Re: Patent breakthrough- maybe we don't need them after all?

From: Lee Daniel Crocker (lee@piclab.com)
Date: Thu Mar 16 2000 - 09:37:31 MST


> Thats a disengenuous argument. Say I create a new type of fishing reel.
> I make them. Someone buys my fishing reel under my license to them not
> to copy it. That someone's fishing buddy sees how the reel works, and
> decides to manufacture the same reel, however since he doesn't have to
> pay the amortized costs of my research and development, he can underbid
> me in the market, and drives me out of business. Thats how your
> patentless society would work.

I'm not disingenuous at all--you have it exactly right this time. You
(and the present public consensus) seem to think that this scenario
would be a bad thing. I see it as simply fostering different kinds of
creativity. Yes, long-term speculative research would be less likely
to profit without patents. Good! Long-term speculative research
_should_ be risky. Without patents, most "inventions" will be small
incremental improvements to existing things: adaptations, combinations,
improved processes, etc. That's what creativity is anyway: what's
disingenuous is the silly idea that completely original ideas exist.

> If a farmer invented a new type of apple, and spent $1 billion
> researching and developing it, yet his neigbors felt that it was
> perfectly ok to buy one of his apples at market, extract its DNA, and
> start growing the same apples themselves, but since they don't have the
> cost of the research and development that the first farmer did, they can
> run him out of business. They don't even have to buy an apple, just go
> to the dump and pick up a discarded apple core. The property rights
> extend to the added value of the investment of research and development
> into the new idea, which is why patent rights are temporary, so that the
> inventor can recoupe the investment in R&D, before it becomes fair game
> for the open market.

Yes, that's exactly what patents are intended to do (and in some cases
in fact do successfully). I simply argue that they shouldn't. Yes, I
want that garbage-scrounger to be able to grow his own apples on his
own land from the other's DNA. What that means is that the first
farmer would be stupid to have invested lots of money in research that
can't be recouped by the simple market advantages of being first and
by having a good reputation. Inventors will always make more than
followers, because they have talent and can keep using it--without
patents they just have to be smarter about how they use it to make sure
they stay ahead of the followers. The upsides of the patentless system
are many--first, small incremental improvements to things happen more
because there's no legal impediment to them; craftsmanship becomes
valuable again; the inventors are unrestrained in what sources they
can draw from to create; and perhaps best of all, a million patent
lawyers are forced to find productive work.

--
Lee Daniel Crocker <lee@piclab.com> <http://www.piclab.com/lcrocker.html>
"All inventions or works of authorship original to me, herein and past,
are placed irrevocably in the public domain, and may be used or modified
for any purpose, without permission, attribution, or notification."--LDC



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