Yet another screed against the patent system. What else is new? The correlation of a robust patent system to economic prosperity of a nation have been demonstrated, most recently in Ron Cass' and Keith Hylton's book, Laws of Creation.
My personal views on this study in this article agree with some of the conclusions, but by no means all. "Innovation" is often hard to pin down for patenting, and patent rights are often lost due to the innovators' ignorance of the patent process or other market forces. Jonas Salk, for example, lost out on patenting his vaccine because of prior art - yet, he spun a nice tale afterward. I suspect that behind many of these "innovations" is a similar tale.
Also, patents are but one factor in "innovation," which here seems to mean solely critical or popular innovations. This article and its ilk demonstrate that those anti-patent have little understanding of the value of a patent system.
This being said, I fully recognize that corporations have warped the intent of the Founders toward patents somewhat, and we must be sensitive to this. Still, we cannot throw the baby out with the bathwater here. Our patent system is vital to our society, and we are in the midst of a vast recalibration. Perhaps, we should wait awhile before attacking the patent system anew.
Of course our early nation was a hotbed of infringement. That is hardly news. Yet, for hundreds of years before our founding, kings and queens actively courted outsiders to come to their shores. Our young nation was no different, but it took us a long time to get infringement under control - through the development of patent law jurisprudence.
Our Founders, in the midst of the Industrial Revolution, recognized the importance of an orderly patent system (and copyright), and put these fundamental commercial rights into the Constitution so that individuals could invent and prosper. The later dominance of corporations has complicated this, but the idea is still there. Innovation is a good thing, and the patent system provides the mechanism for the protection of that innovation.
The suggestion that things would be better if we were to just revert to old time piracy is nonsensical and antithetical to the wishes of our Founders.
Ray Van Dyke
Techdirt has not posted any stories submitted by Ray.
Here we go again
Yet another screed against the patent system. What else is new? The correlation of a robust patent system to economic prosperity of a nation have been demonstrated, most recently in Ron Cass' and Keith Hylton's book, Laws of Creation.
My personal views on this study in this article agree with some of the conclusions, but by no means all. "Innovation" is often hard to pin down for patenting, and patent rights are often lost due to the innovators' ignorance of the patent process or other market forces. Jonas Salk, for example, lost out on patenting his vaccine because of prior art - yet, he spun a nice tale afterward. I suspect that behind many of these "innovations" is a similar tale.
Also, patents are but one factor in "innovation," which here seems to mean solely critical or popular innovations. This article and its ilk demonstrate that those anti-patent have little understanding of the value of a patent system.
This being said, I fully recognize that corporations have warped the intent of the Founders toward patents somewhat, and we must be sensitive to this. Still, we cannot throw the baby out with the bathwater here. Our patent system is vital to our society, and we are in the midst of a vast recalibration. Perhaps, we should wait awhile before attacking the patent system anew.
Ray Van Dyke
Patent Practitioner and Educator
Our Founders and Patents
Of course our early nation was a hotbed of infringement. That is hardly news. Yet, for hundreds of years before our founding, kings and queens actively courted outsiders to come to their shores. Our young nation was no different, but it took us a long time to get infringement under control - through the development of patent law jurisprudence.
Our Founders, in the midst of the Industrial Revolution, recognized the importance of an orderly patent system (and copyright), and put these fundamental commercial rights into the Constitution so that individuals could invent and prosper. The later dominance of corporations has complicated this, but the idea is still there. Innovation is a good thing, and the patent system provides the mechanism for the protection of that innovation.
The suggestion that things would be better if we were to just revert to old time piracy is nonsensical and antithetical to the wishes of our Founders.
Ray Van Dyke