I am in agreement with you although I consider myself a libertarian. I am amazed how the media will allow for a spectrum of beliefs in the Republican and Democratic parties but will portray all Libertarians as having uniform beliefs. It's a disservice to their readers and a miscarriage of the truth.

The problem of proving independent invention arises only if patents are considered to be legitimate forms of property. While patents currently enjoy legal protection, I don't think they can be morally justified on the basis of the Objectivist ethics.

I am pretty much the same way, dbhalling.
I'm looking forward to reading your book in a few weeks.

I am like you, allosaur.

I remember in my early 20s being disappointed that Rand was so critical of Libertarians. I resolved the issue by saying that libertarians are a political party not a philosophy. While I now understand why Rand was so critical and agree, I still follow my earlier policy to some extent. For instance, I would vote for Rand or Ron Paul before any of the candidates in the last several presidential elections. And most libertarians have to run on the constitution which is pretty clear about patents.

Are you saying that an invention is not the product of my own mind if someone else thought of it first?

Independent invention is not a myth, it is common. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mul... and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_in...

An online test I took convinced me that I am a libertarian with strong conservative leanings instead of the other way around. Maybe it is libertarians with strong liberal leanings who are the libertarian goofus dodo birds. I'm all for patents--horrified at the concept that an inventor should not be rewarded for his own work and creativity.

I think that by the letter of the law you may be absolutely correct in that one cant even make a patented item for their own use. I suspect that in a practical sense, unless there is some commerce, it would be hard to bring suit and prove damages unless there is some commerce involved. IE: One has to be able to prove damage in order to bring a civil suit. If I merely make an airplane to Orville's design it is hard to prove Orville lost any money. If however I start ferrying people around for a fee, Orville can easily say that I gained revenue that could not have been there but for his invention. Ergo, he didn't get it and is damaged as a result.

Patent law does deal with the situation where the inventor keeps their invention a trade secret. In that case independent development, the independent developer can obtaining a patent on the invention. The reason for this is that one of the goals of patent law is the spread of knowledge and the second is that it goes to the social contract theory of patents, which is that the government provides a limited term property right in exchange for disclosing how to practice the invention. Since the inventor kept his idea a trade secret, he does not obtain a property right and risks someone developing the invention independently, which destroys his trade secret. Note this case does not come up very often either.

I don't think this has been traditionally a libertarian position on patents and intellectual property. Have they started to change some of their views?

The problem with this is proving that you invented it in parallel with the original inventor and weren't influenced by that inventors ideas, etc. That's a pretty tough sell in most courts given that you bear the burden of proof.

The other problem (and the one I have a harder time accepting) is the idea that by building one of my own based on someone else's idea I have in actuality deprived them of revenue they would otherwise have obtained through the normal sale of a product. This one is a pretty sticky wicket for many of the same problems.

The contradiction in your argument is right here "to do so would violate my right to the use of the product of my own mind." No for you to use the inventor's creation is a violation of the product of his own mind.

Independent invention is a myth. There was a process for determining near simultaneous independent invention in the US patent office for years and it was rarely used. SO called independent invention years later is almost always the result of knowledge about the invention which is now in the marketplace, in the literature, on the web, and in thinking of people in that area of technology. In addition, it would require purposely ignoring the inventions of others, since they are published.

On top of that there are an infinite number of inventions, only a second hander would spend their time reinventing things that exist.

Yes, but, the earlier person may dispute your claim,. If it went to court the onus of proof would be on you to show that you did not have knowledge of the first person's work. to my knowledge, both our legal system as well as general opinion is reluctant to say that original creation happens more than once,
It does happen, eg Darwin and Wallace. Newton and Leibniz.

I think it is a sad turn for libertarians. It goes back to the understanding of property rights.

Maybe I am not as libertarian as I thought. I have always supported patent rights and have filed a patent before.

I can make an airplane.
I can make any kind of patented device I wish.
I can go to the patent office online, look through the patents, and make any of the devices or ideas there with my own hands.

I just can't sell it to others.
My freedom isn't infringed at all.
Just my income, and I have no right to sell their idea.

Is my understanding in error?

Hi Zen,

I am not sure I understand the question. If you are asking about, if an incandescent light bulb is used for heat would that infringe a patent for a light bulb talking about light, the answer is generally yes. However, that does not mean that you could not obtain a patent on that application. This sort of overlapping rights are common. Edison could not practice his ILB (incandescent light bulb) without infringing Swan's patent on his ILB.

If the source of property rights is creation, then the second person to independently invent something has as much of a property right to his invention as the first person – no more, no less.

For example, if I independently invent a farming technique and use it on my farm, the first inventor does not have the moral right to force me stop using this technique (or pay the first inventor a licensing fee). To do so would violate my right to the use of the product of my own mind.

Thanks, that may not be important to some, it is important to my ethics and my family's ethics.
Appreciate it.

Legally, you cannot make any of the inventions that still have an active patent (20 years from the date of filing with some caveats). You can certainly make any of the inventions of the patents that have expired. Practically, no one is going to care in most cases if you make a single version of the invention for your own use.

I happen to agree with patents and IP, but your argument brings up a question I'm not sure of.

In the case of the light bulb with the objective result of producing light, what happens to the use for heat as an application, i.e. brooders, pump house freeze protection, etc.?

Rozar,

If patents are property rights then it is exactly the same.

This quote begs the question "I think you should be allowed to do whatever you want with your property as long as you aren't violating the property rights of others." What are property rights? A question libertarians have failed to answer. Patents are property rights and you cannot use your property to violate my property - this is not unique to patents.

You also have not defined an invention. An invention is a human creation that has an objective result, such as a incandescent light bulb always produces light when a voltage is applied. An invention is a creation and therefore you have a natural right - property right in your creation.

I'm confused about the bull dozer and the Apple Orchard. He asks if you can use your bull dozer to tear down his Apple Orchard. But that would of course be a violation of clear property rights. I fail to see how this relates to intellectual property.

I may need to brush up on my concept of what property is, but from what I understand it's something that you either acquire from the person who owns it, or it's something that becomes yours after no one has used it for a certain amount of time and you have worked to bring value to it.

I'm on the fence with how I feel about property rights but I'm heavily leaning in favor of the libertarian side of this argument.

I think you should be allowed to do whatever you want with your property as long as you aren't violating the property rights of others. I think that's what it comes down to: I own my mind and the things my mind produces, so I should be able to do whatever I like with those ideas. Stating it like that I can see why this is such a complex issue though. But for now I'm fairly firm in the concept that when the mind produces something, it is only by discovery. You discover a concept or a pattern, and I would say regardless of the means of discovery, it's within your mind that the discovery is formed.