Joseph Sinclair wrote:
> Sorry to nitpick, but there's a critical misunderstanding in the below:
> 
> 1) The original purpose of patents (and copyright) was to foster innovation
>    by offering a *TRADE* in that the patent/copyright holder is permitted a
>    very *LIMITED* time monopoly on an idea or expression in return for
>    full publication (so that others can build on the idea)*.  Patents are
>    absolutely NOT (NO NOT EVER!) *intended* to provide financial incentive, that's a side-effect.
>    The writers of the US constitution realized that the greatest financial
>    incentive in a free market is to keep an invention secret (like the Coke recipe)
>    and they created the patent and copyright systems in an effort to move
>    ideas from the realm of trade-secret into the public domain.  This was done
>    through a very clever trade, the holder gets a clear and simple monopoly
>    that they don't have to struggle to keep (the courts will help), but only
>    for a limited time (it's hard to keep a secret forever anyway)
>    and society gets the benefit of others creating even more inventions
>    deriving from the patented one, and full access to the patented invention
>    once the term lapses (which is why everyone seems to be creating smart-cards
>    these days, the original patents mostly lapsed a few years ago).
> 
> IMO, the critical problem with the term "intellectual property" is that it implies
> a right to profit from the use of said "IP".  There is no right to profit from an
> idea or innovation.  If you can, that's great, but don't expect the larger society
> to help.  It's in society's best interests to actually limit how much one may
> profit from an idea, because the greatest value in ideas is when they're shared,
> and the more one entity profits from an idea, the less widely it can be shared
> due to cost barriers.  Ideas are a public good, not private property, and the ONLY
> proper role of government in this arena is exactly what the US constitution permits,
> to offer the minimum required temporary incentives to overcome the selfish desire
> to keep ideas a secret.  Our current system goes so far beyond that goal that it's
> a national shame.
> 
> * http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/cgi-bin/getcase.pl?navby=case&court=US&vol=489&invol=141&pageno=150

Well said.  The bottom line is that the patent system (not to mention 
Copyright) is broken -- no doubt the founding fathers would have a fit over 
how it's being applied today.  I don't hear anyone arguing that it is working 
as intended. Frankly, I'm pretty sure I can't write a single line of code 
without violating someone's patents -- yet more laws we have to ignore to live 
reasonably.

Sadly, there's no outrage from our the citizens of the US to their 
representatives so that something would get done.  I guess they're too worried 
about a women wound up dead in FL or some other silliness....

Jeff
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