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

[Samuel Rose]

Kevin and Stan both have good points here,


Put simply: the patent is a mechanism for a specific set of business
models. If those business models are not relevant to people, then they
may not tend to see a need for patents.


This does not mean that some portion of designers, engineers and
fabricators will not seek to patent technologies. Indeed there are
already more traditional business who are capitalizing on emerging
flexible fabrication as a method for low cost rapid prototyping, with
an ultimate path towards more traditional industrial production,
venture capitalization, and "business to business" models that emerged
in the 1980's and 1990's  This kind of model will represent a
significant amount of activity, as more traditional companies enter
this space. This could be related to the reasons why you see people in
connection with Ponoko and/or Make talking about patents, because
patent "protection" is still the primary paradigm of many, many, many,
many people, in relation to physical production (even people actively
engaged in flexible fabrication production).

The problem, as Kevin mentions, is that this route (low cost rapid
prototyping to capitalized patented products) requires small producers
to partner with more traditional companies who are better funded to be
their "facilitators".  Kevin is right that this way of bringing
products to market requires lots of capitalization for both the
patenting process and the transfer of design from prototype to product
(plus the marketing that most of these firms believe is needed, etc
etc). This model will be somewhat pervasive as distributed
manufacturing emerges. There could even likely be a bubble emerging
around more traditional firms "sourcing" emerging garage
manufacturers.  These companies see each other doing this, and see the
short term advantage, and are already starting to tap into what they
see as a shortcut resource. Yet, ultimately,  since it requires so
many resources, it will collapse or diminish.

So, flexible fabrication needs more than people designing and creating
technologies. It needs people doing some form of market research,
people who are willing to connect technologies with needs, etc. Flex
fab needs a new type of facilitator. My opinion is that something that
resembles the Agile Software Development school of thinking is what
will emerge to both be the most effective for small scale distributed
manufacturing, and best take advantage and maximize the value of
adaptable designs and open source IP
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agile_software_development  this method
is iterative and end-user driven




On Thu, Oct 22, 2009 at 12:36 AM, Kevin Carson
<free.market.anticapitalist at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 10/21/09, Stan Rhodes <stanleyrhodes at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> 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.
>
> I just meant that the orginal debate at Ponoko (or was it Make?) blog
> strikes me as moot, considering that patents probably aren't worth the
> cost for a garage manufacturer who doesn't produce in large enough
> batches to amortize the cost.
>
> One reason garage manufacturers are likely to eat the lunch of
> old-line mass production industry is their extremely low capital
> outlay requirements, which mean they can afford to switch between
> small batches on a JIT basis, and the product lines that aren't
> popular aren't the source of any fixed costs (like capital outlay for
> patenting) that have to be serviced.
>
> --
> 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
>



-- 
-- 
Sam Rose
Social Synergy
Tel:+1(517) 639-1552
Cel: +1-(517)-974-6451
skype: samuelrose
email: samuel.rose at gmail.com
http://socialsynergyweb.com
http://socialsynergyweb.org/culturing
http://flowsbook.panarchy.com/
http://socialmediaclassroom.com
http://localfoodsystems.org
http://notanemployee.net
http://communitywiki.org

"The universe is not required to be in perfect harmony with human
ambition." - Carl Sagan