🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <58801@bbn.BBN.COM> pplacewa@bbn.com (Paul Placeway) writes:
   A (perhaps radical) solution to this would be a small change in the
   patent laws: if you publish before the patent is GRANTED, you loose
   any claims to the idea.

Applications sit for years in the patent office's in-basket.  Nothing
would be published; everything creative would go back to being trade
secrets protected by copyright, non-disclosure, and contracts between
big players; there would be no cross-fertilization; and stagnation
would result.  As you pointed out, we would be working on IBM 704s.

Since computing technology seems to be progressing at a faster pace
than wool-carding, spindle-turning, and nail-stamping technology, it
needs a different protection scheme altogether, if any at all.  The
patent is an inappropriate mechanism in an information economy.