You only reinforced my point. Thanks though.

If you read my comment it’s clear I’m not one of the “everything should be free” mob. Rather that the current system does not protect ideas and inventors but companies with money to pay to be protected. It also does not promote innovation not has it endeared the companies into behaving well or even being open to ideas.

Your examples of cars and guns are good. More clear examples would be:

Mercedes who patent safety technologies they invent in such a way that they can be used by anyone but are prevented from being locked up in the control of anyone. I understand their liceensing costs are minimal to promote safety in cars. This is a type of anti-patent

And the Nobel Peace Prize founder who used the weatlth gained from his invention of dynamite to promote peace (or more recently just used promote mates) and various positive sciences.

I personally draw an observation between laws and legalized bribes. Bribes protect position, laws (arguably) protect people and things. This may raise protest, but just because in India the local heavy might be honest in framing his request to let you run a cafe whereas the local heavy in New York might fluff about some papers excusing his right to be heavy and prevent you from running a cafe without paying him doesn’t make them different.

Simplistic as it sounds and not the whole of my thoughts on the subject nor the only option nor an option that would improve the injesting of ideas by companies or allow ideas to spread without serious backing (few qualifiers to avoid the -pick apart- people) but simple none the less is..

If patent LAW was about protecting ideas and the rights of the innovator then as an innovator with an idea you would walk in, the patent office would assist you and help you defend your idea using the laws at it’s disposal.

That is opposed to how it really works. Which is pay someone to make your application to pay us for the right to pay someone else to defend you and oops over in that other country, nah sorry you have to pay someone else to write your application to pay another mob for the right to pay someone to defend you. Then of course f you are kinda broke after that or even if someone simply has more money than you there is no defense anyway and most likely if you dare try then you’ll get snuffed out (monetarially), lose your house and have your patent bought up by the offending party for a few dollars to your own lawyer to pay off your owings to them due to newly found bankruptcy for trying to defend your idea.

That’s not about ideas and innovation. It’s about bribes and who has the most money.

To further eradicate the -put down- commentors. I’ve not experienced that. Only observed it via our glorious newswire for decades.

I wasn’t knocking down your write, extending on it’s consequences rather.

As for an example, you gave your own. Apple is a garage. Fluff starting door to door. Many barriers to entry exist now but not then.

Could you make a revolutionary development to the personal computer in your garage and then get to the next level by selling kits and boxes round local user groups and shops. Unlikely, building the 6 layer main board and the licensing costs to intel to use their chips and reference designs would probably end that long before the insignificance of selling 1000 computers ever did. Alternatively you could outsource the build (while still reeling from the licensing fees) to China, never see a product until some KIRF appears on engadget, unsueable due to China’s IP laws and the unaffordablity of international patents.

As for “setup”, while not conspirital as such there is a big gap between back group discussions which make policy and the spin doctored public policy that gets delivered as palatable to the public.

That said, i’d be pretty sure with no research that patent laws were not cried out for by two fellas down the road but some larger cash lobby powered fellas who owned a few roads. It’s only reasonable (vs dodgy underhanded)

alternatives? A longer story not suitable for this thread

“So how would you set up patent law? Or would you just get rid of it so that any big corporation could rip off the small inventor as soon as they got some traction? Let us know.”

The difficulty in changing patent law is in the amount of money that exists because of the current situation. I think the majority of patents (I have no source, only what I seem to recall hearing, but no idea) are issued to large companies and these patents are used to compete for dollars from the consumers of those products it makes. Technology is getting more and more complicated that small inventors in the proverbial garage are less common or the types of invention they create are smaller in scale. Of course saying that will only have someone come along and create the next big thing that people can point to as an example.

I don’t think there is much that can be done about patents, other than tweaks to the system. This might be extending or shortening a patent lifetime, ease/difficulty in obtaining a patent, types of patents available, etc.

Copyrights have been extended multiple times to allow big media to prevent others from using text, audio and pictures in some format to keep feeding the big media engine. As those copyrights are about to expire, it seems the politicians go back to redo the copyright law to allow them to continue peddling the old media for a while longer.

Big money will do what is required to protect itself. If one has enough money, they can use a patent/technology to implement or improve their product and worry about the costs later when they lose in court. Microsoft seems to have gone this route a lot, as they seem to have lost a LOT of lawsuits over their inclusion/misappropriation of technology.

So, no ideas on how to change the patent system and I doubt you will get a lot of intelligent thought on it from most people. Those who complain about the current system are those who have lost a patent battle, have to pay a fee for use of someones technology or are unable to get some technology since it is patented and they don’t use a particular vendor who has the technology. Those who approve of the current system have patents to enforce either for their own use or to license to others or are involved with them or in the practice of law or the enforcement of patents. Those who want small tweaks are those who have something that is close to the line of the law and want the line moved just a bit so that they benefit from the change.

It boils down to this. Is an idea worth money? I think it is, and the issue becomes who will profit from that idea and by how much?

The purpose of a patent is to encourage innovation by rewarding the inventor with an exclusive period of time to either use the patent for their own production, giving advantage to that product over competitors, to license the patent to one or more others to include it in their products so that their products are improved or for any other reason that the inventor and/or patent owner so chooses. This is the basis of a patent and as far as I am aware (I am not a lawyer, nor involved in patents) has been so from whenever patents were first conceived. The only difference then from now might be the length of time a patent is valid for and that some things that might not be patentable before might be patentable now and vice-versa.

The difference between now and then is that patents now are BIG BU$INE$$ and worth a lot of money. Microsoft, RIM and other companies have paid out big dollars for technology that was patented by others that they used without licensing it. Nokia, MPEG-LA and others have patents that they license to others for standards to be maintained while others will license their technology on an exclusive or non-exclusive basis simply to increase their revenue. Xerox PARC was set up to develop future (10 years) forward-looking technology, some of which they licensed, some they used in their own products and some they didn’t think was worthwhile that took on a life of its own after it left PARC. Some companies cross-license their patents to make better products, and as someone commented on another story on RDM, the auto industries in the first half of the 1900’s put their automotive patents into a pool to allow other auto manufacturers to use all the various patents to improve all automobiles.

I remember reading or hearing about the person who invented cartridges for guns, who patented the idea. He was a monk/priest who didn’t like killing of people and refused to allow the military to use his patent, but did allow hunters to use his patent for game hunting for food. The military waited until the patent expired before they were able to use the modern bullet for warfare. No idea how true this is and I’m too busy and lazy to search for it on the net.

I think some people want to have ALL of the technology that gets invented available to them from anyone and everyone and to let price and maybe quality be the sole factors in selling their products. They view an idea as something that once conceived should be available for use by anyone without any restrictions. That someone can lock up some piece of technology that others can’t use seems illogical for those who want to consume technology.

For those who are in business though, competition is such that any and every advantage is to be used to make one’s company more prosperous than the others. If this means better customer service, a better product, a higher quality fit and finish, a cheaper price or exclusivity of features, then the business will use whatever tools are available to them. Patents, copyrights, trademarks, servicemarks and other LEGAL protections are simply tools that a business can use against its competitors. It doesn’t matter that the average joe or jane consumer wants all products to be identical in features, or cost or whatever.

Apple in this case will use its patents to impede HTC and anyone else who might be treading on Apple’s patents to cease and desist doing so. It is to Apple’s benefit to do so and Apple will do what is in Apple’s best interest. To not do so, some shareholder could sue the company and/or management because they didn’t use due care, diligence or whatever the legal wording is, to maximize the companies profits or value.

cy, my comment was about why IP law was set up and how it’s supposed to work. That there are unintended consequences which distort those intentions, I have no doubt. I take issue with your point that they were *set up* (ie their intent was) to protect people with money. Can you cite some evidence?

I don’t have enough business background to know if your statement “There was a time when having the idea and setting out to make it happen was enough” is accurate to that extent that you’re saying there used to be a level playing field and today there isn’t. It strikes me as nostalgic and doesn’t ring true to me any more than the great American myth that anyone could come to America and with hard work and they could rise in wealth and class… That some could and did I have no doubt. That there once was a level playing field (sorry about the cliche, I’m only on my first coffee) and today that’s been ruined by patent law, to me, sounds like an idealised view of the past. But that’s just my intuition and perhaps your background gives you greater knowledge on this.

In any case I wasn’t trying to defend patent law but explain it. It happens to be the law at the moment. Apple is using it. I engage in this discussion because of my personal belief that among the universe of existing businesses Apple is among the most innovative. That 2 young guys in a garage with a vision (the computer for the rest of us) set up a business in 1976 and today that business is the 4th largest corporation in America and growing rapidly does suggest that it’s not totally impossible for the small guy to make it a big success. Sergey and Larry are a more recent version of this.

So how would you set up patent law? Or would you just get rid of it so that any big corporation could rip off the small inventor as soon as they got some traction? Let us know.

How would you have touched a nerve (I believe that’s what you were trying to say)?

In trying to appear intelligent and put people down (which is all you have done thus far to other people in this thread–nothing of substance has come from you) you only ended playing yourself, something I was only to happy to point out, paying you back in your very own coin.

Stop plagiarizing other peoples posts, put your dictionary down, get off your high-horse and contribute something constructive that is relevant to the topic. And if you have nothing to contribute that is on-topic then do not deride those who do, lest you end up putting your foot in your mouth again.

Persist if you will, but this schoolyard dialogue with you is finished. You played yourself silly and I’m back on-topic.

:-)

Touched you on a tender spot?

Cheers
___
* “… Hydra, that huge snake with nine heads, one of which could not be hurt by any weapon, and the others would grow again as first as they were cut off. Accompanied by his nephew Jolaus, the hero set out for Lerna in a swift chariot, and soon found the wooded hill where the Hydra kept itself hidden. Leaving his nephew beside the horses, with fiery arrows he fetched the creature from out of its hole, to swoop upon him, hissing and spitting from all its heads, that waved like branches in a storm. Undismayed, Hercules met its onset and mowed down the twisting heads one by one, yet as he cut them off two grew up in place of one, while it twined its loathsome body round his limbs and almost stifled him with its foul breath. He was then to call for the help of Jolaus, who ran up with a torch; then as Hercules shore off the bristling heads, his nephew seared each bleeding wound, so that they could not grow again. At last the raging Hydra was left with that one head no iron could wound; but he crushed it with his club, and tore it off and buried it in the ground under a heavy rock. In its poisonous blood the conqueror dipped his arrows, to make the hurt from them henceforth incurable.” (Greek Myths)