🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <48185@netnews.upenn.edu> yee@mipgsun.mipg.upenn.edu (Conway Yee) writes:
>In article <1991Aug13.183216.19588@agate.berkeley.edu> jbuck@forney.berkeley.edu (Joe Buck) writes:
>>
>>I think that inventors should be rewarded, but granting them a state-enforced
>>monopoly for a couple of decades is a bit much.
>
>Doing away with patents is next to impossible.  One of the provisions of
>the Constitution is a requirement that Congress set up a patent and a 
>copyright system.  While the duration of the patent/copyright is not
>constitutionally determined, its existance certainly is.

False.  Here's the relevant passage from the Constitution:

The Congress shall have Power ... (lots of powers deleted)

    To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for
limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective
Writings and Discoveries;

That is, the Constitution gives Congress power to grant exclusive rights
to authors and inventors; it does not mandate that it do so.

Or are you going to tell me that the power to declare war, described
in the same section, MANDATES that Congress declare war?

In any case, I'd be satisfied with a provision reducing the duration of
a patent to a period of three to five years to reflect the fact that the
pace of innovation is so much faster these days than it was in the 18th
century.  Possibly one could argue for exceptions where a multi-year, expensive
approval process is required (new drugs).  But I'd like to end one-good-idea-
per-company thinking, which causes a company that develops a successful
product to fire all its engineers, hire lots of lawyers, and live off of
royalties from that point on.
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Joe Buck
jbuck@galileo.berkeley.edu	 {uunet,ucbvax}!galileo.berkeley.edu!jbuck