On Tue, 3 Jun 2003, at 11:02am, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > Ben> Basically, patents are intended to protect ideas. > > Well, that is the way they are used, but they were *intended* to foster > invention and innovation by rewarding the inventor/innovator with a 17(?) > year span of exclusivity during which they could patent that > invention/innovation.
You're talking why, I was talking what. :) > Unfortunately, it seems to have done exactly the opposite of this :( I did say I didn't want to get into that argument. But since you bring it up anyway... The reason patents were created was that, otherwise, people tend to want to keep ideas "secret" and "horde" them. This is not unreasonable. It would really suck to dedicate ten years of your life (or tons of R&D money) to perfecting some process, only to have some third rate company copy your plan and undercut your price the week after you went to market. The problems that I and many others see are mainly (1) the US Patent and Trademark Office has been granting overly broad and general patents for the past few decades, and (2) the 20 year lifetime of a patent grant is far too long for the fast-paced world of computers. I understand that #1 is a relatively recent development; apparently, the precedent had long been that abstract "mechanisms" could not be patented. A court decision in the second half of the 20th century changed that. Incidentally: Look up Jeff Bezos and Tim O'Reilly's commentary on patents sometime. Things aren't quite as clear cut as one might think... > Yeah, I've never quite gotten this either. You declare it as a trade > secret, but don't file a patent on it because that would release the trade > secret to the public. Companies don't declare something a trade secret in advance. A trade secret is basically just some bit of "intellectual property" that you keep secret. If someone else "steals" it from you, you can then sue them. Trade secrets are more general than patents, and they don't expire, which is why companies like them. That much I understand. What I'm not clear on is (1) the legal mechanisms involved and (2) what happens once the cat is out of the bag. -- Ben Scott <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> | The opinions expressed in this message are those of the author and do | | not represent the views or policy of any other person or organization. | | All information is provided without warranty of any kind. | _______________________________________________ gnhlug-discuss mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss