🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1991Aug29.045245@eklektix.com> rcd@raven.eklektix.com (Dick Dunn) writes:
>[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?

But as I pointed out, this leads to the use of trade secrets instead.  Patents
at least allow other people to see what's new and move on (albeit carefully
without infringing - or with licensing).

I'm playing a bit of devil's advocate here.  Given the choice I think that
no patents with a risk of hidden techniques might be better.  But I think it's
important to consider the drawbacks, and it's important to consider where
we would be willing to compromise - because I think congress is highly unlikely
to get rid of patents altogether.

>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.

True.  BTW.  What *is* the special meaning.  I'm not clear on that.
-- 
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I'm not sure which upsets me more: that people are so unwilling to accept
responsibility for their own actions, or that they are so eager to regulate
everyone else's.