The problem with that is without patent protection those with money could just sit back and grab good marketable ideas and under cut the original producer.

I know that similar things happen anyway but at least there is some protection.

I think Db can comment on Curtis. and this is off the main points of the article. and yes, db is an expert in this field and he is Objectivist

But you can benefit from your ideas without preventing other people from having the same idea and benefiting from it. Build your product and go to market.

Anyone who invents an idea without copying someone else is an inventor. The intellectual effort is identical. The moral right is the same. First is a mechanism to manage the legal issues of having the government decide that only one person can own an idea.

I am not anarcho, either. Strike two.

What is the "idea" in Microsoft Word?

People are entitled to their judgments, feelings, and opinions. I think people should express their thoughts (political correctness be damned) openly. Discussions among people are a good thing, even if they are not viewed as good by everyone. Thats how views and opinions are changed.

I am not a fan of the apparent voting thing that goes on in this forum or any other actually. Even if I am in the basket of deplorables.

we have had this conversation with you many times. You attack the patent system. you attack IP rights. for newbies on the site, I want them to know that. why do you think I am here? I do not agree with most any of your comments. you are anarcho. Rand was never that.

Ok. Assuming what you say is correct, that kind of reduces the value of the patent that IS eventually granted. Its expensive, and I have to say that government guarantees arent really to be trusted in pretty much everything that they do.

Look at the promises of social security, medicare, obamacare, personal safety here in the USA, the outright stealing of money through inflation. I saw a documentary on Netflix about American Genius, and their point was that the wright brothers found for years and years to keep Curtis from infringing on their flight patents. Eventually the federal government allowed Curtis to use the patents during world war II, after which the patent terms was expired anyway. It would have been more effective for the Wrights to concentrate on improvements to their patents (like Curtis did) instead of wasting time and money securing the protections of the government.

I have more trust in looking for free market protections and continuing inventiveness than some sort of government "protections" that cost me a fortune and are fleeting.

I may not be using your definition of monopoly, for which I apologize. But, if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck.....

no, the concept of inventor is the first.

Db understands software well. jesus.

BS

someone counted you down. I always take your comments seriously in this forum.

please quit using the term monopoly. It is not the definition. A provisional give you one year to gain funding, beat the the streets. It is used against the term. think about it. for two years, you know nothing. your idea is published. Then, if someone infringes, you have to wait up to two years plus after that to go after them. In the meantime, they are using your idea. really, most of you guys on here do not understand the process and mis-apply it. these are real peoples' lives at stake and their work. sad you don't learn about the process before forming an opinion.

Open your mind to the truth and you will join those against patents.

PS--- I granted ownership of several patents to GM and Delphi during my working career. So, I know "intellectual property" is created. I've done it. But that does not make it right. No one should be able to prevent others from using useful technology.

Thanks for adding a bit of objective fact based information to this otherwise goofy pseudo intellectual discussion.

there are provisional patents, which were probably a concession to some of my issues with the patent system.

I would say that in todays fast moving world, a 20 year monopoly isnt what it used to be. Someone like me will come along and invent around a patent in not much time now anyway. Maybe they work for apple and samsung so they can trade patent infringements with each other to try and keep others from using any of their patents, but for lone inventors I dispute they do much.

In my mind I also look at the gross inefficiencies in the US goverment's protection of individual rights that I really wonder about the cost benefit analysis of patent protection. I have generally relied on my ability to just dodge and weave as competitors come in with copycat items. Generally the competitors dont understand the "why' behind doing things a ceretain way, and the make inferior products. By then, I introduce something better and keep the business.

The major challenge today is from China, where they not only copy, but actually improve on our products at a much reduced cost. They are quite inventive themselves, although most americans think they just copy and make inferior products. They are getting better each day, and we americans need to watch out !!

I understand you are in the patent establishment, so you benefit from your position. You are entitled to your position, but I certainly dont agree with it

That was indeed a very thoughtful analysis. One which I will read over a few times so as to not miss anything. I can understand that if I come up with some really unique thing that took me a lot of work to perfect, and then someone else simply used it to make millions, I would "feel" cheated. But on the other hand, if I was really concerned about that, I wouldnt have ever told anyone what I had invented. But, my goal was to make money for myself, which the other guy didnt prevent really. He might have added things to my design which made it sell better, or had better distribution, or other factors.

When I invent things (which I do regularly), I have to look at the various ways to profit from my inventions- and I consider how I would market it, what improvements might be made on it by others, which I would call "marketplace" methods of intellectual property protection.

Government monopoly protection is expensive, lengthy, and can be overthrown by patent appeals which I may not be able to defend against.

I just feel uncomfortable with the current system, but I cant say what I would do about it if I were King, for example, and could rewrite it. In the meantime, I deal with the issue mostly outside of the legal system, and depend on the 'marketplace' defenses as well as continual improvements to keep myself going.

Would you like to explain why you consider me anti-patent, or should I just dub thee Slayer of Strawmen and have done?

Good luck on that front, term. We've apparently hit a point of dogma here - in the most unexpected of places. The clergy stated purpose of a patent is an exchange of publication of the details for public consumption after a set period of time in exchange for blocking other people from doing it - even if they came up with it independently of your work.

And the rise of Non-Practicing Entities, or NPEs, in the patent litigation s merely an expression of it. Yes, to most the idea of coming up with something and then sitting on it to do nothing is fundamentally problematic. But any discussion of the facts of what a patent provides and any realization that it does in fact do what you, I, and many experts have stated - prevent independent inventors from benefiting from their own work - is apparently to be against patents, capitalism, and objectivism. This is the first I've personally seen a discussion here where the non-looters argue as if they are looters - via dogma, unsupported assertion, and fallacies and insult. The system is perfect, don't question its perfection by showing that it causes harm and has significant flaws.

Patents are all about being "first" to the government, to prevent other people from benefiting from their independent ideas and effort - not protecting your right to profit from your invention. Many profit from their inventions aplenty without patents, which is clear evidence that patents are not a requirement to profit. As you've correctly stated, a patent is a government grant of a power to prevent others from profiting from their own work. In fact, if you reverse engineer the formula for Coca-Cola, or do Edison-style experimentation to "discover" it on your own, and then patent it, you can force Coca-Cola to stop making it - or to pay you whatever sum of money you want to be allowed to keep profiting from their independent invention.

In her assertion that patent rights are natural and not a grant of government, Rand was wrong. She was a actually wrong on some pretty key aspect of the US Patent system. For example, up until recently the system was first to invent, not first to file. She didn't object that patents created a monopoly, only that it was OK that the first one to get to the USPTO "wins" the right to profit from their work. At that time the USPTO had an "interference proceeding" which handled what to do if A invents something before B but B got to the USPTO first. So her argument was not actually about who actually invented something, but who filed paperwork with the government first. Thus it wasn't about the race to invent, but the race to prevent. Yet that was not the system in place at that time.

But that isn't the case today. By changing to FTF in 2013 that process was avoided and instead the USPTO application is now considered sole evidence of who was "first" (mostly). The argument for it was that it would bring the USPTO in accordance with other parts of the world. This act explicitly recognized that independent invention does in fact occur.

There is no basis for a natural right to prevent someone from doing what you are doing. There is a basis for natural right to profit from your idea, but not to prevent someone else from profiting from their independent idea and effort - even if it is the same idea. Patents are a system of rent seeking, of this there is no doubt - it is what they are are explicitly designed to do. Even the SCOTUS has explicitly recognized and stated that patents are grants of monopoly in the United States. When you dig into the actual research you find that the arguments around it are the yes it is a government granted/enforced monopoly, yes it raises prices (see: is a monopoly), does penalize whomever was not first to get the patent paperwork, and raises the cost of innovation, but that the "social good" of the patent eventually (used to be 10, now is 20 years) becoming open to the public for use outweighs the cost of the rest. In other words, then social ends justify the means.

If opponents of taking a factual view of the patent system were at least honest about it, it would be tolerable. But to say that the problem simply doesn't exists despite all evidence that it does - and none that it does't, is simply irrational. I have much more respect for someone who says "yes, that is a problem and I don't have an answer to it" than one who's stick their head in the sand and says "no, the system is perfect, it doesn't have flaws like that - all the independent invention doesn't exist. Heck, I have more respect for "yup, it sucks to do all that independent work, come up with the same idea and then because I beat you to the office, you do not get to benefit from the product of your mind and hands because I get to profit more by preventing you from doing so."

Khaling is right about one thing though, our system was the strongest in the world - when it was FTI. And it is weakening - in part due to FTF.

I completely agree. Which is why I am more comfortable with protecting IP via copyright than with patents since copyright rules out independent creation.

Re: “While protection of intellectual property is essential I do have a philosophical concern about patents because they can prevent someone from using ideas that they have independently created and developed if someone has filed a patent previously.”

The “independent creation” argument, by itself, seriously undercuts the concept of patents being property rights. Man has a fundamental right to the product of his own mind. This right is not contingent upon whether someone previously had the same innovative idea or came up with the same invention.

Because you change the argument. I am not discussing simultaneous invention. On a previous occasion I pointed out the simultaneity is a dubious thing at best. What I am talking about is independent invention. If I come up with something and a year later, without being aware of my work, you come up with the same thing then I think you have the same moral right to the fruits of your intellectual labor as I do. We both did the same thing. From a practical point of view that would be hard to manage, but this is a moral aspect to patents. By filing a patent I obtain ownership of the idea that you create the next year. And this does happen.

Now the likelihood of us both coming up with the same idea depends on how unique the idea is. Supposedly the patent office is supposed to only patent ideas that are not obvious. If it really is inspirational, you are unlikely to come up with it. If it is obvious to anyone in the field, then lots of people will come up with it independently.

Now we come to software. Until the 1990's software patents were rare. One of the most famous from that era was the LZW compression patent -- and having implemented that algorithm after the patent expired I can honestly say I don't think there is a snowball's chance in hell that I would ever have come up with that on my own.

When the rush to patent began in the 1990's many patents were issued for solutions that had long been in common use. This isn't supposed to happen, but the patent office faced an impossible task. How do you know if the algorithm that is described is present in any one of thousands of products all covered by trade secret and limited distribution. So patents get issued for existing art.

As I pointed out in another part of this discussion, I was able to toss of the idea of a patent on pop-up menus and find a microsoft patent on context popup menus that was granted years after I wrote one -- and I was by no means inspired in doing so. It was routine.

I can't find it anymore, but one of the patents that you have obtained for a customer involves managing the flow of bits from communications using a circular buffer with the beginning and ending byte and bit offset stored. That's a well known approach to handling a flow of data with no distinct message break. I implemented one of those in the 1980's -- although I had it expand the buffers on overflow (which wasn't mentioned in your patent). I admit I had bytes not bits since that was the organization of my data but whenever I need a bit oriented offset I keep it in the three bits as described. I am by no means the first one to build a circular buffer.

welcome to every day we wake up and get Office Actions. Maybe the Gulch would understand better Db's anger for his clients. :(