Two points against Intellectual property laws

[kniper]

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I said its not completely arbitrary. I think that they chose a bright-line approach (i.e. 20 yrs as opposed to a more calculated term for every kind of invention or whatever) because of the ease of administrability.

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Is 19 years objectively too short? Is 21 years objectively too long?

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no, but 15 might be, 25 might be too long. also consider that sometimes you wont get a patent right for 2 years after filings, and that might be a quick turn around. So the filing period itself is arbitrary. the patent system isnt perfect, but it tries under the circumstances.

are you seriously going to quibble over a few years? and even if you say its "arbitrary," is it unreasonably arbitrary? probably not.

[pvn]

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Its too easy for competitors to jump in and compete.

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Yeah, that pesky competition. What a horrible concept.

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Also, there are other aspects of patents that is useful.

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Of course they are useful... to the holders. You completely ignore the impact on everyone else.

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Without patents, companies would surely try very hard to keep their technologies as a trade secret so competitors cant free ride on their R&D.

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You mean, they'd have to internalize their costs, instead of free riding on the taxpayer.

[BCPVP]

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People are going to be reluctant to invest in a company who's hold on an invention will only last a few months. Its too easy for competitors to jump in and compete.

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It's is not as easy as you're making it out to be. Being first to the market is a clear advantage.

And in any case, competition is good.

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Also, there are other aspects of patents that is useful. Without patents, companies would surely try very hard to keep their technologies as a trade secret so competitors cant free ride on their R&D.

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I'm not really concerned about this.

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Patent is essentially an exchange of the intricacies and know-how of an invention for a grant of monopoly over the invention. Patents help facilitate the free flow of information, which means more ideas, more inventions, further steps in technology, etc

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Not necessarily. As Borodog already mentioned, patents allow the patent holder to rest on his laurels, which inhibits innovation. In fact, someone could patent something and do nothing with it, thus "legally" preventing the rest of society from making use of it for some period of time.

[kniper]

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I have a sense that I am entitled to unlimited hookers and blow at your expense.

A sense of entitlement is not an entitlement.

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ummmm, how is this even a response? what did you give up for your entitlement to hookers and blow, and when did it become my expense? i think you are missing the point of IP rights in the first place. there is no law in the universe that says when someone invests in something they get entitled to it. so IP laws are created to make that entitlement, because we feel morally/economically inclined to reward that kind of investment.
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I dont think you understand the huge amount of investment that goes into some of these inventions.



I have a pretty good idea.


[/ QUOTE ] ok. then explain why that kind of investment shouldnt be rewarded. thanks

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No one would invest in doing such R&D if it could be copied a month later and sold for like 1/2 the price.



What difference does this make?

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I mean, if you can't see the difference this makes, I really dont know what to say. It should be pretty obvious that if I am going to invest 500m into a new drug, and the market will only sustain it at x% mark up, Im going to be pretty sh** out of luck when a competitor copies it, and sells it for (x/2)% above cost. All the competitor has to do is undercut me, he doesnt have to worry about loans or investments that went into R&D. So i would say that makes a pretty big difference.

And seriously, read the John Locke, im sure you could find some of his stuff on wiki under "property." Interesting way to look at property. While it covers things ideas like land property or wahtever, u can see how it would apply to IP.

[BCPVP]

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I said its not completely arbitrary. I think that they chose a bright-line approach (i.e. 20 yrs as opposed to a more calculated term for every kind of invention or whatever) because of the ease of administrability.

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Is 19 years objectively too short? Is 21 years objectively too long?

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no, but 15 might be, 25 might be too long. also consider that sometimes you wont get a patent right for 2 years after filings, and that might be a quick turn around. So the filing period itself is arbitrary. the patent system isnt perfect, but it tries under the circumstances.

are you seriously going to quibble over a few years? and even if you say its "arbitrary," is it unreasonably arbitrary? probably not.

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My point was that there is no objective way to tell how long is too long and how short is too short. It is completely arbitrary, regardless of how feel about it.

[kniper]

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People are going to be reluctant to invest in a company who's hold on an invention will only last a few months. Its too easy for competitors to jump in and compete.

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It's is not as easy as you're making it out to be. Being first to the market is a clear advantage.

And in any case, competition is good.

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Also, there are other aspects of patents that is useful. Without patents, companies would surely try very hard to keep their technologies as a trade secret so competitors cant free ride on their R&D.

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I'm not really concerned about this.

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Patent is essentially an exchange of the intricacies and know-how of an invention for a grant of monopoly over the invention. Patents help facilitate the free flow of information, which means more ideas, more inventions, further steps in technology, etc

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Not necessarily. As Borodog already mentioned, patents allow the patent holder to rest on his laurels, which inhibits innovation. In fact, someone could patent something and do nothing with it, thus "legally" preventing the rest of society from making use of it for some period of time.

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Being first to market is big advantage, true. It may be enough for big companies. What of the small guy? How does he create a distribution scheme to get his product out there? As soon as a big company saw it, it would be swept up with their version, marketed everywhere, done at low cost, and the poor fool would be out of the market in no time. Patent thus creates a system that favors input into the invention.

Im not saying you should be concerned about trade secrets. Im saying that patent helps facilitate free flow of technological information.

I dont think its accurate to say that patent lets someone sit on their invention. Patent is done country by country. There are compulsory licenses for those kind of things that countries do in various situations. Also, i would guess that its not very economically efficient to spend all that $$ securing a patent in a country and not supply a genuine demand for it. While it may happen, i would be skeptical on how often that happens

thats not to say there arent problems with patents. kniper hates patent trolls, business method patents, w/e

[kniper]

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My point was that there is no objective way to tell how long is too long and how short is too short. It is completely arbitrary, regardless of how feel about it.

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ok, saying completely arbitrary is not accurate. they didnt roll 5 dice and pick that number. While 20 might be too much or too little for any given invention, the bright line rule serves the purpose of simplicity.

your argument suggests that we should do away with the tax code because choosing x dollars/yr as a certain tax bracket is arbitrary, and y% is arbitrary, and 4k personal income tax credit is arbitrary. Why not 5k personal income tax credit? Some people live in more expensive housing regions, some in cheaper. NOT FAIR!!!!11111!!!!!

I mean, comon. bickering about the term of a patent that is not objectively unreasonable gets us nowhere

[kniper]

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Its too easy for competitors to jump in and compete.

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Yeah, that pesky competition. What a horrible concept.



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stop the one liners plz. you are taking my statements out of context. key word here is freeriding. Its about letting others compete by freeriding on your R&D

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Also, there are other aspects of patents that is useful.

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Of course they are useful... to the holders. You completely ignore the impact on everyone else.


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again, taken out of context. Giving up the intricacies of your invention is not useful to the inventor. obv giving a monopoly is going to impact others, but then again what if the invention was never created? Patent tries to have strict requirements so that nothing obvious can be patented.
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Without patents, companies would surely try very hard to keep their technologies as a trade secret so competitors cant free ride on their R&D.

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You mean, they'd have to internalize their costs, instead of free riding on the taxpayer.

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I dont understand this. who is free riding on the taxpayers? you realize that the patent system pays for itself and then some right? Congress actually siphons off money from the patent office for other costs. What does this have to do with taxpayers? Do you mean consumers maybe??

[BCPVP]

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What of the small guy? How does he create a distribution scheme to get his product out there?

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He may have to either search for VC's or other investors and try and develop the whole distribution himself or try and find a large enough company and sell his plans there. So basically the same thing he has to do now.

[pvn]

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I have a sense that I am entitled to unlimited hookers and blow at your expense.

A sense of entitlement is not an entitlement.

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ummmm, how is this even a response?

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I asked if there was an entitlement created by the size of the investment, you said there is a "sense" of entitlement. What are you confused about?

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what did you give up for your entitlement to hookers and blow, and when did it become my expense?

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What difference does that make? I have a sense.

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i think you are missing the point of IP rights in the first place. there is no law in the universe that says when someone invests in something they get entitled to it. so IP laws are created to make that entitlement, because we feel morally/economically inclined to reward that kind of investment.

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We who? If YOU want to reward that investment, go right ahead. Your desire to reward someone doesn't give you any legitimate authority to restrict *my* activities.
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I dont think you understand the huge amount of investment that goes into some of these inventions.



I have a pretty good idea.


[/ QUOTE ] ok. then explain why that kind of investment shouldnt be rewarded. thanks

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You're on the cusp of arguing the Labor Theory of Value. Who cares what the investment is? The results are either valuable to me or they are not, *regardless* of the size of the investment.

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No one would invest in doing such R&D if it could be copied a month later and sold for like 1/2 the price.



What difference does this make?

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I mean, if you can't see the difference this makes, I really dont know what to say. It should be pretty obvious that if I am going to invest 500m into a new drug, and the market will only sustain it at x% mark up, Im going to be pretty sh** out of luck when a competitor copies it, and sells it for (x/2)% above cost.

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And that's my problem because?

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All the competitor has to do is undercut me, he doesnt have to worry about loans or investments that went into R&D. So i would say that makes a pretty big difference.

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Yeah. It's good for me, bad for you. So what?

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And seriously, read the John Locke, im sure you could find some of his stuff on wiki under "property." Interesting way to look at property. While it covers things ideas like land property or wahtever, u can see how it would apply to IP.

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I've read it. I don't see how it applies to IP, since IP isn't scarce. But we've been over that and over that.