the goal of the Constitution is to protect the rights of inventors and authors. The Founder's also correctly believed that this benefit would occur, but that is not the justification. If it was, then copyrights on trashy romance novels or mindless thrillers would be invalid.

"If I pause at every step of the way to check if a protocol or algorithm or data structure or object model I create steps on someone else's patent, I'd be out of a job. My customers would baulk at the extra charges they're paying to cover the license fees, and move to another provider who doesn't respect patents." this is a canard. Your company does market research. They check title before they break land. There is no objective macro-economic evidence for your point of view. Patent searches require a little time and not much money, people in business understand due diligence. If they purposely avoid it, well...

" But we still enjoy a blistering pace of innovation. " Once again a bald statement with no empirical evidence. The US on several innovation indices has fallen precipitously over the last decade. The number of new businesses in the US does not keep up with attrition rate. The amount of venture capital in startups gone down significantly over the last decade. The number of companies going public has dropped significantly. Real per capita income is flat to declining. This is all overwhelming evidence that we are not thriving technologically.

We understand what our software clients need and we protect their inventions. We absolutely care about what happens when we push the green button on a phone. But you have openly admitted that you don't care about others' property rights because you don't have "time."

would definitely take the fun out of your work. This very problem was what made me give up making medical devices- once the FDA took over regulating those items, it became so onerous dealing with agents who didnt know what they were talking about, but who could stop you for months at a time (at one point it took 18 months to get "permission" to sell the product to willing customers. I "shrugged" and went into producing unregulated things. Who knows if I might have come up with some great life-saving medical device. That will be left to the people who haven't yet "shrugged"

"You are anti-patent"?
I'm worried for someone who would jump to that conclusion, based on me challenging the validity of *some* kinds of patent. The original aim of patents, as envisioned in the Constitution, is to encourage the sharing of knowledge into the public domain, hence the wording "limited times". This is as opposed to other forms of IP protection such as trade secrets, from which only the producers possessing them, and their customers, benefited.

"Are you Austrian or anarcho?"
I'm one of thousands you rely on when you hit the green button on your smartphone to telephone a friend or relative overseas, or send a photo to your child. I'm the one writing the software that navigates a baffling and exhausting minefield of complication and obstacles to ensure your call or message Simply Just Happens. The tap on the screen you take for granted? For me, and the code I write, it represents constant non-trivialities, constant occurrences of things not working as they should, and having to invent ways around them. My customers don't give a damn about the technical obstacles, and to be honest, they shouldn't. But for me, it's a war against time and an uphill climb. And in that environment, I just get my head down, my ass up, and engage my intellect to devise ways around. If I pause at every step of the way to check if a protocol or algorithm or data structure or object model I create steps on someone else's patent, I'd be out of a job. My customers would baulk at the extra charges they're paying to cover the license fees, and move to another provider who doesn't respect patents.
Look through all the precious Fortune 500 tech firms, and you'll find their engineers doing exactly the same thing.
If all telephony providers had 100% respect for patents, expect your phone minutes and data charges and handset costs to multiply by 10 or more.

I defy you to abstain from any use of technology which implicates any kind of IP infringement in its value chains. If you make and honour that commitment, you'll find yourself living a lot more simply. If not, you are contradicting your own principles, and annihilating the validity of your own position.

Apple, Google, Samsung, Microsoft - other companies, large and small - all infringing, all over the place. But we still enjoy a blistering pace of innovation.

Under the Bush Administration the head of the patent office (Jon Dudas), who was not a patent attorney and not technical, changed the law. He created another requirement that quality was rejecting patent applications. There were examiners running around at the time saying they had 100% quality because they had a 0% allowance rate. I discuss this in both my nonfiction book, The Decline and Fall of the American Entrepreneur, and it forms a big part of our fiction book, Pendulum of Justice.

I cannot speak for all patent attorneys, but having an irrational patent office was not good for my business and made my life miserable. I think this was true for all patent attorneys who worked with start-ups and individual inventors. Imagine having to spend every day arguing with a patent office with irrational rules - not fun and not profitable. If my clients could not get their patent issued it made it harder to raise capital that would lead to more research and inventions and therefore more patent work for me..

Interesting but we didnt file worldwide, as the patent systems in many other countries are more cumbersome and you have to file before you sell any product or have any idea your invention going to be a success. As I remember, you have a year here in the USA to let the product out before you have to file and not lose your opportunity.

I'll let Db address the patent work around deal. $50K (I assume you are simply talking about patent costs and not R &D totals). Did you file worldwide? because the amount is significantly higher than average. If we are talking costs-I would agree. Did you know that the PTO is the ONLY self-funding agency of the US govt. and the Treasury stole over 1 Billion from those fees inventors pay to fund other things-leading to long pendancy times etc. In fact, Paul Ryan, who supposedly is an AS fan, voted against an amendment to the AIA to fully fund the Patent Office.

see-it is mis statements like this which become exhausting to follow around and refute. The case was settled in AUGUST. the gag order was 45 DAYS. Carolla has been talking non-stop for the PR since OCTOBER. I did NOT say I followed the case DAILY. I said we had followed it closely and I said I did not know about the settlement. Guess why? we are out there putting out other fires. Two major Supreme Court cases and politics for two reasons. It is exhausting refuting either lies or mis information. While I'm correcting your comments, there are other major Patent law decisions and propaganda to chase down and refute with facts. I said from the beginning there are bad actors out there. In every industry, in our government. How bad? and to the cost of whom? and why weaken property rights if you have a few abusers? these are all complicated issues which experts are working on. stay tuned for YOUR politicians to pass MORE legislation about an area they are clueless in but believe the PR campaigns of anti-patent crowd. You still have not produced one shred of objective evidence that Carolla did not infringe Logan's patents

1. perhaps I am grouping the patent office and the patent attorneys together when they should be separated. point taken. the net result however is that its kind of a financial disaster for the small inventor. The last time I did a patent the cost was about $50k to see the whole process through, and several years before you found out of you were going to get anything for it.
2. Unfortunately, I can have it both ways I think. Working around a patent is an intellectual exercise which can make an existing expensive patent moot. Also, It is the fear of somehow being sued after the fact for patent infringement that inhibits other inventions. Practically speaking, my comments are that the process doesnt help lone inventors. Check out the intermittent winshield wiper patent (was made into a movie) fiasco.

For someone who states that you follow this case daily, I expected you would know that Carolla settled in March of 2014, with an agreement to not speak on it for 6 months.
Again, I agree wholeheartedly with almost every statement you have made on patent infringment. I will fight that battle side by side with you on every hill except the Personal Audio case and others like it. The problems in our economy surrounding IP Law are one of the main reasons we are losing leadership in a global technology economy. And we haven't even touched on the IP theft from China which has the practical blessing of the government there. I agree that patent infringment will cause not only the death of the small inventor, but also the death of small business, and existing businesses to move themselves to countries with stronger IP laws. I am willing to agree with you on all of that. I would simply ask you to acknowledge that there are people out there who take advantage of the patent system from the other side as well. The two arguments are not mutually exclusive.

1. it is NOT set up for the benefit of the patent attorneys. Imagine how the attorney feels when he cannot get a good invention through the process for his client because of the political pressure to not allow. We have had Examiners say that very thing to us. There is proof that the PTO has "buried" applications that the govt found sensitive to natl security interests and big corporations didn't want to see allowed. In the America Invents Act, there are at least 3 provisions which benefit one industry or company (that's right one company) from being sued for patent infringement. See Data Treasury.
2. Working around existing patents is completely legal. What is it you are really concerned about? that patents are weak or that they inhibit other inventions? we can discuss both arguments, but either you believe one or the other, it can't be both.

thank you for your concern. Prob best not to post email addresses.

You could still PM him. Producers can PM any member.

good thing I wrote it down first...lol

I've removed the email address from your comment. Better to not publicly post those. Better to do that in private messages. Thx.

ok. we'll take this private

I take it you are IN the patent system. I am on the other side really, as a lone inventor. At last count I got 26 patents over my career. My claims are not based on emotion, but I have seen the gross cost of patent attorneys firsthand, the requirement that you file for the patent even before you know that your product will make enough money to even pay for the patent process, and the ridiculous cost of defending your patent in the courts. The system is just broken, no matter how it was intended.

I think we have had very different experiences

Well, I am that small inventor, and I know that its pretty easy to get around a patent after the fact that is out there to be seen. The whole system is corrupt now, and set up for the benefit of the patent attorneys. The idea of protecting the product of ones mind is OK, but the way its done now just stifles true invention unless you have a LOT of money to throw at the system. In my experience, people who simply copy others work don't get very far anyway because they dont know the why's of why things were done a certain way.

I am talking about the practical nature of the patent process in this country. The process as practiced here actually is destructive to the patent process, as it inhibits investing in innovation. You may think you are free to make your invention that you thought of completely on your own, only to find out later that someone else has patented or in the secret process of patenting it. Once you can see an issued patent, then the race is on to get around it, which I say generally isnt hard. Look at Edison, he got lots of patents but it was AC power that essentially made his DC system obsolete anyway. I cant reconcile the idea that only the FIRST person to think of something should be the ONLY one to have his intellectual property rights protected. What can you offer to settle this contradiction that I am missing?

BUT, the way its done by our government isnt good for anyone except the crony capitalists. Try and invent something new nowadays and you live in fear of the patent trolls who have beaten you to the punch with the legal system and prevent you from taking advantage of YOUR OWN YOUR work. A house or a car is a specific physical object. The intellectual items can be separately figured out by multiple people completely independently, but only the FIRST one gets protection from the government. I am having trouble understanding why only ONE of these people gets property rights, and the rest of them are screwed out of the results of THEIR work.

You are discussing me, not the issue. That is ad hominem. It is a fallacy of irrelevance. If you are EVER talking about someone and not the issue at hand, you have gone down the path of logical irrelevance. Stick to the issue in the future.

It is not ad hominem to point out someone's complete lack of knowledge. You ignore what Rand says on the subject, you ignore the Constitution, you did not even read the attached article, you did not provide evidence and logic for your positions, What you did do was emote.

Do you see the obvious contradictions in your statements. You are against patents because inventors stop you from building things, but on the other hand they are very easy to get around. Which is it?

Sure, like Edison, Bell, and Tesla were patent trolls You have no idea what you talking about.

1) Is a patent a property right?
2) If it is a property right, can it be sold to others?
3) Can those others enforce that right?

Substitute a house or a car for an invention/patent and you will see the absurdity of your opinion.