Patents and other intellectual property

[Jello Biafra]

Could you explain further?

Before one can create, one must be there first. The first person to come upon the resources is the owner, not necessarily the person who creates something with it.

So if I urinate against a tree, I can claim the whole forest?

[SpectacularSpectacular]

Cant you not patent a raw resource?

[ZombieRothbard]

Before one can create, one must be there first. The first person to come upon the resources is the owner, not necessarily the person who creates something with it.

So if I urinate against a tree, I can claim the whole forest?

Obviously not. If you are the first person ever to come into the forest, you can claim it however.

[Four-sided Triangles]

Obviously not. If you are the first person ever to come into the forest, you can claim it however.

So I should ejaculate on the tree instead?

[Jello Biafra]

So if I urinate against a tree, I can claim the whole forest?

Obviously not. If you are the first person ever to come into the forest, you can claim it however.

How large of an area can I claim?

[ZombieRothbard]

Obviously not. If you are the first person ever to come into the forest, you can claim it however.

How large of an area can I claim?

That is up to circumstance.

[Four-sided Triangles]

How large of an area can I claim?

You have to consult the ghost of Ayn Rand through a seance with a Ouija board. She can tell you how much you can own at any given time.

[ZombieRothbard]

How large of an area can I claim?

You have to consult the ghost of Ayn Rand through a seance with a Ouija board. She can tell you how much you can own at any given time.

Is that supposed to be a sleight against me? Because I despise Ayn Rand.

[Four-sided Triangles]

Is that supposed to be a sleight against me? Because I despise Ayn Rand.

So do you think A is B, then?

[Seleucas]

This seems to be an interesting book on the subject (written by neoclassical economists, mind you, so don't use the fact that it is on Mises as an excuse not to at least take a peek.) http://mises.org/misesreview_detail.aspx?control=354

Anyway, intellectual "property" is absurd, since it necessitates violating the rights of other people's scarce resources, such as their own paper, CDs, hardware, etc. to ensure that nothing is copied. Furthermore, not allowing other people to innovate off of one's own inventions will simply retard progress, not advance it; one can simply claim their process or what have you and not improve upon it, but simply benefit from it until the monopoly expires, at which point the competitive process is then allowed to continue without the threat of legal sanction. The removal of patents would transfer innovation from a progress which stagnates at times, to one in which the first mover advantage would still be encouraged to get a leg up over competition (who would turn down a new process that could make one more competitive, if one knew it?), but that would not allow for stasis. Where using processes is expensive, such as when a scientific discovery can only be really used by a company that has a certain set of experience, skills, or equipment that cannot be replicated, patents are superfluous. Where such processes are easily replicated at little or no cost, it seems absurd to prohibit the use of something that is not scarce.

[Xomic]

Are idea's a scarce resource? No, they aren't, therefor they are not property.

Scarcity has little to do with property, and even if it were true, ideas are indeed a scarce resource- despite what you may thing, there are very real limits on how one thinks and processes information, and a limited number of ways that processed information can be expressed.

Consider for the moment a single bar of music; there are very real limitations on what can and cannot be put into that bar of musics- for example, you can increase the timing as much as you'd like, but there will be a point were one is unable to play all those notes, similarly depending on the instrument one is using or writing for, will limit the range of notes you can use, because some will be out of the range of that instrument. And there are other limitations as well, such as the ability of someone listening to the music to hear the notes.

All of this make what might seem unlimited at first, quite limited indeed. Ideas are ultimately no different, the human mind is no less limited than a bar of musical notation. It's part of the reason we struggle with concepts like extra spacial dimensions, or the idea that there simply isn't a 'before' the big bang. Even those who study these things have difficulty grasping them.

[Xomic]

As for IP, like Sib, I see the merits of both sides, but I lead towards more of a 'pro-IP' side of things. I think there's a lot of worth in such a system, but there's also a whole lot that can go wrong (such as patient trolls or anti-competitiveness behaviours) Yet at the same time things like patients can be the only defence 'the little guy' can have against larger corporations or richer/more public individuals.

I think I might be happier if they were restricted to ownership by individuals and not corporations.

Also:

This creates a perverse incentive to not innovate and just copy others.

It is sad that copying others is considered perverse. Innovation is all about copying others, building upon their ideas and making them slightly better. In the history books you hear about the Wright Brothers inventing aircraft, but actually there were many other people who may have even flown before them. They simply built on others ideas, just as most other successful entrepreneurs do. And the Wright Brothers went around suing people over intellectual property violations for years, ensuring the U.S. didn't even have an adequate air force to enter into WWI! (According to Jeffrey Tucker).

So, you think knock-off Rolex watches are an 'innovation?'

[AiliailiA]

I don't see the abolition of patents as entirely stifling research and development. There is still some advantage to being first on the market, and a lot of the products which get research and development are rather faddy. Next year's model will look quite different, not actually be very different, and people will upgrade anyway.

The effect wouldn't be good though. I think it would concentrate markets further onto a the few biggest corporations who have the resources to develop projects in secret and bring them to market en masse. It would give even more impetus to 'vertical integration' which is already a problem for competition ... if bigcorp A can't stop smallbusiness B and C copying their latest product, they can take a stake in logistics to favor the distribution of their version.

I'm sure someone has mentioned trademarks. I think those are even more important than patents, because if some other manufacturer can impersonate you in the marketplace your reputation suffers if their cheap product turns out to be crap.

[Nazis in Space]

This seems to be an interesting book on the subject (written by neoclassical economists, mind you, so don't use the fact that it is on Mises as an excuse not to at least take a peek.) http://mises.org/misesreview_detail.aspx?control=354

Anyway, intellectual "property" is absurd, since it necessitates violating the rights of other people's scarce resources, such as their own paper, CDs, hardware, etc. to ensure that nothing is copied. Furthermore, not allowing other people to innovate off of one's own inventions will simply retard progress, not advance it; one can simply claim their process or what have you and not improve upon it, but simply benefit from it until the monopoly expires, at which point the competitive process is then allowed to continue without the threat of legal sanction. The removal of patents would transfer innovation from a progress which stagnates at times, to one in which the first mover advantage would still be encouraged to get a leg up over competition (who would turn down a new process that could make one more competitive, if one knew it?), but that would not allow for stasis. Where using processes is expensive, such as when a scientific discovery can only be really used by a company that has a certain set of experience, skills, or equipment that cannot be replicated, patents are superfluous. Where such processes are easily replicated at little or no cost, it seems absurd to prohibit the use of something that is not scarce.

In order to actually have a point, rather than just masturbating furiously over a hypothetical, you'll have to explain why, despite your brilliant, nay, beautiful hypothesis, the rate at which innovation occurs has increased, not decreased, once intellectual property rights were introduced.

Sure, there's examples where intellectual property rights 'Stinted Innovation' - James Watt's policies concerning his steam engines caused such -, but it's fallacious to assume that a lack of intellectual property rights would've sped up the process, for the simple reason that a lack of such rights wouldn't just be in place once the invention is done and all - rather, it'd be effectively universal. This, in turn, would dramatically reduce the incentive to invest in new ideas (It takes far longer to make the moeny back, the risk of losing it all is higher, and why bother investing time in something that'll not benefit oneself?).

Now, of course the rate of innovation previous to the introduction of IPRs wasn't zero - however, innovation was generally conducted and caused by a very specific class of people (And occasionally their protegés). Namely, rich landowners (Or occasionally the protegés of the state rather than of the rich landowners). They were the ones who could engage in ultimately altruistic endeavours such as, well, research, because they felt like it, despite the investment in such tending rather strongly towards involving a net loss. They could afford to do so. It was their hobby, and it didn't threaten them financially.

Naturally, this rather limited the pool of talents that could produce worthwhile innovations. People like Watt - who came from a rather poor background - would've had immense difficulties flourishing under such a system (A few tried, but they had the curious habit of ending broke and starving after their innovations were stolen from them without compensation. Gutenberg comes to mind), and indeed, generally they didn't bother. There was nothing in it for them.

In short, while IP holders may Stint innovation for their little invention for a little while, the innovative output of systems with IPRs is sometheless vastly superior to systems without them, simply because the talent pool engaging in innovation is vastly greater. Because innovating can suddenly be a job to be desired, rather than a hobby to be engaged in when you're already a multi-millionaire (Or are friends with one).

You can't have the best of both worlds - they're mutually exclusive. And ultimately, IPRs win out.

That aside, I think it's mildly disgusting to effectively approve of theft and leaving innovators broke and starving because it supposedly 'Benefits Humanity'.

[AiliailiA]

This seems to be an interesting book on the subject (written by neoclassical economists, mind you, so don't use the fact that it is on Mises as an excuse not to at least take a peek.) http://mises.org/misesreview_detail.aspx?control=354

Seems to be broken. OK, I got it now.

[AiliailiA]

My feeling on patents is that they:
(a) must be public (generally they are);
(b) must not be used to prevent the patented thing from being manufactured
(c) should weaken over time rather than expiring suddenly

with regard to (b), I'd allow a patent holder a short time of exclusive use (perhaps a year) to develop them into a salable product or service, and after that require them to license it. That is, to take a share of profits (perhaps revenue?) of other producers who use their patent. Setting that rate is tricky, and would probably vary from industry to industry. The patent holder still has a competitive advantage, from owning the patent, and if they're really bad at commercializing their patent they can simply put their resources towards some other good or service, subsidized by the other producers who are better at commercializing their patent.

with regard to (c), the licensing fee (royalties) would decrease over 20-30 years to zero, instead of holding full strength and suddenly expiring.

[Veblenia]

As for IP, like Sib, I see the merits of both sides, but I lead towards more of a 'pro-IP' side of things. I think there's a lot of worth in such a system, but there's also a whole lot that can go wrong (such as patient trolls or anti-competitiveness behaviours) Yet at the same time things like patients can be the only defence 'the little guy' can have against larger corporations or richer/more public individuals.

I think I might be happier if they were restricted to ownership by individuals and not corporations.

I'm pretty fond of the Author's Certificate regime used in the USSR - really, it's one of the few good ideas to come out of there. Whereas our patent regime turns innovations into private property and leaves it to the inventor to make back the invested time/labour by protecting rights to it's use, the Author's Certificates treat inventions/innovations as public goods, compensating the creator up front for their work but also releasing the design immediately to the public domain. I think it does a good job of balancing the need to reward innovators with the importance of keeping new designs publicly accessible and subject to further improvement by others.

[AiliailiA]

As for IP, like Sib, I see the merits of both sides, but I lead towards more of a 'pro-IP' side of things. I think there's a lot of worth in such a system, but there's also a whole lot that can go wrong (such as patient trolls or anti-competitiveness behaviours) Yet at the same time things like patients can be the only defence 'the little guy' can have against larger corporations or richer/more public individuals.

I think I might be happier if they were restricted to ownership by individuals and not corporations.

I'm pretty fond of the Author's Certificate regime used in the USSR - really, it's one of the few good ideas to come out of there. Whereas our patent regime turns innovations into private property and leaves it to the inventor to make back the invested time/labour by protecting rights to it's use, the Author's Certificates treat inventions/innovations as public goods, compensating the creator up front for their work

Wait ... how is it possible to decide the worth of an invention "up front"?

Credit the author, sure. And pay them for the worth of their invention, but a flat fee if you meet some arbitrary criterion of a governing body is quite silly. We don't know the value of any discovery for many years to come. It might start a whole new industry, or it might be promptly superseded by some other discovery (based on it or not) and have no commercial applications at all.

but also releasing the design immediately to the public domain. I think it does a good job of balancing the need to reward innovators with the importance of keeping new designs publicly accessible and subject to further improvement by others.

Patents should absolutely be made public, I agree on that. And others should be able to use them.

I think my proposal (right to use patents for everyone, with royalties to the patent-holder at a rate set by a public authority) achieves the same end of rewarding invention/discovery, without a 'threshold' to be decided case by case of whether the invention will be or might be useful in the future. Some inventions are immediately obvious breakthroughs, but not all. Leave it to the market to decide which are good, and reward the holder of a patent which is proven to be good. Make the settlement AFTER testing it in the market.

[Moral Libertarians]

Patents should absolutely be made public, I agree on that. And others should be able to use them.

I think my proposal (right to use patents for everyone, with royalties to the patent-holder at a rate set by a public authority) achieves the same end of rewarding invention/discovery, without a 'threshold' to be decided case by case of whether the invention will be or might be useful in the future.

Why is the government even required? The inventor can simply license their invention to others by means of private patents. This completely solves the problem you notice, by allowing the market to judge whether or not the invention will be successful.

[Jello Biafra]

How large of an area can I claim?

That is up to circumstance.

What would be the most important circumstances? Could Neil Armstrong have claimed the entirety of the moon for himself?

[Veblenia]

I'm pretty fond of the Author's Certificate regime used in the USSR - really, it's one of the few good ideas to come out of there. Whereas our patent regime turns innovations into private property and leaves it to the inventor to make back the invested time/labour by protecting rights to it's use, the Author's Certificates treat inventions/innovations as public goods, compensating the creator up front for their work

Wait ... how is it possible to decide the worth of an invention "up front"?

Credit the author, sure. And pay them for the worth of their invention, but a flat fee if you meet some arbitrary criterion of a governing body is quite silly. We don't know the value of any discovery for many years to come. It might start a whole new industry, or it might be promptly superseded by some other discovery (based on it or not) and have no commercial applications at all.

but also releasing the design immediately to the public domain. I think it does a good job of balancing the need to reward innovators with the importance of keeping new designs publicly accessible and subject to further improvement by others.

Patents should absolutely be made public, I agree on that. And others should be able to use them.

I think my proposal (right to use patents for everyone, with royalties to the patent-holder at a rate set by a public authority) achieves the same end of rewarding invention/discovery, without a 'threshold' to be decided case by case of whether the invention will be or might be useful in the future. Some inventions are immediately obvious breakthroughs, but not all. Leave it to the market to decide which are good, and reward the holder of a patent which is proven to be good. Make the settlement AFTER testing it in the market.

I can see the merits of this, but there are also huge disincentives for inventors to make their designs public, if someone else can come along and refine it in 6 months or so, taking away their royalty stream. A flat fee up front avoids this. It's not meant to assess the potential market value of a patent, but to compensate the inventor for their time. Given the number of patents that are sold by inventors without the resources to develop and market their product, this probably won't be all that much different for most people. The key change is that it releases pressures to keep their designs proprietary.

[Nazis in Space]

Patents should absolutely be made public, I agree on that. And others should be able to use them.

I think my proposal (right to use patents for everyone, with royalties to the patent-holder at a rate set by a public authority) achieves the same end of rewarding invention/discovery, without a 'threshold' to be decided case by case of whether the invention will be or might be useful in the future.

Why is the government even required? The inventor can simply license their invention to others by means of private patents. This completely solves the problem you notice, by allowing the market to judge whether or not the invention will be successful.

The market will recognise the validity of private, and consequently not legally enforced patents, rather than simply ignore them... Why?

[X_oO-0-X-0-Oo_x]

That aside, I think it's mildly disgusting to effectively approve of theft and leaving innovators broke and starving because it supposedly 'Benefits Humanity'.

It's also very collectivist.

[Charlotte Ryberg]

Patents aren't compulsory but they're cool if you came up with something really transformation and you could make real money by selling that invention to millions, just like what Dyson did. Also keeps big business from copying your idea too, provided that it is kept secret until the application is accepted !!!

[Mexican Liberation]

Tag.(100th post )