An advantage of war (Hah!) is that no-one cares a bit about patent rights. I believe the jet engine was held back because the metal that could withstand it's heat was held by another patent.
So, patents were forgotten - the engine and the metal came together, and a whole new way of safe travel was born.
Perhaps the silly (and dangerous) patents will suffer a killing attack because of the situation you introduced to us.
Harry
____________________________
Keith wrote:
Hi Harry,
At 01:56 16/02/02 -0800, you wrote:
(HP)
<<<<
I suppose everyone knows that I want to see the end of both patents and
copyrights -- the source of privileges costing us billions every year.
Someone else has similar ideas!
>>>>
Yes. And I think this view is slowly gaining ground among economists who,
hitherto, have not dwelt much upon the injustice of copyrights and patents.
Here, for example, is a sentence from a recent book (or, rather, it's about
to be published in April -- "Free Trade Today", Princeton University Press)
by Prof Jagdish Bhagwati, of Columbia University and a Special Advisor to
the UN, one of the world's leading experts on trade:
"To many economiss, the demands for intellectual property protection are
not cnducive to advancing economic welfare worldwide, contrary to the
self-serving propaganda of our [American] industries and our [American]
campaign-contributions-purchased politicians. But they do amount to an
income transfer from the other, intellectual-property-using countries to us."
A corollary of this that the individual inventor or small firm has no
chance of protecting innovation via the present system of expensive patents.
Keith
******************************
Harry Pollard
Henry George School of LA
Box 655
Tujunga CA 91042
Tel: (818) 352-4141
Fax: (818) 353-2242
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