Another Libertarian Argument Against Patents Bites the Dust

Posted by dbhalling 11 years ago to Philosophy
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Libertarians and Austrians, including such organizations as the CATO Institute, Von Mises, and the Wall Street Journal, have put forth a number of arguments against patents and intellectual property. These arguments include that ideas (an invention is not just an idea, but I will let that go) are not scarce and therefore patents are not real property rights, patents are monopolies, patents inhibit the growth of technology, patents require the use of force to enforce one’s rights, patents are not natural rights and were not recognized as so by Locke and the founders, among other arguments. I have discussed most of these arguments earlier and will put the links in below. One of their favorite fall back arguments is that patents limit what I can do with my property. For instance, a patent for an airplane (Wright brothers) keeps me from using my own wood, mechanical linkages, engine, cloth, etc. and building an airplane with ailerons (and wing warping). This according to the libertarian argument is obviously absurd. After all it is my property.

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  • Posted by $ CBJ 11 years ago in reply to this comment.
    And be sure to re-do that Google patent search frequently, since on average about 110 new software patents are granted every day.
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  • Posted by khalling 11 years ago in reply to this comment.
    that is nonsense. This isn't IRS code. Obviously, if you're in a space, you know your competitors, you know basics about why you are coming up with a solution. These are fairly easy to do a simple google patent search on. Basically, it might come down to a few that might be close if you are in a competitive space and you may need professional advice at that point. But anyone wanting to build a business wants to make sure the basics are covered before they proceed. What alarmist nonsense by Yale. A real surprise-NOT. DB is probably all ove the comments section of that article.
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  • Posted by $ CBJ 11 years ago in reply to this comment.
    "A Yale study found that the U.S. patent office is approving new software patents at an approximate rate of 40,000 a year. That's more than 100 new software patents every day. Tracking every software patent to make sure one is not in violation would be an utter impossibility without a full-time team of lawyers on staff."
    http://reason.com/reasontv/2013/02/20/to...
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  • Posted by dbhalling 11 years ago in reply to this comment.
    In my opinion Stossel is confused. He buys into the idea that property "rights" are based on scarcity, not creation. As a result, he buys into the rest of the argument against patents and copyrights. However, I have shown that even this argument fails.
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  • Posted by dbhalling 11 years ago in reply to this comment.
    No this has been well covered. The USPTO had a procedure for this for over 150 years and it rarely occurred. Almost always there are differences in the the near simultaneous inventions. Simultaneous invention is a myth used to attack patent laws and inventors. Most so-called simultaneous inventors are much later, and used the work of the inventor or absorbed the inventors ideas in the culture. Any patent or patent applied for is published 18 months after it is filed and second handers who refuse to undertake a patent search should not be rewarded. This is completely consistent with AR. Perhaps you should read her piece in Capitalism The Unknown Ideal again.
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  • Posted by khalling 11 years ago in reply to this comment.
    no. we like him too. He is ignorant on this issue and as an investigative journalist I expected him to investigate both sides
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  • Posted by Robbie53024 11 years ago in reply to this comment.
    What you will find lacking in this discussion is that "ownership" of an idea can exist with two different persons, developing the same idea totally independently. In such a case, both should have equal rights to ownership (if you truly believe that the fruits of ones own mind and labor are owned by the one creating them). This may require the purportedly aggrieved idea owner to prove that the second individual had prior knowledge of the existence of the idea prior to their development or some other mechanism.

    It is astounding to me that some who hold the tenets of AR so dearly are so fast to discard them when it does not suit their own personal livelihood.
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  • Posted by ObjectiveAnalyst 11 years ago in reply to this comment.
    Yes. We must work on him... I think we can bring him around. He just did a show on NSA and internet spying and has hardened his position some. Previously he took it much lighter, but claimed after researching for the show he has become more concerned. Still he isn't quite there... But...
    “My eighty-percent friend is not my twenty-percent enemy" Ronald Reagan
    For me if you are eighty-percent I hold out hope...
    Am I too forgiving?
    O.A.
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  • Posted by $ blarman 11 years ago in reply to this comment.
    Software programming is taught? ;)

    I took several software development classes and they focus a lot about the how and very little about structure, commenting, adherence to forms/standardization, I completely agree!

    Yep, it's ever so nice to be able to build a linked list or recursive algorithm, but even nicer when you comment your code so someone else can read it! Second that for variable naming conventions!
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  • Posted by richrobinson 11 years ago in reply to this comment.
    I think so. If I am not going to profit be selling my new idea then I most likely would keep it to myself. Others are free to develop it also but that could take years.
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  • Posted by dbhalling 11 years ago in reply to this comment.
    Patents are based on the same thing as all property rights. They are based on the metaphysical reality of creation. The are incredibly modern. Teaching you all of patent law is beyond the scope of this discussion, but if you want to argue that are present patent laws do not live up to Locke, I agree.
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  • Posted by $ MikeMarotta 11 years ago in reply to this comment.
    Read Howard Roark's "Courtroom Speech." And do you agree that Mises said that more or less the same thing? I agree that intellectual property rights are important, but I do not find them OBJECTIVELY instantiated in present US law. The first patent law was in Venice c. 1450. English patent laws go back to the 1600s. Like magnetism and gravity and disease, they sort of had something of an idea but really were not modern in their thinking. It just seems to me that in defending present US patent law, you are only feathering your own nest, not actually making new intellectual discoveries in a difficult area of law. So, let me ask you, "In the best of all worlds, what would intellectual property look like?"


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  • Posted by dbhalling 11 years ago in reply to this comment.
    Unfortunately, there is a lot of truth in that. Our patent system is morphing from a property rights system, to a crony capitalist system to protect large companies. I think it is incorrect to label this a boon to patent attorneys. Overall this has resulted in less inventing, which hurts most patent attorneys and engineers. My non-fiction book "The Decline and Fall of the American Entrepreneur" discusses how our patent system has been perverted and how these can other changes were a major part of why the 00s were so bad economically compared to the 90s.
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  • Posted by dbhalling 11 years ago in reply to this comment.
    I disagree that Rand said any such thing. This would disagree with the whole premise of Atlas Shrugged - what do you think the phrase galting means?

    The wikipedia article is the sort of stupid article you get from people who do not understand how inventions work. Both Swan and Edison created an incandescent light bulb. Many people got other patents on incandescent light bulbs. This does not mean they were simultaneous, this does not show independent invention. Edison invented the high resistance long(er) filament life light bulb, whereas Swan invented the impractical low resistance incandescent light bulb. Edison is given credit by historians, because his invention made the incandescent light bulb practical. But he certainly built upon the work of Swan and lost a patent infringement suit to Swan.
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  • Posted by dbhalling 11 years ago in reply to this comment.
    I don't honestly know, but I do know that most of the active people on the site are committed to anarcho-libertarianism, which means they really don't believe in property rights.
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  • Posted by dbhalling 11 years ago in reply to this comment.
    Funny, I worked on some patents related to sophisticated military planes that were using wing warping type techniques. I disagree. Ailerons have sharp edges that create wasteful turbulence. The issues are structural with wing warping and new materials may be able to solve those issues.
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  • Posted by $ MikeMarotta 11 years ago in reply to this comment.
    Actually, OA, both Ayn Rand and Ludwig von Mises said just the opposite: the creative need no incentive as they are self-motivated, internally motivated - and they work even as the world rejects them. As for patents, though, yes, holding one does bring investors. However, even the electric knife in your kitchen as two claimants - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_kn...

    How their independently produced intellectual property is to be protected is not clear. And what does it do for the chainsaw?
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  • Posted by richrobinson 11 years ago in reply to this comment.
    It just seems that we have to give an incentive for someone to share a new idea. If I develop a way of growing twice as many crops as others I would share my idea if I would profit. If not I would use it for myself. Updating existing seems practical but to eliminate IP protection seems counter productive.
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  • Posted by $ MikeMarotta 11 years ago in reply to this comment.
    dbhalling, you have over-reached your argument. It is a fact of reality that no fact of reality can contradict any other fact of reality. Thus, many ways exist to achieve any realizable goal. Each may be independently ownable (perhaps), but the discovery of one solution to a problem does not deliver the right to own all other possible solutions. An Wang invented magnetic core memory and figured that one cent per bit was a fair royalty -- back when 256 bits was enough. Are you willing to write a check to the Wang family for the terabits (quadrillions of bits: tens of billions of dollars worth of memory) on your computer?

    How many proofs do you know for the Pythagorean Theorem? Should Pythagoras (or Euclid) have owned them all? Who should own the motor car, the bus, the truck, the farm tractor, the lawn mower, the chainsaw, the Space Shuttle Crawler ... Every internal combustion device, engine, and mover ...
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