From: Sasha Chislenko (sasha1@netcom.com)
Date: Thu Dec 23 1999 - 19:53:21 MST
I like the idea of publishing as an alternative to patents.
It doesn't protect your rights, but it at least guarantees equal
footing with others - even more, as you get known as the
original innovator, and people believe that you may have more
techniques that are not published. I find this to be very
relevant in my work with recommendation systems, where all
patentable things, like "using the plurality of other users'
opinions to recommend content to the user" just name the area,
while your ability to deliver working scalable systems depends
on your experience in design, and trade secrets.
In many cases, this may be not true, and the publication actually
reveals crucial design tips. Now, what if you publish something
in a limited edition, or create a system incorporating the technology
and make sure you'll be able to prove later its status as "prior art"?
That would give you protection from other people's patents later
(though not a monopoly guaranteed by your own patent), while not
disclosing anything too early.
For information technology, the "prior art" can be deposited in some
date-stamped storage in encrypted form. That used to be common
practice for discovery formulas in good old times, as I understand,
such as discovery of Saturn's rings, etc.
There are probably other similar ways of non-violent and non-participant
resistance to the patent system.
None of this though gives companies incentives *not to take part* in
the patent system (except suggesting alternatives and making patents
still more questionable as their defensibility decreases).
As patents give protection to a company that filed it, apparently at
the expense of competitors and consumers, a market solution to the
problem would be provided by the competitors and consumers giving
the inventor comparable or greater benefits for not patenting the
technology. There may be many possible ways to do this. One - if
the consumers were as interested in maintaining healthy social
environment - would be putting signs on products "made by the original
inventor of unpatented technology", or "all inventors have been
compensated", along with the popular signs indicating that a given
brand of soap or chicken was not tested on animals.
I would expect that the well-funded Idea Bank or the UN Office of
Socially Useful Inventions would be collecting and promoting these
methods (on some planet ;-) )
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Sasha Chislenko <http://www.lucifer.com/~sasha/home.html>
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