Decontrol Intellectual Property to Create More Wealth
Fashion has trademarks: Tommy Hilfiger, Hollister, Nike, Vidal Sassoon, Chanel ... but patents hardly exist. Fashions are a thousand times more profitable than IP-protected markets: 3 orders of magnitude; trillions versus mere billions of dollars.
Here is a listing of GDP by industry. Scroll down the list, and know that every industry has intellectual property. But I'll be interested in the TED talk.
http://www.bea.gov/national/index.htm
You have to have property rights if you're ever going to succeed in any business. How much you choose to protect your IP rights is a business decision, where there are cases where it might make sense to protect them less. Same with your other property rights.
Ayn Rand was very supportive of strong intellectual property rights. IT is not about control nor is about the govt granting a monopoly.
"The government does not “grant” a patent or copyright, in the sense of a gift, privilege, or favor; the government merely secures it—i.e., the government certifies the origination of an idea and protects its owner’s exclusive right of use and disposal." AR, "Capitalism The Unknown Ideal."
Mike and I disagree strongly about these property rights.
As I understand it, we do have one fundamental disagreement, a metaphysical or ontological problem involving the consequences of independent discovery.
One consequence that I had not considered before but which I have entertained since arguing this with K is that once a thing is created as an entity under law - once Mickey Mouse exists - it never ceases to exist as property in perpetuity.
Currently, these rights expire, both for patents and copyrights. But nothing in the stars (metaphysical) demands this and in fact, actually contradicts it. The history of patents begins in Venice c. 1500. Venice would protect your monopoly for your lifetime, if after your lifetime, the idea became the "property" of the City at Large. Under US law that became 17 years or something, like prime numbers are magical perhaps. Why?
To be consistent you should own your ideas and be able to pass ownership on to whoever you wish, including your kids, or you should not call an idea property. How can you objectively limit ownership? Also, where do you draw the line on building an idea on top of someone else's? I really dislike gray areas.
""it should be yours until you trade it"-true. However, a right in a patent does not give you a right to sell the invention. This is very key. pay attention here. lol the right to the patent is not a right to sell the invention. Very black and white. Limiting ownership is one of those things that's negotiated under the law. It has changed many times over the years.
"Also, where do you draw the line on building an idea on top of someone else's?"
Every invention is a combination of known elements. You can not invent something from nothing. If my invention incorporates your invention, and the value is high, either you will buy my invention to enhance your own, or I will license your invention to use with mine. Let's say for me to license your invention (in order for my invention to make a product) is too much-I can't afford it. Well that sucks, my invention is now worthless! Not necessarily. IF the value is there, someone else may not even feel the pinch of that licese cost. You sell the right in the invention to him, he licenses the other invention and incorporates it with yours and now you are happy, he is happy, the other inventors are happy, the consumer gets new technology and so they are happy-and wealth is created.
This is sort of off topic. Did you know that the Patent Office is the only department of government that fully funds itself? Not a ponzy scheme like Medicare, but fees directly paid for services at the time the services are rendered. Congress has stolen over 1 billion dollars from the PTO over the last decade to pay for other things. IT is one BIG reason that applicants wait so long for their patent. Imagine if you waited 10 years to take title to your house.
If an invention is property - AND IT IS - then, it never ceased to be property. Not in 20 years or 2 million.
The government would act like a land office, registering the ownership deed. But land is finite and limited in occupation by the laws of physics. Ideas have no such limitation. So, independent invention and discovery must be allowed. But granted that, the property exists forever.
http://hallingblog.com/ayn-rand-on-intel...
(this is my husband's blog, State of Innovation)
Most recently, the US number is based on "HARMonization" with other countries.(set by Congress) I can't tell you that I think 20 years is the right number. For example, the laser did not become important until well after the patent limitation. How is fair is that others get to profit rather than the inventor? Objectivity in determination. Some technologies take longer for there to be a return to the inventor. There is no exact way to predetermine the length for each patent or for a whole classification of inventions.
Fundamentally, I do not believe inventors are being over-compensated. and in fact, economically, we grow faster when more people are inventing. They invent when there is a return! Very few inventors as wealthy as entertainers, politicians, business managers, etc.
Once you decide it's a limited term property right(which is true of all property rights), then setting the term to a fixed length is a good practical solution for others to be able to plan. I know now when I can start using the invention without taking a license. If set to someone's life, that is hard for others to base decisions on. (copyright length is pure power politics, I don't defend its length).
What I do with the land I inherit is my business, not yours. If I choose to leave it as is on the theory that it will gain in value on the "buy and hold" strategy that is up to me.
Applied to the corporation, it would mean that every shareholder would be obligated to vote or proxy their vote or lose title to the stock shares for lack of "working them." Worse, it would mean that a stockholder might have to prove that they actually read the annual reports or discuss management issues or tour the plant or something, again to prove that they are "working the property." That is not objective.
So far, K, all you have done is defend every aspect of the present system without offering a new idea to improve it. ... maybe you don't own it now and have to leave it to others...
The other side is the medievalist idea of perpetuity. And that is somewhat complicated. Schumpeter made a lot about "creative destruction" but the world has more sailboats today than were dreamed of possible in 1500. Windmills, watermills (hydroelectric dams), ceramics, .... Nothing really goes away. But that being true, we no longer have ONLY those things and any patent, any new idea, any invention, will indeed be superseded in some or maybe all of its current markets. The idea that 17 years or 20 or 194.3 is the right term of application is based on nothing but superstition. No one has any idea how long an invention is good for. Fisher Price still sells Viewmasters, even in the days of Xbox, but not much market exists for black-and-white television sets.
Gentile was sued for his images of this public building. Architect I. M. Pei claimed all rights to the image. The museum was built with public money. It sits wide open to be seen from anywhere. Here is the initial lawsuit punishing Gentile and destroying all copies of his work:
http://www.nytimes.com/1996/06/16/us/roc...
Here is the appeals court decision that reversed the ruling -- at a cost of about $2million to the artist.
http://law.wustl.edu/journal/2/p517spenc...
Interestingly, about 100 such buildings (The NYSE Stock Exchange; the Chrysler Building) are similarly protected.
We all love architects, but how do you gain exclusive rights to your infringement on everyone else's personal environments?
No solution exists because the premise is faulty, like arguing how many angels can fit on a pin.
I offer in evidence the OPPOSITE attitude of proud (arrogant, in fact) creative people in the Homebrew Computer Club who came together to show off their work. They shared ideas by implicit trade. Those who had something cool were highly regarded.
Today, we have more computing in our telephones than any IBM mainframe of 1972.
Look at your screen. Open a window. Make it smaller dragging the corner up. That is a logical XOR, either the bit is on xor the bit is off. From that, one window overlays another, wholly or partially. Well, that was a patent. Someone claimed it. Years after it was being done.
"Ever since Autodesk had to pay $25,000 to ``license'' a patent which claimed the invention of XOR-draw for screen cursors (the patent was filed years after everybody in computer graphics was already using that trick), at the risk of delaying or cancelling our Initial Public Offering in 1985, I've been convinced that software patents are not only a terrible idea, but one of the principal threats to the software industry. As I write this introduction in 1993, the multimedia industry is shuddering at the prospect of paying royalties on every product they make, because a small company in California has obtained an absurdly broad patent on concepts that were widely discussed and implemented experimentally more than 20 years earlier."
Read here: http://www.fourmilab.ch/autofile/www/cha...
Broad and exclusive rights inhibit progress. They are obviously not within the ethos of laissez faire individualism, but come directly from ancient superstitions. In 1661 Robert Boyle's "Sceptical Chymist" explained why the secretive methods of alchemy had to be replaced by open publication of reproducible results. It was a radical idea.
Patents are defined as broadly as possible in order to secure their rights against any and all similar but different competitors. Take xerography, for example. Many different chemical combinations and many different processes can be engaged to create copies of images. Xerox wants (wanted) not just a patent on the one they actually developed, but they use the one they actually developed as evidence of their claim to all other possible variations. Then when someone else does the same thing a different way, suits at law are supposed to sort that out, as if courts (judges, juries) are competent to evaluate any and every new technology. 3-D printing is now being developed by independent technologists in many different ways. Will someone then be able to claim the rights to all of them?
I see Henry Ford in his motorcar. I can build one, too. Of course mine will be materially different for many basic reasons - basic, metaphysical reasons from the nature of human intelligence. A generation ago, computer programming instructors figured out that in any average introductory class, no two students will ever (likely) produce similar programs, even for the most basic of assignments. Therefore, any two programs that are too similar may easily be evidence of copying (cheating). The point is that even if I had Henry Ford's blueprints to work from, my car would be different from him because it is the product of my own mind, not his. If I just saw him cruising about in a horseless carriage, I could be inspired... but not if he own THE patent on "a mechanism for personal transport without animal power." Enter EARLY AUTOMOBILE PATENTS (and similar phrases) into your search engine. The internal combustion engine itself was patented, of course, even though it is only a recombination of the James Watts' steam engine. (I mean the valves and chambers. The only new idea was putting the flame inside the engine, a tough nut to crack, indeed, but many ways to achieve it. Sparkplugs are the common solution, but diesel engines - invented by Rudolf Diesel - achieve combustion by pressure alone, though modern engines do have "glow plugs." And on and on it goes.
Inventors do not come up with new ideas for fear of patent law. Both Ayn Rand and Ludwig von Mises hit the nail on the head when they spoke of the independent mind of the creator.
But, once a patent is granted, all other creators are robbed of the product of their minds.
That is just one problem.