Prior to patent rights granted by the government, new technology was protected by trade secret - tell no one. Nothing was shared and technology advancement was slow. The "patent right" was created as a trade by the government: for a period of government protected exclusivity rights the inventor must tell his "secret" publicly and completely. This is allowed technology to be built-upon before the period of the patent expires, and sold in a more advanced form after the patent expires. It was a good deal and technology flourished. Today many unscrupulous companies have tried to subvert the philosophy of the patent, and perhaps the laws need to be re-thought. A patent is not required, and secrecy can still be used ad infinitum. Many companies still keep trade secrets because the patent either doesn't last long enough or the infringement would be too difficult to detect or enforce.
On Sun, Jan 29, 2017 at 8:14 PM, H LV <[email protected]> wrote: > I searched for the Economist article from 1851 after I heard the labour > economist Guy Standing mention it in this recent discussion at DAVOS at > 22:20 > > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5n4j8-zUE4 > > Guy Standing points out that intellectual property is part of rentier > Capitalism. He cites the Economist article because it argues that such > rights are not really rights but are in fact privileged forms of income or > rent determined by legislation rather than by free markets. However, > instead of doing away with such privileged forms of income as the Economist > argues, I think Guy's point is that the government ought to be > redistributing some of this rental income back to the wider society in the > form of a basic income. > > Harry >
