Two points against Intellectual property laws

[BCPVP]

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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.

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They may not have rolled dice, but they might as well have. Again, can you objectively say that 19 years is too short and 20 too long? Of course not.

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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.

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I think he's starting to catch on... [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img] Stick around.

[kniper]

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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.

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no, cause he can get a better price for selling that invention if he has a patent. and with a patent, inventor can startup his own business and with venture capital or w/e he can distribute himself or license. Without patent, an invention's success would be the head start the inventor gets. Meaning that he has to sell the invention for the value in the "head start" the distributor would get. I think that would actually leave competition for this kind of stuff in the hands of few, since only the large distribution conglomerates could compete well enough.

[BCPVP]

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no, cause he can get a better price for selling that invention if he has a patent.

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Obviously. That doesn't tell us much about whether the this situation is justified.

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and with a patent, inventor can startup his own business and with venture capital or w/e he can distribute himself or license.

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He can try to do this without patents as well. Whether he succeeds or not is a different matter. I don't think the ends justify the means.

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Without patent, an invention's success would be the head start the inventor gets. Meaning that he has to sell the invention for the value in the "head start" the distributor would get. I think that would actually leave competition for this kind of stuff in the hands of few, since only the large distribution conglomerates could compete well enough.

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Again, not particularly concerning. There's no objective measurement for what an inventer "should" be able to sell his invention for.

[kniper]

all your responses are very dire! Dont care about him getting a reasonable price, know there is less likelihood for his venture capital startup, not concerned that power over inventions would remain the hands of large conglomerates who would only be paying for the "head start." so.... then why should our little inventor have invented? looks like there isnt a whole of incentive for him to do so. guess this brings us back to the key question here.

im done arguing this, obv you think the artificial rights of patents are not worth it for whatever reason, fine. just a final point: 20th century saw the greatest breakthroughs in technology ever seen by a long shot. patents were in full effect.

[kniper]

also, look to the technological breakthroughs of countries that didnt have strong patent regimes during this period. Only support i think you have there is russia and its space technology. but i think its a weak support because it was obv a government project with political/military incentive, quite different from patent system.

[BCPVP]

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all your responses are very dire!

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I'm sure they may sound that way to someone who's never heard such things questioned.

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so.... then why should our little inventor have invented? looks like there isnt a whole of incentive for him to do so. guess this brings us back to the key question here.

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Yeah, like when I said that we've been inventing things since the beginning. And there weren't any patents. Inventors invent for all kinds of reasons.

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im done arguing this, obv you think the artificial rights of patents are not worth it for whatever reason, fine. just a final point: 20th century saw the greatest breakthroughs in technology ever seen by a long shot. patents were in full effect.

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Cum hoc ergo propter hoc, ftw!

[Borodog]

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I dont think the amount of time allocated to patents is completely arbitrary. I think it was perceived as a good amount of time for the inventor to receive a return on his invention.

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Perceived by whom? Using what objective criteria? It is emphatically arbitrary, in the most literal sense of the word.

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Referring to someone creating the wheel is wholly different from someone pouring in hundreds of millions into drug research.

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I agree. A patent on the wheel would be vastly more valuable.

[kniper]

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I'm sure they may sound that way to someone who's never heard such things questioned.

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i question this stuff all the time. i have written papers on the functional/expression dichotomy and how computer programs have been using copyright terms as defacto patent rights by requiring non-reverse engineering clauses in their EULAs. i have a very tough time with business method patents, and think they should be abolished, and i think the supreme court is going to do that once they get the right case.

the bottom line is you just say "no, im not worried," but you cant seem to come up with a single example in recent history that would suggest your system would be best. yes we have been inventing forever, but your only explanation for the incentive lies in the head start an inventor would have. the vast majority of technological innovations have occurred in the last 200 years when patent has been present in contemporary modern societies. applying the inventive history of our ancient ancestors is hardly support a change in our modern legal regime and modern economy.

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Yeah, like when I said that we've been inventing things since the beginning. And there weren't any patents. Inventors invent for all kinds of reasons.

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yup. so im gonna poor hundreds of millions into a revolutionary drug just cause i feel like it. who cares that it will get ripped off in 2 months!

But yeah, simplicity ftw! gg

[Borodog]

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I'm sure they may sound that way to someone who's never heard such things questioned.

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i question this stuff all the time. i have written papers on the functional/expression dichotomy and how computer programs have been using copyright terms as defacto patent rights by requiring non-reverse engineering clauses in their EULAs. i have a very tough time with business method patents, and think they should be abolished, and i think the supreme court is going to do that once they get the right case.

the bottom line is you just say "no, im not worried," but you cant seem to come up with a single example in recent history that would suggest your system would be best. yes we have been inventing forever, but your only explanation for the incentive lies in the head start an inventor would have. the vast majority of technological innovations have occurred in the last 200 years when patent has been present in contemporary modern societies. applying the inventive history of our ancient ancestors is hardly support a change in our modern legal regime and modern economy.

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You might as well attribute it to the decline in Caribbean pirates. The vast majority of innovations in history would have occured in the last X years with or without patents, because innovations build upon each other over time. The same statement was true before the advent of patents, quite obviously. The vast majority of innovations will always have occured in the last X years. Duh.

All you are doing is looking at one set of incentives that point in one direction and conveniently ignoring another set of incentives that point in the opposite direction, and declaring yourself the winner.

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Yeah, like when I said that we've been inventing things since the beginning. And there weren't any patents. Inventors invent for all kinds of reasons.

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yup. so im gonna poor hundreds of millions into a revolutionary drug just cause i feel like it. who cares that it will get ripped off in 2 months!

But yeah, simplicity ftw! gg

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Guess what. If the FDA isn't around to make you jump through hundred million dollar hoops for 15 years to get a drug to market, it doesn't cost that much or take that long. In fact it would almost certainly be a tiny fraction of the cost. You are ignoring other business models that could work perfectly well in the absence of patent protection, like privately funded charitable research, either because you personally cannot think of any (argumentum ad ignorantium), or because you simply don't want to concede that you might be wrong.

[BCPVP]

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i have written papers on the functional/expression dichotomy and how computer programs have been using copyright terms as defacto patent rights by requiring non-reverse engineering clauses in their EULAs.

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I have no problem with a company doing that. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

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the bottom line is you just say "no, im not worried," but you cant seem to come up with a single example in recent history that would suggest your system would be best.

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You'll find a lot of ideas for "my" system haven't been tried to their full extent. This has little bearing on whether patents are justified.

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yes we have been inventing forever, but your only explanation for the incentive lies in the head start an inventor would have.

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It may shock you to learn that some people invent things as a hobby and some people invent things to help them do something better. It may even be someone's job to invent something (R&D researcher).

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so im gonna poor hundreds of millions into a revolutionary drug just cause i feel like it.

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This raises another point about why such research is so expensive. Government interference certainly has something to do with that.

And I thought we were talking about how the small inventor would get squeezed out? Where'd these millions come from?

Finally, it may not pay for another company to release the exact same drug as the one you invented. Companies like to differentiate their products. But if they do, then we have competition and the better producer will win. That's a good thing.