RoR: Forum

Post 0

Saturday, January 26 - 2:09pm

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http://49chevy.blogs.com/farnovision/2008/01/nprs-science-fr.html

This is the site for the NPR discussion of the new play, whose author they interviewed, which deals with the intellectual property dispute over the invention of television.

I note that it seems likely that we are about to see yet a new disaster in the intellectual property field. On the copyright side, we have had Disney lobbying to keep extending copyright into the indefinite future in order to protect Mickey and company. On the patent side, the U.S. Patent Office has been virtually rubber stamping patents for anyone who can pay the fee for some time now, and it is likely to get an order of magnitude worse with the new proposed rules which switch the basis of a patent from original development to first filer.

The local libertarian-owned newpaper, the Orange County Register, within the past year or two carried a "Marketplace" front page article on how local businesses were cashing in on the new laxer filing requirements by patenting all kinds of common business practices. All they have to do is file and wait for the challenge period to end and then the patent is written in stone, and the patent owner can then sue for damages or completely block any business from using basic business procedures that have been around for centuries.

There is an exact parallel between this and the patent law of France which destroyed their economy and set the stage for the revolution, as covered by Fukuyama in his "Trust." As Richard Weaver discussed - forget the book title, darn it - the French lost out to the British in the race to industrialize due to these intellectual property laws. For example, one French company had the patent for cloth with black warp, another had the patent for cloth with black woof. The consequence was that the darkest cloth that either could produce was 50% grey.

One of the key ideas that should jump off the stage in the Farnsworth/Sarnoff play, I would hope, is that our court system basically breaks down when serious money is involved. RCA simply kept Farnsworth, who really did invent TV, tied up in court until the patent ran out. In fact, from the early days of radio, RCA, Motorolla, Philco and all the other major tech players on the radio electronics stage hired hundreds of engineers to file patents on every conceivable piece of circuitry, if only to use in self-defense against competitors trying to use their patents to block production. Note that this was not the intent of the original patent/copyright system in the U.S.

Similarly, today anyone who invents a truly new software idea will likely find that the clever legal gnomes from Redmond* will be right on it, looking to purchase.* And if you want to keep the rights to yourself, then you may expect to be hit with all kinds of frivolous legal challenges that will bankrupt you.

*BTW, I happen to have SEVERAL new software ideas involving major new concepts...

Post 1

Sunday, January 27 - 4:42am

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Thanks, Phil. It is metaphysically impossible to have these kinds of unsolvable problems with land, which is the basis for our concepts about law.

The problem with laws about land is that they do not translate well to machinery, toosl, books, ideas, processes...

In order to steal land, you have to remove the person from it. (Title accomplishes this, but the goal is to remove the occupant.) With physical objects, larceny requires the carrying away of the object. That is different from land, opposite or the contrary.

With ideas the metaphysical problem is that you cannot prevent someone from knowing what the know once they know it. Communication passes title. That is the only way to look at it that makes sense to me.

Finally, I am not sure what the "intent" of the original Constitutional provision for patents and copyrights was. To me this was just some idea that no one questioned, like the maintenace of "post roads."

Post 2

Sunday, January 27 - 5:38am

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M.E.M writes

Finally, I am not sure what the "intent" of the original Constitutional provision for patents and copyrights was. To me this was just some idea that no one questioned, like the maintenace of "post roads."

I write:

I think it is rather clear. It is to give a selling monopoly to the inventor for a limited period of time so he could secure maximum profit as a reward for his creativity.

In those days life expectancy was not as great as it is now, so a seventeen year exclusive selling monopoly amounted to a working-lifetime exclusive, statistically speaking. That way the inventor (who did the work) profited and his heirs would have to do their own inventing. The selling monopoly was not to be bequeathed to heirs. I am not sure about the legality of selling the the patent rights. I assume such rights are salable but under the same terms. Good only for seventeen years from the time the patent was issued. I am not sure what the current patent law is. Your remark about the specificity of land ownership applies here also. A patent applies only to the invention, a particular instantiation of an underlying idea or principle, not to the idea or principle itself.

Bob Kolker

Post 3

Sunday, January 27 - 5:52am

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Does "metaphysically impossible" mean a logical impossibility, i.e. something that produces an overt contradiction of the form:

P and not-P ?

Or does it mean something that contradicts an established fact?

Or does it mean something else?

Bob Kolker

Post 4

Sunday, January 27 - 4:15pm

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Michael;

Just to let you know. I think that the land law concept is also flawed from the get-go. We all share jointly in the benefits of having a huge ball of rock to live on. In the future, we may decide that it would be better to unravel that ball of rock and make O'Neill colonies or ringworlds or Dysan spheres, but for the moment, we need that rock there and its gravity. That's just for starters.

My position on land is that it is owned by everyone to start out with - and I realize that this means a discussion of what ownership itself means... We purchase the rights to use a piece of land privately from all the people who have to forgoe their interests in it due to our exclusive right to use and disposal.

Post 5

Monday, January 28 - 2:56pm

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Robert K.,

Does "metaphysically impossible" mean a logical impossibility, i.e. something that produces an overt contradiction of the form:

P and not-P ?

Or does it mean something that contradicts an established fact?

In asking these questions here, you have offered a false alternative. For an Objectivist, there's essentially no difference between contradicting a "P" (an established proposition) and contradicting an established proposition of a fact (which can be denoted as "P").

From your words, it's very easy for me to see that you haven't swallowed Objectivism whole -- even if you've had a taste of it (though, I realize you've already admitted to this contextual misdemeanor).

This is the reason why "A is A" is still philosophically important, for it would seem from your words and the order that you've put them in that A isn't really A -- and that's a thinking error that I'd be willing to explain, if you show that you want to understand this point better.

;-)

Ed

Farnsworth's Follies - Intellectual Property and Theft