Re: How true...

["Michael J. Mahon" <mjmahon@aol.com>]

mdj wrote:
> On Apr 23, 6:24 am, "Michael J. Mahon" <mjma...@aol.com> wrote:
>
>
> > Not surprising--Don is one of the most innovative "garage inventors"
> > on the planet.
> >
> > (FWIW, I have a great deal of sympathy for his position that patents
> > are a *very* imperfect means to protect intellectual property,
> > especially for individuals.)
>
>
> I feel the same way. Unfortunately, patents are very good at one
> thing: protecting big business from small business. The tragedy of
> course is that in doing so, they (worst case) destroy the very thing
> they're designed to foster, or (best case) allow only big business to
> innovate.

Which is perhaps the least efficient mechanism for innovation.

Most large companies are trying to *stop* innovation, since it is a
threat to their current (or past) success.  (Of course, they would
never say so.)

> I was greatly saddened when patents were allowed within the software
> industry, and have similar feelings for other industries, with the
> exception being for cases where R&D costs are so high that patents are
> necessary to encourage the financial risk. I've long held the belief
> that protection of implementations through copyright was more than
> sufficient.
>
> It's quite absurd that these days, the construction of a non-trivial
> commercially viable software application is virtually impossible
> without stepping on a dozen or so patents. The fact that this
> routinely happens should be all the evidence required that most (if
> not all) patents are based on "obvious" ideas and should be
> invalidated.

Exactly.

I've always felt that independent invention should be a defense against
patent infringement--not reading someone's patent and finding a way
around it, but truly independently inventing a thing.

Then if a patent is obvious, it isn't worth much.

> I'd like to see massive financial penalties imposed on patent misuse,
> but alas, it's a very difficult thing to prove.

Yes, and this is complicated by the fact that our "justice" system's
objective is to correctly perform all the procedures, not to arrive
at the truth.  Add to that the relative technical incompetence of most
judges and all juries and you have a recipe for nonsense.

-michael

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