51–55 of 55 posts
> America’s most quintessential inventor did without them and thought they were foolish. Right, but he also didn't care about selling his inventions to feed his family, having other sources of income. It's easy to give away something you don't need.
I've often wondered what's the commercial and political mechanism that controls patent legislation and the lifetime of a patent. I mean, we're still at a mere 17 years with patents but Mickey Mouse is at roughly 95 years by now. Why is it worth lobbying for copyright extensions but not patent lifetime extensions?
Put another way, copyright as it is currently conceived degrades the creative space, but it isn't directly taking food out of people's mouths (it is, but in a less obvious way, and no one gives a shit about artists anyway).
The author is deeply confused. This part is simply incorrect: See, “First to File” doesn’t require that you build anything at all, that you have an intention to build something, or that you’re getting a patent on something that hasn’t, you know, already been invented by someone who couldn’t afford the patent. First to file makes no changes to any of that. It all remains exactly the same as it was under first to inven…
One might reasonably hope that a reform bill would contain more reform, after all, and one might legitimately criticize a reform bill for failing at its purpose.
I don't see how this isn't a bigger issue or hasn't been brought to light. As I understand it, large corporations (or anyone with the money, really) can simply file patents for future products they predict will come to market and then sue startups and entrepreneurs when they create the actual product. Someone please tell me I'm misunderstanding this.
In theory, a patent is supposed to be specific enough that the patent itself accurately describes the object, to the extent that a reasonably knowledgeable person could actually manufacture the object using only the patent as a blueprint. In other words, you would not be able to write the patent application unless you had actually invented the object in question, because otherwise you wouldn't know how to describe th…
I've often wondered what's the commercial and political mechanism that controls patent legislation and the lifetime of a patent. I mean, we're still at a mere 17 years with patents but Mickey Mouse is at roughly 95 years by now. Why is it worth lobbying for copyright extensions but not patent lifetime extensions?
Just a guess, but doing what you describe to patent law would seriously and obviously harm the economy and isn't politically feasible, whereas insane copyright terms just give the assholes at Disney a license to print money, some of which finds its way back to the very corrupt bastards who extended the term in the first place. Put another way, copyright as it is currently conceived degrades the creative space, but it…
It also means everyone knows patents are bullshit and collectively the companies don't want any of it but since we've got it established already and it's really hard to shut down the companies know they need to play ball yet do nothing in favor of patents.