🚀 go-pugleaf

[Kee had suggested shorter-duration patent; I'd suggested "zero" as a
suitably short duration]
I'd claimed:
>>	- 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.

nazgul@alphalpha.com (Kee Hinckley) writes:
>This takes very little time with a patent, since the patent is in fact a
>description of how to do it.  All you are giving the inventor is the
>"time-to-market" factor, and not even that if you consider that the inventor
>will want to submit the patent as soon as they think of it, not after they
>have started selling it...

Wait...you stopped short of the _reductio_ad_absurdum_ (which, unfortu-
nately, left you with an absurdity:-).  If you reduce the duration of
patent protection to zero, then (as I'd said) you don't need the patent
lawyers or the patent office muddling around in the mess--and naturally,
you don't need the patent either!  If you're not going to get any "pro-
tection" (i.e., monopoly) out of the patent, why apply for one and disclose
your invention?

No, I really meant just toss out the whole mess, at least for software.
It's been empirically shown that software patents:
	- are not necessary
	- cause problems
We don't need software patents.  They serve NO useful purpose; it's that
simple.

You worry that people will keep ideas as...
>a trade secret rather than publicizing how I did something.  I'm not sure
>that's an improvement.

It's no worse than what we've got now--17 years is an eternity.  I don't
think it's worse than your shortened-term protection.  It might not be
better, but it would be simpler.  It does eliminate all the problems of
simultaneous/overlapping invention/discovery.  If you keep your invention a
secret (let's avoid the term "trade secret" here; it has a special meaning)
that doesn't mean nobody else can figure out what you did; it just means
you're not telling.
-- 
Dick Dunn    rcd@raven.eklektix.com   -or-   raven!rcd
	...Simpler is better.