RE: Against Intellectual Monopoly - Chapter 1
The concept of the patent system is sound - if you took the time and effort to invent something, you should have the opportunity to profit from it.
This is to stop people stealing someone's idea and selling it as their own while the inventor basically gets shafted.
As with so many things, it's good on paper, not so good when you add people into the mix. It is now a system that is abused and misused to control money and power.
It is a lawyer's fantasy land - free money.
What would have happened if instead of Watt and his 'competitors' being protectionist, they were collaborative?
You could still own the patents and the rights to the technology, but not hoard them.
I think it is less that the patent system is wrong, or broken. It's more that people are broken - greed has taken hold and it trumps common sense and collaborative work.
Fix that, allow the sharing of technology, voluntarily, while still allowing the inventor's to retain ownership for their creativity, and then you have a potential for some seriously good things to happen.
A system is broken if it doesn't account for real people problems. Read the book and you will see that the very concept of ip is flawed, not just the implementation.
You can't own ideas. The idea of "intellectual property" necessitates the violation of real property rights in scarce physical goods. If I build a gizmo, but someone else says, "You can't do that because the idea is mine," my real property rights have been violated.
If I write a book, compose a song, what's to stop you from taking that and making money off it?
If you build a gizmo you have the right to sell it or not. If someone comes and takes your gizmo without your permission and sells it, that's theft. You would be upset about that.
Even worse - if you made a gizmo and it was the best gizmo. this is the gizmo that is finally going to lift your family out of poverty. You are finally going to be able to live the life you want to live. you show it to your neighbour, full of pride that you will finally succeed.
Two days later your neighbour starts a company manufacturing and selling your gizmo. He makes a bundle of money. You make none. You missed the market. Yours is not the 'original' gizmo so no-one wants your gizmo.
The argument that you can't own ideas is interesting. 'Ideas' is a bit broad and a bit mis-leading I think. While the patent system is certainly misused to lock concepts and ideas down for future profit, when I talk about intellectual property, i'm talking about things like writing, music, art, invention - things that are made via hard work, talent, insight.
The use of the patent system to protect the inventor / artist and allow them the time to profit from their efforts, I think is appropriate.
The use of the patent system for investment, protectionism and speculation, is wholly inappropriate. This is what is stifling innovation and preventing cool things from happening.
The difference between our views is this:
My view is that I get to decide who uses my invention and what that use is worth to me.
Your view is you get to use my invention for free and I have no say in the matter.
As a creative person, you can see why I prefer my view ;-)
Nothing. And that's a good thing.
Yes, because depriving me of real scarce property is theft. Copying is not theft. Value is subjective, and cannot be considered an inherent attribute of any object.
This doesn't happen. Like, ever. Even if it did, no real harm has been done. If he can reverse-engineer the gizmo and manufacture it over such a short time span, that's HIS PROPERTY and HIS GENIUS.
Opinion is not argument. The sales pitch justifying wrongdoing is not an argument. The fact is, the patent system enriches the corporate fat cats and has been designed for that purpose from the beginning. It bankrupts the small players who try to use it, and bankrupts the innovators who can't lawyer p to protect themselves from fraudulent or abusive IP claims.
Well, you have. You can make profits perfectly fine without any patents. If you invent something, you are first on the market and you have a big advantage.
Most of the ideas are not really original. A lot of people will come up with the same idea. It's really unfair to give a monopoly right to use the idea on the markets only for one of them.
That sounds reasonable - except when you look at who is doing a bunch of innovation (in my country). In many cases this is done in a garage with the inventor putting in countless hours and their own money into it.
A large corporate has the funds, means and market to take their idea and get it built tomorrow. In which case the inventor gets nothing because they don't have the ability to get their product to market as easily.
What you end up with is the corporations strip mining inventors, leaving them with no opportunity to profit from their innovation, time effort, insight.
This leads to two options
This completely stifles collaboration.
I go back to my previous statement that this has become about protectionism and greed, instead of a way of ensuring that those who invent something have a change to profit fro their efforts.
If I hold the patent on something - blockchain technology for example. That doesn't stop you from using that technology, or deriving from it.
You can come and ask me if you can use it and we can sort out a deal that allows you to do that. And / or you can look at how that works, gain insights of your own, leapfrog my development cycle and create something far in advance of where I am.
The problem is the mindset of Mine! You can't have it!