Re: Red Hat on patent FUD

[amicus_curious]

"Alan Mackenzie" <acm@muc.de> wrote in message 
news:gq6hl2$3066$1@colin2.muc.de...
> In gnu.misc.discuss amicus_curious <ACDC@sti.net> wrote:
> > "ml2mst" <ml2mstREMOVE@CAPSgmail.com> wrote in message
> > news:gq2fsa$apa$1@news.albasani.net...
>
> > You are wrong.  Patents are simply a means to protect the ideas of
> > innovators from wanton copycatting by others.
>
> Sorry, but you are wrong here.  There's no protection involved, because
> the ideas aren't in any danger.  The ideas are enhanced rather than
> damaged if they are copied by others.
>
> No, patents are a means of _restricting_ the use of the ideas of
> innovators.
You are entirely correct insofar as you state, but you ignore the element of 
reward.  Allowing others to copycat lessens the revenue that can be obtained 
and so the idea needs protection from copycatting.  The purpose of the 
patent is to expose the idea so that it can be extended by others who can, 
in turn, patent the extensions they make.

Certainly it restricts, by intent, the use of the idea to those whom the 
innovator has agreed upon a license to use the idea.

> > Those who can think of new things to do need to be rewarded or else we
> > will be faced with a steep decline in technological progress.
>
> Well, that's a very vague and very woolly.  Traditionally, especially in
> the USA, people who've thought of new things set up companies and get
> rich by making those things and selling them to eager customers.  "need
> to be rewarded" suggests more the idea of a large government fund paying
> out taxpayers' money to privileged people.
That is an odd conclusion to arrive at under the circumstances.  Certainly 
the innovator obtains his reward from the commercialization of the 
invention.  The protection of a patent affords the innovator with a clear 
field in which to present the idea and market it to those who can benefit 
from its use.  Perhaps in Germany there are large government funds for 
paying privileged people, but no such system exists in the USofA to pay 
inventors simply for inventing.