"Steven Schveighoffer" <schvei...@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:op.v3yn2di8eav7ka@localhost.localdomain... > On Tue, 25 Oct 2011 17:37:02 -0400, Kagamin <s...@here.lot> wrote: > >> Steven Schveighoffer Wrote: >> >>> 1. Software is already well-covered by copyright. >> >> You can't write software out of thin air. Let's suppose ranges >> increase usability of a collections library. Can you write a >> collections library without knowing about ranges concept? That's what >> patents are for. > > patents exist to give an *incentive* to give away trade secrets that > would otherwise die with the inventor.
That last part is, of course, a fallacy. It implies that the trade secrets would not be carried forward beyond the inventor's life by companies, progeny or some other means. >The idea is, if you patent something, you enjoy a period of monopoly, >where you can profit from the fruits of your invention. The defined period though may or may not be enough to recover the costs of invention. Who's to put a price on someone's work of invention which cost him pretty much all of his adult life? The patent office? I think not! And while some may not like that another's goals may be to "milk the invention for all it's worth for as long as possible", that's just "tough titties". Others may desire that scenario to give some "power" to those who can do good with it rather than build war machines and make war. > In return, you bestow upon the world the secret behind your idea. That is only one possible scenario, perhaps "the moral high ground" perspective, but not even so, as shown above. It looks more (to me) like someone wanting to "get something for nothing". Instead of playing people like lottery tickets, those types should... buy lottery tickets| > This allows people to build on your idea in the future, instead of > nobody ever being able to discover what your invention was. The people in the company surrounding the product don't do that? Isn't software like children? An inventor may indeed have goals and purposes envisioned for his inventions. Why bother bringing babies home from the hospital? Just leave them there for whatever, right? Why not make all things a giant cesspool of cluster-fucking? Everything, all of the time, 100% entitlement. (As the corporate middle managers yell in unison, "Yeah man, that!"). Now, about those proprietary "rights" you think you have to your children... are you sure someone else hasn't filed a patent for them before you?