🚀 go-pugleaf

nazgul@alphalpha.com (Kee Hinckley) writes:
>I'm a little suprised that I've seen noone suggest the obvious compromise
>of shortening the length of the monopoly...

but some of us have--you just took it wrong!:-)

>...Thus the person with the idea
>gets a headstart, but not a lockout of everyone else.  The current length
>is longer than the length many modern technologies are used before something
>else replaces them.  Something on the order of five years might make more
>sense.

I think even five years is way too much.  We just can't afford to wait that
long to absorb a "layer" of technology into what is accepted and generally
used.

My suggestion is for a period which is arguably too short, but it has some
simplifying advantages which offset the short duration:  I suggest that the
monopoly extend from discovery until someone else figures it out--i.e.,
effectively zero duration.  Consider:
	- If there is no legally-protected monopoly, we don't need the
	  *&^%$@!!! USPTO and platoons of lawyers.  This step alone would
	  produce a stunning advance in the constitutionally-mandated goal
	  of promoting the progress of science.
	- There's still copyright and trade-secret protection.
	- Although the legal duration of protection is zero, the effective
	  duration is decidedly NONzero.  If you "invent" something and use
	  it in a product, you have it exclusively until someone clones it.
	  This encourages you to move quickly and to keep innovating; you
	  can't sit back and litigate.
	- The effective duration of your monopoly (see preceding) is pro-
	  portional to its cleverness:  The cleverer it is, the longer it
	  will take other folks to clone it, and the more time you can use
	  it to your advantage.  Bogus "inventions" (like the xor cursor)
	  have zero duration and get exactly the protection they deserve:
	  none whatsoever.

I have no illusions about this approach ever being accepted--for one, it's
too damned simple; for another, it doesn't feed greedheads and lawyers (am
I repeating myself?:-).  But it still makes an interesting thought experi-
ment.
-- 
Dick Dunn    rcd@raven.eklektix.com   -or-   raven!rcd
	...Simpler is better.