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Re: undefined

#101

Post by marshray »

M8R-fhlcjm wrote: post #95
marshray wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well if you look at regular GDP http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_%28nom... , China is right there at #2. They are hardly known for their strong patent enforcement. To the contrary, they're known for "lax IP" and as a place where anyone can start a factory and start making almost anything for export . They're said to be growing faster than the US too, probably in no small part because it's easier…

China's relative recent rise is predicated on copying - not innovating. As patent rights are weakened, investors are increasingly reluctant to invest in $costly American R&D that can just be copied at a fraction of the R&D $cost. Pick your poison: compete with China on lowest cost vs. high end jobs innovating. Except the later affords a more affluent lifestyle while the former require suicide nets in their buildings:…

Right, so when China opens a textiles sweatshop using prison labor, a semiconductor factory, or Apple contracts with Foxconn to manufacture iPhones, it's because the China is copying American R&D.

> Pick your poison

Ah yes, I was wondering when you were going to get around to the false dichotomy.

> suicide nets

Wow you really are a desperate troll. Unfortunately for you, the suicide rate in the US and Japan is far higher than at Foxconn. Last I ran the numbers, Foxconn employees had the suicide rate of a Carribean island.

I guess that is something China is copying from the US and Japan: http://www.google.com/search?q=suicide+barrier

Re: undefined

#102

Post by marshray »

M8R-fhlcjm wrote: post #96
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Forget about all of that, you're just feeding the troll. The troll's premise is that correlation is causation, i.e. that large economies generally have patent systems and therefore that patent systems cause or are necessary to maintain large economies. This logic leads to the conclusion that an ostentatious capitol building is necessary for economic prosperity, because most major economies have an ostentatious capita…

I see, "troll" because I don't conform to your opinion. What is this, slashdot? > Try asking it to prove that the economic prosperity is caused by the patent system rather than merely correlated. About as provable as the opposite.

> What is this, slashdot?

Ouch! Now that's hitting below the belt.

Re: undefined

#103

Post by marshray »

rustynails77 wrote: post #99
fpgeek wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You also might ask: How did the US get to the top in the first place? It was not exactly known for respecting English and German patents in the 19th century...

WWII baby. The US blackmailed the UK out of its patents (in return for assistance) and the US basically took all of Germany's IP as payment. I'll get modded to hell for that - but it had to be said.

I don't think you have to invoke any legal trickery or belief in the power of "Intellectual Property": in 1945 the US was, more or less, the only large industrialized capitalist nation that hadn't been bombed to bits.

UK, Germany, and Japan were still stacking their buildings' bricks back on top of each other while the US was figuring out what to do with its absurd postwar excess manufacturing capacity.

Re: undefined

#104

Post by hingisundhorsa »

marshray wrote: post #101
M8R-fhlcjm wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China's relative recent rise is predicated on copying - not innovating. As patent rights are weakened, investors are increasingly reluctant to invest in $costly American R&D that can just be copied at a fraction of the R&D $cost. Pick your poison: compete with China on lowest cost vs. high end jobs innovating. Except the later affords a more affluent lifestyle while the former require suicide nets in their buildings:…

Right, so when China opens a textiles sweatshop using prison labor, a semiconductor factory, or Apple contracts with Foxconn to manufacture iPhones, it's because the China is copying American R&D. > Pick your poison Ah yes, I was wondering when you were going to get around to the false dichotomy. > suicide nets Wow you really are a desperate troll. Unfortunately for you, the suicide rate in the US and Japan is far hi…

"Last I ran the numbers, Foxconn employees had the suicide rate of a Carribean island.". Sorry, you're making a common comparison fallacy that I used to make as well. The Foxconn employee suicide rate is for employees committing suicide specifically at the factory itself. To make an equivalent comparison, you can't compare against a whole Caribbean island, you'd have to compare with a specific sugar plantation. The fact that these employees specifically chose to end their lives at their employer's offices/factories is something to consider.

Re: undefined

#105

Post by marshray »

hingisundhorsa wrote: post #104
marshray wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, so when China opens a textiles sweatshop using prison labor, a semiconductor factory, or Apple contracts with Foxconn to manufacture iPhones, it's because the China is copying American R&D. > Pick your poison Ah yes, I was wondering when you were going to get around to the false dichotomy. > suicide nets Wow you really are a desperate troll. Unfortunately for you, the suicide rate in the US and Japan is far hi…

"Last I ran the numbers, Foxconn employees had the suicide rate of a Carribean island.". Sorry, you're making a common comparison fallacy that I used to make as well. The Foxconn employee suicide rate is for employees committing suicide specifically at the factory itself. To make an equivalent comparison, you can't compare against a whole Caribbean island, you'd have to compare with a specific sugar plantation. The f…

I'm certainly open to the idea that the rate is being systematically underreported, but the article I read suggested that most of these employees lived in dormitory-style housing on the factory premises.

For example: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/03/29/us-apple-foxconn-i... NEW DORMS ... Foxconn committed to building new housing to alleviate situations where multiple workers were squeezed into dorm rooms that seem inhumane by Western standards.

And http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-57527579-37/foxconn-confir... Foxconn, which has 1.2 million employees in China, has come under scrutiny in the past few years amid reports of employees committing suicide at company facilities. The company has also been accused of employing underage laborers, providing poor living conditions at its dormitory housing, and overworking employees.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxconn_suicides The suicide rate at Foxconn during the suicide spate remained lower than that of the general Chinese population[8] as well as all 50 states in the United States.[9]

Re: undefined

#106

Post by chii »

neltnerb wrote: post #29
danilocampos wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm saying that they shouldn't be able to patent something as easy to implement as that for 17 years, or whatever the patent age is. If it was so "easy", why wasn't it invented a long time ago?

This is a common fallacy when it comes to inventions. I have a Ph.D. in an engineering field, so I'm not easily impressed. That said, the inventions which are truly revolutionary are the ones where as soon as someone describes it you think "man, that makes perfect sense". Yes, it makes perfect sense because it's the correct solution. That doesn't make it obvious before someone came along and spelled it out, nor guara…

> truly revolutionary are the ones where as soon as someone describes it you think "man, that makes perfect sense".

the purpose of the patent is to prevent secrets from being lost due to the fear of competitors stealing it. Say you have a formula, or a special method of manufacturing a widget. You tell no one, and so stay in business because the widget is useful.

However, in the long run, such behavour is bad for society as a whole. Patents encourage these "secrets" to be revealed, for the price of an enforced monopoly.

If, however, a "secret" method that's being employed is readily and easily discerned by a skilled practistioner in the field, then it deserves no patents. Pinch to zoom is one such "invention" - the mere fact of describing it to somebody means they can implement it.

Amazon's one click buy is also another example.

In other words, if the workings of the invention is easily discernable in such a way that a skilled practictioner could replicate it without knowing what would've been written in the patent, then it deserves no patents.

Re: undefined

#107

Post by CamperBob2 »

danilocampos wrote: post #15
mtgx wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's like saying you can't use drop-down menus on the web, because one site did it first. I'm not saying in other cases that it might not have taken longer for the others to figure it out (months, years?). I'm saying that they shouldn't be able to patent something as easy to implement as that for 17 years, or whatever the patent age is. Maybe if the patent system made a bit more sense, we wouldn't be so much agains…

> I'm saying that they shouldn't be able to patent something as easy to implement as that for 17 years, or whatever the patent age is. If it was so "easy", why wasn't it invented a long time ago?

If it was so "easy", why wasn't it invented a long time ago?

Because it made no sense to even contemplate such a feature prior to the availability of capacitive multitouch sensors.

Once the hardware became available, the obvious gesture-based functionality was implemented quickly and independently by multiple engineers.

Re: undefined

#108

Post by neltnerb »

chii wrote: post #106
neltnerb wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a common fallacy when it comes to inventions. I have a Ph.D. in an engineering field, so I'm not easily impressed. That said, the inventions which are truly revolutionary are the ones where as soon as someone describes it you think "man, that makes perfect sense". Yes, it makes perfect sense because it's the correct solution. That doesn't make it obvious before someone came along and spelled it out, nor guara…

> truly revolutionary are the ones where as soon as someone describes it you think "man, that makes perfect sense". the purpose of the patent is to prevent secrets from being lost due to the fear of competitors stealing it. Say you have a formula, or a special method of manufacturing a widget. You tell no one, and so stay in business because the widget is useful. However, in the long run, such behavour is bad for soc…

The argument you portray is sufficiently complicated that's it's hard to even begin... not that arguing is really the purpose. Yes, that is the purpose of a patent philosophically, for sure. It's hard to apply a philosophical test to a legal case though =)

Re: undefined

#109

Post by Tloewald »

tapsboy wrote: post #20
fusiongyro wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except it's impossible to prove the absence of prior art, while proving the existence of it is pretty easy.

Yep. Finite set of prior art < Infinite set of everything else

Everything else is both finite and not clearly larger. Insofar as everything else might be infinite (e.g. Infinite multiverse) so might prior art.

Re: undefined

#110

Post by therandomguy »

M8R-fhlcjm wrote: post #32

R&D costs money, and lots of it. So in the end, patents provided the incentive to innovate and $spend on R&D in America, and now free for all to copy. Without patents, smart investors will start to look at where they can most cheaply copy American innovations.

Sorry that you are getting down voted and being called a troll for suggesting that patent and IP laws serve a purpose. I guess the down voters would be comfortable investing a billion dollar in R&D for a drug that Walgreens can copy in a week.
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