entry on
this?

It could also be used as an intro to our wiki sections,

Thanks for considering it,

Michel

On Thu, Oct 22, 2009 at 4:10 AM, Stan Rhodes <stanleyrhodes at gmail.com>wrote:

> Kevin,
>
> I don't understand what you mean by "enter the picture."  Patents can and
> will be used to destroy competition, which I figured was the main reason
> small manufacturers might want a pool of them.  If you mean that you don't
> see any good reason for small manufacturers to try to get state-enforced
> monopolies themselves, then yes, I don't see it helping them at all.
>
> File-sharing designs has two important issues in play, as I see it.
>
> First, the designs themselves, subject to copyright, should probably be
> "GPL-ed" to "common-capture" them so that users always have the right to use
> and modify them.
>
> Second, on the devices/processes subject to patents, I absolutely agree
> that patenting them is a waste of time and money.  I would take the old
> "Bell Labs" approach: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_domain#Patent
>
> Designs could be pooled online, and sent to the USPTO as a newsletter.  The
> patent office could be contacted and asked what would be the least painful
> way for them to ensure that prior art was being established.
>
> Also, it would be quite useful for designers to include small notes of
> prior art that were "seeds" of their own design.  This both helps establish
> an evolutionary history with attribution, and creates an an automatic
> counter-strike to claims of patent infringement from other parties.  This
> could easily be nothing more than a page for prior art and inspiration for
> each version of product, perhaps via a wiki or other version control system
> that makes it easy.
>
> Tagging would be essentially for easy cross-referencing.  I believe that is
> essentially what the USPTO does, by filing every patent in multiple
> subcategories that it touches.
>
> Thoughts?
>
> -- Stan
>
>
> On Wed, Oct 21, 2009 at 1:20 PM, Kevin Carson <
> free.market.anticapitalist at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> It just occurred me, but isn't the whole question of file-sharing
>> patented designs only of interest to a fairly limited subset of the
>> Making movement?  Given (literally) a micromanufacturing economy of
>> 100,000 small shops with CNC tools, it seems pretty unlikely that
>> patents would even enter into the picture for a garage manufacturer
>> serving a market area of a few thousand people.  After all, securing a
>> patent is extremely expensive and takes a long time.  It probably
>> wouldn't even be worth it for someone not engaged in large-batch
>> manufacturing.
>>
>> --
>> Kevin Carson
>> Center for a Stateless Society http://c4ss.org
>> Mutualist Blog:  Free Market Anti-Capitalism
>> http://mutualist.blogspot.com
>> Studies in Mutualist Political Economy
>> http://www.mutualist.org/id47.html
>> Organization Theory:  A Libertarian Perspective
>> http://mutualist.blogspot.com/2005/12/studies-in-anarchist-theory-of.html
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> p2presearch mailing list
>> p2presearch at listcultures.org
>> http://listcultures.org/mailman/listinfo/p2presearch_listcultures.org
>>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> p2presearch mailing list
> p2presearch at listcultures.org
> http://listcultures.org/mailman/listinfo/p2presearch_listcultures.org
>
>


-- 
Work: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhurakij_Pundit_University - Research:
http://www.dpu.ac.th/dpuic/info/Research.html - Think thank:
http://www.asianforesightinstitute.org/index.php/eng/The-AFI

P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net  - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net

Connect: http://p2pfoundation.ning.com; Discuss:
http://listcultures.org/mailman/listinfo/p2presearch_listcultures.org

Updates: http://del.icio.us/mbauwens; http://friendfeed.com/mbauwens;
http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/attachments/20091022/87ffefb4/attachment.html>