John Williams wrote:
On Thu, Aug 13, 2009 at 4:36 AM, David Hobby<[email protected]> wrote:
I'd argue that the patent laws are not that poorly
written, the problem is that there's latitude in
their interpretation. I think that may be an
unavoidable problem.
Are you including the patents themselves in "patent laws"? Because I
think that is the real problem in the system. Other than the existence
of the system, which I agree, is full of unavoidable problems.
Why don't you attempt to outline a system of patent
laws that would NOT have latitude in their interpretation?
There are of course trivial examples, such as "have no
patents, ever". I believe that's worse than the present
system.
You know we disagree on that, right? I stated my belief earlier.
Obviously, I don't think that is an efficient use of my time. Short of
eliminating the system all together, which I think is unlikely to
happen, then the best thing that could happen is that the number of
patents granted by drastically reduced. The vast majority of the
patents granted are not beneficial to anyone but the patent-holder.
The only collective benefit of the patent system is to disseminate
information that might otherwise have been kept secret. Only patents
consistent with that criterion should be granted. And that is a small
fraction of the ones that currently are granted.
John--
I'd like you to pick one area pretty much of your
choice, and have a detailed discussion of how your
ideas would work in practice. You may find that
things won't work out as neatly as you hoped.
I agree, there have been WAY too many US patents
granted, particularly recently. To pick a famous
one, Amazon should never have been granted a patent
on one-click ordering. There really wasn't anything
new there.
I doubt that "would otherwise have been kept secret"
is going to be a useful criterion for when a patent
should be granted. How do you propose to tell when
that's the case?
You keep going on about "poorly written laws"--let's
see if you can produce alternatives.
I also mentioned too many laws. That is the first problem to attack.
If the number were drastically reduced, then perhaps there would be
more resources available to carefully craft the remaining laws. Bruce
and I have similar views on that -- testing is required. I'd like to
see something along the lines of letting people "vote" to choose which
system of laws they are subject to -- instead of electing a politician
where your vote might not count, your vote chooses for certain what
you get (of course, as a practical matter this is only applicable to a
subset of total laws).
O.K., please give me an example of ONE well-written law,
just so I know what you mean.
As for having people pick the laws they'd be under,
wouldn't that be a huge mess? Would the police be
enforcing the laws, and have to check which system
people were under before ticketing/arresting them?
Could you be more specific about what you have in
mind?
---David
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