At 05/30/05 10:57, you wrote:
Eric Hines wrote:
Actually, the concept of patents and copyrights is a good one
I'd agree about copyrights, but not patents. I think that getting a
monopoly on an IDEA is ridiculous.
Patent monopoly rights are very similar to copyright monopoly rights--just
need some (not so minor) tweaks: shorter lifetime for the monopoly (at
least in the US, this needs to be applied to copyrights, too); mandatory
licensing, similar to copyright fair use requirements.
--it compensates the inventor(s) for their efforts, and so spurs innovation
I've never seen any evidence that granting a monopoly over an idea
(patents) spur innovation. And I have seen a lot of evidence to the
contrary. Putting roadblocks in the sharing of ideas inhibits progress,
since all ideas are based on relatively small modifications of old ones.
--the performance of the open source community notwithstanding.
And the scientific community, which is much older, by several hundred years.
Cheers,
Daniel.
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