

Patents considered evil - jcbrand
http://www.ipocracy.org/article:1

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jordigh
It's interesting to note that one of the first points this article makes is
that the term "intellectual property" spreads confusion and makes it sound
like patents are something like copyrights or something like ship hull design
rights.

We've heard this before from His GNUliness:

    
    
        http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html#IntellectualProperty

~~~
dionidium
Yes, we've heard it before and it's still silly. The term serves only to
distinguish intangibles from physical objects. It does not imply that all of
those intangibles are equivalent any more than "physical property" implies
that boats are the same thing as staplers. This is a non-issue. It's a useful
term.

~~~
bct
It's useful in some contexts but overly broad in others. The differences
between a boat and a stapler are readily apparent; the differences between a
copyright and a patent, much less so. Imprecise language takes advantage of
that.

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josaka
"It typically costs from 25,000 Euro (in the cheapest courts in Europe) to
$250,000 (in the UK or USA) to defend or enforce a patent in court." Try $3
million per side through trial in US court.
<http://www.patentinsurance.com/iprisk/aipla-survey/>

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guelo
Anyone in the startup world can tell you an idea is not worth that much, what
matters is execution. Patents are supposed to reward the lazy dreamers over
the hard working entrepreneurs, though in reality they reward the giant corp
with the best legal strategy.

~~~
georgemcbay
Patents (at least as understood by the US founding fathers who put them in the
Constitution, YMMV in other countries) are _supposed_ to be a means by which
we all benefit from knowledge that would otherwise be kept a trade secret by
their inventors. The nearly two decade long protection is the price we pay for
that knowledge.

Of course, looking at it this way, it is absolutely insane that things like
"bounce scrolling" are patent protected. Even in situations where some piece
of software functionality is 100% new (which basically never happens anyway),
if I can watch a video on YouTube of someone interacting with the product and
then write a 20 line function that simulates the behavior I saw without ever
having seen the original code, nor even having touched the original product
myself and that 20 line function can be a patent violation, the patent system
is already 100% completely fucked up relative to what it was designed to do
originally.

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woodchuck64
Love this quote:

"We do not generally ask the State to intervene to ensure that artists will
paint, musicians play, chefs prepare meals, fashion designers create the new
seasons. The vast bulk of our economy innovates well without 20-year
monopolies. By contrast, the areas that are heavily patented, such as telecoms
and pharmaceutics, resist change, are run by cartels, and extort consumers
with grossly inflated prices."

------
jcbrand
There's also a discussion about this on Reddit:
[http://www.reddit.com/r/Economics/comments/z2lp2/patents_con...](http://www.reddit.com/r/Economics/comments/z2lp2/patents_considered_evil/)

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001sky
_The term "intellectual property" was coined to replace "exclusive privilege",
which became politically incorrect during the French revolution_

~~~
sabat
Interesting to note! Although I find "intellectual property" to be an
oxymoron.

~~~
lttlrck
how so?

~~~
sp332
This letter from Thomas Jefferson explains the problem. [http://press-
pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/a1_8_8s12....](http://press-
pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/a1_8_8s12.html) (Note a "taper" is a
candle.)

~~~
eevilspock
_"It is agreed by those who have seriously considered the subject, that no
individual has, of natural right, a separate property in an acre of land, for
instance."_

Sadly few people understand this these days. Libertarians rightly defend
social liberty, but they actually betray this liberty by wrong-headedly
believing that everything should be treated as private property. They are
correct that one's own person or the fruits of one's own labor should not be
claimable by anyone or any government (this is tantamount to slavery), but
they falsely believe that land or even ideas can be the fruit of their labor
and their labor only.

I hope that this will be the next revolution in political economy, that
Georgism/Geolibertarianism makes a comeback.

~~~
sp332
If you clear land for farming, don't you think you have a natural right to the
use of that land? If a neighbor dumps toxic waste there, haven't they violated
your property rights?

~~~
001sky
More subtle Question: If you clear the land, can I cross it? (for navigation)

~~~
pc86
If he lets you.

~~~
001sky
How will _he_ get on or off the land ever again? Are their _natural_ 'rights
of way'?

Edited: for clarity

~~~
eevilspock
001sky is not making a frivolous point. If all land were private, most of
population of the planet wouldn't even have a place to stand, much less to
cross. Most populist libertarians are for privatizing almost all public land.

~~~
nooneelse
Putting things another way, some people seem to be under the odd
misapprehension that "privately owning a piece of land" is tantamount to
sovereignty over it. When in actual, complicated reality what one really buys
when one "buys land" is a more limited set of rights to possession, use,
development, etc. of the land that have been wrapped up in a title. And thus
there exist limitations to what one can do with "private property" as
exemplified by the fact that other people can get an easement to use one's
land for access to their own or might own the minerals under your house.

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gpcz
The web site hosting the Harper's article "Secrets by the Thousands" linked in
"Patents considered evil" posts questionable ideas if you look at their root
site. Also, linked from their version of "Secrets" is another article titled
"The Great Patents Heist" that comes from The Barnes Review, a Holocaust-
denying publication. While "Secrets" is behind a pay wall on the Harper's
website (<http://www.harpers.org/archive/1946/10/0032777>), I'd suggest using
a direct link to Harper's (or get permission from Harper's to post "Secrets"
yourself) rather than use that site as a citation.

