Live By Intellectual Property, Die By Intellectual Property
from the irony,-anyone? dept
I guess it's really no surprise that a company that makes its living trying to sell software to protect intellectual property would take issues like patents seriously. Still, there's a bit of irony involved in a patent battle over different types of copy protection. Amusingly, the companies aren't saying that one is necessarily violating another's patent -- but that each have patents that "overlap" with each other, and that "there can be only one" patent holder for the idea. Of course, you would think that having two (or more) patents on the same idea might immediately cancel both patents, as it would suggest that neither patent is "non-obvious to the skilled practitioner," as per the requirements on getting a patent. If two patents over the same idea were given out, doesn't that suggest that the skilled practitioners were all making the same (oops!) obvious steps forward? At the same time, you would think that these two companies might realize that they'd probably both be better off sharing the markets and (gasp!) competing on the merits of their offerings -- rather than risk losing out entirely on a market. However, the mindset seems to be that the only way to compete is to have a monopoly on the idea -- and all that really means is that (thanks to less competition) copy protection products will continue to be pretty weak for the foreseeable future.
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You might not understand patents.
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Re: You might not understand patents.
The point, though, is that if both came up with the idea independently, it seems to invalidate the whole basis of *both* patents -- that it was non-obvious.
A patent isn't just about who came up with an idea first -- but that the idea be non-obvious to the skilled practitioner.
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Not the point
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Re: Not the point
The incentive for real innovation is being able to sell in the marketplace.
Are you really suggesting that there would be no innovation if there were no patents?
Either way, the point still stands. In this case, the idea clearly wasn't "non-obvious to the skilled practitioner" and therefore, no patent should be granted
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Re: Not the point
Giving someone a monopoly on an idea or a process pretty much prevents others from improving on it without violating said patent. This is partly what slows the innovation.
Also you have people who have improved on the process or idea, and are afraid to share their knowledge for fear of being sued.
Patents didn't exist in ancient times, and people still managed to innovate and invent. You'd think this alone would be proof that they aren't necessary for the system to work...
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Re: Not the point
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