🚀 go-pugleaf

mathew@mantis.co.uk (Industrial Poet) writes:
> 3% total shared amongst the patent-owners?  Doesn't work.  My program uses
> 1000 trivial patented ideas, 999 of which belong to me and were filed in
> order to reduce the amount I'll have to pay to other people.

  First, this assumes a *COMPETENT* patent office - which would *NOT*
allow you to file 999 *TRIVIAL* patents.  Besides, if you could come
up with 999 *NON-TRIVIAL* inventions, you (according to some model of
the universe) deserve to reap some benefit from sharing them with us.
So, you end up paying yourself for using your own patent.  That's no
different than it is now, except that the other patent owner gets less
money per copy that sells. 

> 3% total shared amongst the patent owners, me excluded?  Doesn't work.  My
> program uses 1000 trivial patented ideas, 999 of which belong to my friend
> Richard.  Richard's programs use 1000 trivial patented ideas, 999 of which
> belong to me.

  There is nothing wrong with this system - if your friend Richard (or
my friend rms) can come up with 999 *NON-TRIVIAL* (remember, they are
the only things getting patents under this model) ideas, and you come
up with 999 *NON-TRIVIAL* ideas and you guys wanna "cross-license" -
that's your loss - literally.  After all, your program may cost less
to make and you might, therefore, sell it at a lower cost resulting in
less money for your friend Richard and more money for you (from
Richard's use of your 999 ideas).


	  The problem which jumps out and bites *ME* on the nose is
undoing all the problems that have been made so far.  After all, I
view this proposal as an attempt to wean inventors off of the idea of
some STATIC $$$$ per use and onto the idea of STATIC % mod # of
patented ideas used.  This will encourage EVERYONE to call for
stricter patenting, since the more patents there are, the lesser % per
patent you will (most likely) get.  In short, I think that it would
lead to a patent system where *IMPORTANT* things get patented - and as
time goes by, this has the nice effect of the patented idea getting
less and less of the % as it's importance in the program decreases
(via the inclusion of other patented ideas) and yet, the author,
inventor, whatever, still derives *SOME* reward the whole 10-20 years.


	  And, best of all, GNU could use all of these patented ideas
and would only have to pay 3-5% of the tape distribution costs mod #
of patented ideas per tape - GNU software available via anonymous ftp
would still be 0 cost.

	    -=> iain <=-




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| "He divines remedies against injuries;   | "Words are drugs."           |
|  he knows how to turn serious accidents  |     -Antero Alli             |
|  to his own advantage; whatever does not |                              |
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|                   - Friedrich Nietzsche  |     - Christopher Hyatt      |
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|            - Jean Paul Sartre  on the meaning of "anguish"              |
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