Watch Out: The Patent Maximalists Are On The Warpath To Destroy Innovation And Empower Patent Trolls
from the it-never-ends dept
Over the last year or so there's been a concerted effort by patent maximalists to try to shred a long line of very good Supreme Court rulings that finally (after two decades) limited just some of the destructive nature of patent trolling. There was an attempt in Congress to literally reject all of those key Supreme Court cases, and bring back Congress's full support for patent trolling. The current head of the patent office has been spewing a bunch of similar nonsense as well, and seems to have no recognition that patents that are too broad hinder, rather than help innovation. And now we have Judge Randall Rader, who ran the federal patent court, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC), for many years before stepping down due to an ethics scandal.
That ethics scandal? Being way too chummy with patent lawyers who practice before him. As we've noted over the years, part of the problem with the setup of CAFC -- a special appeals court for all patent appeals cases to go to -- was that the judges on it tended over time to buy into patent maximalism, because they basically only spoke to patent lawyers.
Judge Rader has now decided to pop back up again to argue that we need more bad and broad patents in order to enable more patent trolls. Or America won't be able to compete. Or some such nonsense.
Our country’s founders understood that patents are critical to innovation. For that reason, the principle is enshrined in our Constitution, which grants Congress the power “to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts” by awarding “Inventors the exclusive Right” to their discoveries. Indeed, our patent system incentivized and empowered early inventors like Thomas Edison and Alexander Graham Bell, and helped create today’s technological giants like Apple, Google, Microsoft and IBM.
This is basic economics. Patents guarantee a limited monopoly on inventions (usually 20 years), which lets inventors recoup the costs of research and development, and repay investors who help convert scientific theory into usable technology. It is no coincidence that America in the 20th century had both the strongest patent system and the most powerful economy in the world.
This is ahistorical claptrap. Patents have never been "critical" to innovation. Plenty of studies have shown that innovation occurs in the absence of patent laws (and seems to occur even faster in those markets). And if we're talking "basic economics" let's send Judge Rader back to his Econ 101 class. Monopolies are the antithesis of innovation. Inventors recoup the cost of research and development by selling a product in the market. And yes, there are reasonable concerns about copycats, but copycats are what drive innovation. The originator has to keep innovating, and making their product better, and copycats tend to trail innovators.
Indeed, the monopolies are what slow innovation, by taking away the incentive for inventors to actually make their product better. This is why the steam engine didn't really take off until the patents expired. We see this over and over again.
Also, Rader ignores that while his argument might make sense in a few limited areas of innovation, the vast majority of innovation happening today has nothing to do with patents at all. The R&D cost of developing "software" doesn't need to be recouped the way he describes, and software is already protected by copyright. Google didn't rely on the patent system -- and it's insulting to the company to say that they did. Microsoft and Apple didn't start relying on the patent system until much later in their lives -- well past what's considered their "innovative" period, and only to limit smaller competitors and slow down the pace of innovation.
In short, Judge Rader has no idea what he's talking about. And that's just in the lead in to this piece. Because now he's going to complain that we don't have more software patents -- attacking the most important and useful Supreme Court case in decades, the Alice case that effectively invalidated a ton of ridiculous software patents that never should have been granted. The impact of the Alice ruling was fantastic. Tons of software patents were invalidated. It destroyed the business model of a bunch of patent trolls and it (for a little while at least) got the US Patent Office to start rejecting a bunch of bad patents.
But, of course, the ruling in the Alice case was overruling one of the most ridiculous CAFC rulings in which Judge Rader himself said a bunch of ridiculous things. So now he wants to undo the Supreme Court's ruling that rejected his ideas about software patents.
In Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank, the Supreme Court ruled that a computer service designed to mitigate risk in financial transactions could not be patented despite the fact that computers and software were involved because the invention related to an “abstract idea.”
In so ruling, the court undid decades of strong patent protection by throwing open the floodgates to categories of U.S. innovation that would no longer qualify for patent protection. Twenty years ago, America largely protected computer software and emerging technologies while Europe and Asia did not. Since then, patent protection in Europe and Asia has advanced, while the U.S. has taken a huge step backwards with Alice and cases that followed.
The result is that many countries are now more competitive than ours in promoting innovation.
This is ridiculous. Yes, China is doing a lot more patenting than before, but as an anti-competitive tool to block American companies. There is no sign that software patents is why the US is somehow "less competitive" than before. Rader is making that up.
Now the phrase “abstract idea” does not appear in any patent law that Congress enacted. Despite the fact that almost every invention starts with an abstract idea, the Supreme Court declined to define what the phrase means. It noted that it “need not labor to delimit the precise contours of the ‘abstract ideas’ category in this case.”
This is hogwash. The reason abstract ideas are not patentable is because the whole point of the patent system was supposed to be to get inventors to reveal the details of what their invention was so that others could make use of it once the patent expired. But there is no invention of an "abstract idea." The Supreme Court was right to reject it because the idea of patenting abstract ideas was a huge drain on innovation in the first place, where you just had a bunch of lawyers throwing around dumb ideas, adding "on a computer" or "on the internet" and then being able to shakedown companies that actually innovate.
American companies are now struggling to keep up with foreign competitors like Huawei and Samsung, which benefit from patent rights in their home countries that no longer exist in our own. As Senators Coons and Tillis observed, high-tech inventors “are receiving patents in Europe and China, but not in the United States. Why should we cede our competitive edge at this critical juncture?”
Oh bullshit. They're not struggling to keep up with foreign companies because of patents, but because of some bad decisions in building out their own product suite -- which is part of the reason that Cisco has been pushing efforts to ban Huawei around the world, rather than fighting on an even playing field. It's not about the patents.
Despite bipartisan support, however, efforts to change the law stalled. Some might think that, in the midst of a global pandemic, Congress was right to put patent rights on the backburner. But the current crisis only highlights the need for reform. Under our current approach to patent eligibility, diagnostic tests for Covid-19 cannot be patented, so the resources and incentives to develop new tests in the U.S. were weak and unready.
Yes, Congress was right to put patent reform on the backburner (and it happened way before COVID-19 because there wasn't nearly enough support in Congress for the bill). And, again, patents are not the incentive to create tools to fight COVID-19. Public health, public safety, and the market are all doing a pretty fucking good job creating incentives. The idea that we were unready because of weak patent laws is complete and utter hogwash.
Besides, after nationwide shutdowns and an uncertain path to reopening the economy, American industries could use a break.
A break... meaning tons of new patent trolls shutting down the actual innovative companies by a bunch of patent lawyers shaking down the system to buy new yachts? Fuck that.
One hope still remains: the Supreme Court, which has the power to clean up its own mess. One of the Federal Circuit’s most egregious decisions, Chamberlain Group v. Techtronic Industries, is now on appeal to the Supreme Court. In a decision that Senator Tillis called “madness,” the Federal Circuit put a garage-door opener patent under its sledgehammer. If garage-door openers are too “abstract” for patenting, what else is left? As the patent owner in the Chamberlain case put it, this is “a patent emergency.”
As Judge Rader well knows, he is totally misrepresenting the Chamberlain case. The patent was not on a "garage door opener" but a specific type of garage door opener, in which one of the key claims was for "wirelessly communicating status information about a system." THAT is the "abstract idea" that should not be patentable, because of course that shouldn't be patentable. We didn't need a patent system to add a fucking wireless communication system to a garage door opener, Randall. Get real.
What the CAFC, correctly (I should add), found was that if you took out abstract ideas like that, there was nothing inventive at all going on here. This was just combining a few well known ideas into a new use case. And, sure, that should be rewarded, but that's how the market works. It gets rewarded in the market. Make a better mousetrap, etc. etc. etc. Not hire a lawyer to patent your better mousetrap and then wait for others to make the same obvious mixing and matching of off the shelf technology and sue them out of existence.
This is patent maximalist gaslighting.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: business model patents, cafc, innovation, patent eligible subject matter, patent maximalism, patent trolls, patents, randall rader, software patents
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
COVID-19 and patents
The second half of the sentence doesn't follow the first. COVID-19 tests not being able to be patented means that more could be spread because there wouldn't be a fear of being hit with a lawsuit. Judge Randall Rader seemed to have conveniently forgotten that part. Obviously, he would've preferred if Jonas Salk patented the sun…
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Hey, Maz: let's agree on need actual product, and NO lawyers?
Just this once why not join me on a concrete proposal to reform a system that you say is broken because "stops innovation", and that I say is broken because lawyers / grifters have only greed, don't make actual products?
Easy and clear test: Is your company actually making and selling the product / technique which is in the patent? -- If no, then suit summarily dismissed with prejudice, and enjoined from all further suits, the "patent" completely invalidated.
Now, I bet that the legalists and corporatists of Techdirt are going to write how that can't possibly work! They'll defend the current system, not even endorsing it as a wish! -- And why? Because Techdirt abhors any actual concrete proposals, instead going on for decades with the mere "abstract idea" that reform is needed. -- And of course there's the "not invented here" reason.
Masnick has NEVER and will NEVER suggest any reform. -- Because what he actually wants is do away with patents entirely.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Hey, Maz: let's agree on need actual product, and NO lawyers
Your easy and clear test has one huge problem, an inventor working alone can produce a prototype, and gain a patent so that s/he sell to someone who can manufacture products in volume. Under you test a company could take over the idea and patent it with compensating the inventor.
What would make a difference is a requirement for a working model to be deposited at the patent office, including working code if software is involved. Also, explicitly get rid of patents that combine ideas in an obvious fashion, like using a computer, or over a network.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
"COVID-19" ANOMALY is no basis for either "side" here!
For a virus that's only 0.14% deadly.
But I am intrigued by your notion that "Public health, public safety" are motives. -- Really? Corporations should serve The Public?
Skip that, though, because your implicit assumption is that whichever corp develops the miracle vaccine will easily be able to recoup its investment and roll in profits. -- No, the vaccine can be nationalized meaning openly published, GIVEN to all. Now, just where is the incentive to spend on development in your assertions? You undercut your own case.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Hey, Maz: let's agree on need actual product, and NO law
You're pretty much right that I left it out because thinking mostly of suits alleging patents without such product in first place. -- Oh, and that I advocate patents belonging only to individuals, NEVER to corporations, even if pay for the "research".
With that, I stand "corrected" and we agree.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Hey, Maz: let's agree on need actual product, and NO lawyers
Masnick has NEVER and will NEVER suggest any reform. -- Because what he actually wants is do away with patents entirely.
I have posted suggestions for patent reform, included in bullet point fashion multiple times. I've showed you this before. Why do you ALWAYS need to lie?
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110819/14021115603/so-how-do-we-fix-patent-system.shtml
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Another opinion
"And yes, there are reasonable concerns about copycats, but copycats are what drive innovation. "
It also forces the originator to make a GREAT product at a reasonable price, and someone will make it Cheaper, and worse quality, and it falls apart.
But also, someone might make it more reasonable, and abit cheaper, but it only lasts ?? 1year, not 10 years.
IF they really want it, give it to them.
Which of these companies do you want to pay?
Sony, Panasonic, Toshiba, Philips, samsung. They all worked on it. but I will BET that no one is paying them royalties.
And I really cant believe there have been that many REAL NEW developments from the USA.
The only reasoning I can see is to demand for rights, after its all gone from China and others that have advanced PAST those old developments.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: "COVID-19" ANOMALY is no basis for either "side" here!
For a virus that's only 0.14% deadly.
You are spewing blatant disinformation. The case fatality rate remains close to 3% in the US.
You should stop getting your disinformation from Trumpist sources.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Hey, Maz: let's agree on need actual product, and NO law
Because arguing against straw Mike Masnick is easier than arguing against the real person.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
I’m sure that’s a real comfort to the families and friends of the nearly quarter-million people who’ve died from COVID-19~.
“We need people to stay alive long enough to buy all our other shit.” — a pharma company CEO, probably
[ link to this | view in thread ]
HOLY SHIT HE SAID IT
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re:
Keep gobbling that corporate cock, blue. I believe in you!
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Another opinion
Ask Josef Prusa about copycats. Prusa research is going strong despite, or maybe because of, all the cheap Chines printers based of of his development work in hardware and software. Everything that Prusa Research develop is released open source.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Re: Hey, Maz: let's agree on need actual product, and NO
That causes problems when a research team develop an idea.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Did you miss an argument?
With:
Your counter was:
I feel you're attacking the excuse, and failing to attack the logic.
American companies cannot be disadvantaged in foreign countries, because they can file for patents under the laws of those foreign countries. Equal footing. (And if not, US patents would not change that situation.)
And they can't be disadvantaged in the US because those foreign patents don't apply in the US. They can "steal ideas" from those foreign countries just as the foreign companies can from American ones. Equal footing once again.
Which only leaves "honor my authoritah!", where the US has patents, and everyone else somehow has to honor them. Which isn't the world we live in today.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Hey, Maz: let's agree on need actual product, and NO law
From your own link, here's your actual position:
Isn't that strong evidence I'm right stating: "Because what he actually wants is do away with patents entirely."?
Now, I stated: "Masnick has NEVER and will NEVER suggest any reform.", and your quote above indicates which direction you want: "short of just scrapping the damn thing"! You list points that will ONLY WEAKEN it:
Create an independent invention defense:
Recognize that independent invention is a sign of lack of patentability:
Patent examiners should seek out input from those actually skilled in the art:
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Re: Hey, Maz: let's agree on need actual product, and NO
Your bullet points are all VAGUE too, typically academic.
SO, Maz, using your own preface right above your bullet points is why I state that you don't wish to "reform". I think it's valid point when I show that you'd WEAKEN the patent system.
Above I advise a SPECIFIC do-able test BEFORE court cases get going on details of requiring the Plaintiff to have an actual product. It'd eliminate much costs and STRENGTHEN the system. -- As predicted, you IGNORE that specific, do not join me in it even as "well, you're thinking", instead trot our your vague bullet points of NINE years ago.
I'm NOT LYING about your position. I may characterize it harshly, but there's the evidence above. -- Why do you always call disagreeing lying? And then don't actually argue on topic, just divert? Isn't your constant dodging away from topic why you've driven people to type chicken noises at you in frustration that you just simply won't "engage"?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Hey, Maz: let's agree on need actual product, an
Clicked the wrong "reply" button.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Hey, Maz: let's agree on need actual product, and NO law
Now, Maz: my comments are all "hidden" as you euphemize censoring. WHY?
State one tiny little actual point of WHY those are "hidden".
Then state how many clicks (alleged: no one but you knows whether are any) out of how many readers it takes for comments to be "hidden".
Next, state how it's "the community" and whether an Administrator decides.
You clearly can't handle actual dissent (even when seems to me that you could actually kinda-sorta agree on the topic!), just have to "hide" it.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Re: Hey, Maz: let's agree on need actual product, and NO
You are correct. My comment was removed. I won't be sharing stories from here in the future.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
How can a corporation control and enforce a patent when you believe corporations have no legal rights, and how do you feel about corporations using patents to stifle innovation?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Hey, Maz: let's agree on need actual product, an
See that "s" on "individuals"? Patents can be held by any number, and typically ARE when done on corporate funding: the names of a team go on for prestige, but patents are immediately assigned to the corporation. You seem unfamiliar with actual patents, perhaps think they're all greedy lawyers with at most an office for shell corporations, as Masnick constantly implies.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: A. Stephen Stone, why this stupid off-topic boilerplate?
You must have that text handy, because use it often.
Nothing on topic means I win, as usual.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
I think that’s the point, Pinky.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Makes sense
Everyone knows the best environment for innovation and creativity is one where you constantly have to worry about being shaken down by parasitic individuals/groups who produce nothing but legal fees should you look like a profitable enough target and happen to do anything that even might be covered by a junk patent they have.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
The fact that you celebrate the dodging of on-point questions about your ideology as a “win” — and that you celebrate “winning” Internet arguments at all, especially on a site you’ve hated and trolled for a decade at genuine cost to your mental health — says a lot about you. None of it is good.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
A fine example of cognitive dissonance
And yet…
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re:
Well, yeah, but to a maximalist the only reform that's acceptable is making the current system even more insane.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Somewhere, a patent lawyer is masturbating to this very idea.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: A. Stephen Stone, have anything on topic?
No, that I state I'm not answering your silly time-wasting questions shows that I'm SANE and SMART. -- I indulged one night until you simply gave up, remember that? And of course next day you return with the same idiot tactic.
I take what tiny victories I can in this Unreal Tournament of Techdirt Land, where even gravity isn't a given.
I'm not the topic! Whatever my problems are irrelevant to The Truth in what I write. Basic philosophy for me, but clearly you're a "group" thinker and believe that facts are just opinion.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re:
I've got a Devin Nunes memo thread that says otherwise.
I find it funny as fuck that you still feel the need to screw with your IP address via TOR like a Pirate Bay user just to get around whatever imaginary block you think is preventing you from spamming the site like a crazy ex-girlfriend.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
The "Free Market"
This patent bullshit points out a common misconception about the "free market:"
Nobody wants a free market. Everybody wants the rules bent in their direction.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: "COVID-19" ANOMALY is no basis for either "side" here!
You all may be talking different numbers. The first number is what the professional epidemiologists have been quoting since the beginning. It is, of course, a bit of a guess since (from the beginning) many mild cases have passed unnoticed.
That first number is about 10 TIMES the death rate for influenza--and in fact, the current infection rates are about the same as for a typical flu season, and the current death excess-death rate is about 10 times a typical flu season (says my medical adviser, a RN/MSN/Nursing Instructor who does not support Trump).
There are still two ways of looking at this. Young and stupid people say, only 1 in a thousand die, I won't be one of them anyway. I'll keep going out to crowded bars and drink and smoke, and still, for my homies, tobacco, alcohol, and auto accidents will be bigger killers than the worst estimates for Covid. And anyway, I don't know anyone who's died of Covid.
Old and wary people say, 1 in 10 die in my age group (probably closer to 1 in 20), and it's looking like recovery is VERY slow for those who are hospitalized. With my broader--and older--social circles, I know half a dozen to a dozen people who have died of Covid. I don't want to spend 6 months to a year with more heart and lung and liver problems than I already have.... If those young idiots would just behave for that same 6 months, I could go out in public again.
And again, the rich work-or-leisure-at-home class which comprises nearly all of this column's readers, can't understand why (in Trump words) "People are tired of hearing about masks" because, face it, manual work in a mask in a hot humid industrial site (or in the Southern states, or in the Summer anywhere) is the next thing to being waterboarded--for no visible gain.
And the economically-gormless can't understand why the gov'mint can't just pay everyone to go home for a year (as if they would, the poor working class would just adapt rich-leisure-class risky behavior).
Me? I'm retired (so call me rich, 'cause I don't have to worry yet where my next meal is coming from). I'm old (so call me very wary). I hate masks and I hate being sequestered, and them's the two alternatives to playing Russian Roulette with death.
And ... if you can't get young people to stop taking toxic chemicals for the fun of it, despite the fact that it's the biggest killer for their age group, just what possible argument could you use to make them take Covid seriously?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: A. Stephen Stone, have anything on topic?
You keep making yourself the topic by spamming twenty comments on a single story that are all some variant of "fuck techdirt and fuck mike manick in particular". You need serious professionsl help.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Re: "COVID-19" ANOMALY is no basis for either "side" her
What the hell was your point.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Re: Re:
He's Trump's favorite demographic and the most insightful thing he can bring to the table is "if you don't suck me off I'm going to take my expensive ball and go home, or to a tax haven because paying taxes and obedience is for working-class suckers".
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: A. Stephen Stone, have anything on topic?
"I'm SANE and SMART"
Lol... No.
"I'm not the topic"
Not to begin with, but then you spam the thread with rampant idiocy and nobody can see the original point.
Think of it like this - we're a group having a meeting in a library about a topic. You come is, drunk off your ass, shouting about things that have nothing to do with the issue at hand, personally attacking other members present, then whine belligerently because people have asked you to leave. That's the way you conduct every topic here, and it should be no surprise to anyone "sane" or "smart" why that gets a negative reaction, or why you just made yourself the topic of conversation.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Re: "COVID-19" ANOMALY is no basis for either "side" her
"I hate masks and I hate being sequestered, and them's the two alternatives to playing Russian Roulette with death."
You're not playing Russian Roulette if you refuse to follow basic medical advice, you're playing with the lives of everyone your psychotic self-entitled ass comes in contact with. If you were only going to kill yourself I'd say go ahead, but you're not.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Source pls
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: "COVID-19" ANOMALY is no basis for either "side"
I'm not the person who is bearing the burden for stopping Covid. Retirement check rolls in whether I go outside or not. It's an inconvenience, an irritation not to meet people occasionally. But that's all. However, I AM threatened by Covid, and I'm particularly susceptible due to age.
Most Techdirt readers are in the same rich privileged boat. You don't bear the burden. Covid threatens you, not necessarily because you're older, but because nothing ELSE threatens you--so Covid looms particularly large. (This is a selfish, not a rational position.)
I actually know some people who AREN'T in that boat. They don't have large financial reserves (or any financial reserves); they don't work--they don't have a home to go to. They have service jobs involving constant physical propinquity with clients or employers. Mask-wearing and social separation are heavy burdens. And they don't see a personal benefit: if they are not in the threatened categories, Covid is a very insignificant threat to themselves. And they see so many other bigger threats than Covid, that Covid simply doesn't appear on the radar. (There is an element of selfishness in this position, but remember that they just want to do their jobs and pay their way--NOT as selfish as some positions I could name.) Calling THEM names because THEIR actions don't fit into YOUR selfish world view--simply isn't honest.
Both sides have perspectives with some (limited) validity; both sides fail to appreciate the real problems the other side has. I try to appreciate both sides. There really are two existential threats to our society here; no selfish approach can possibly address either threat. I don't have a solution. But trying to marginalize the majority of the people who are dealing with economic collapse is not a solution. And neither is marginalizing the vulnerable who are facing painful death.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: "COVID-19" ANOMALY is no basis for either "s
"Most Techdirt readers are in the same rich privileged boat"
You don't know this of course, but setting up a false "me vs them" fiction does seem to be a tactic you use to pretend you're right about something without bothering to learn specifics.
"And they see so many other bigger threats than Covid, that Covid simply doesn't appear on the radar."
Until they or someone they care about get sick, at which point you get the typical, all too commonly seen, news story where they're crying because they don't want to die and they don't want their kids to get sick and please everyone else learn from my mistake and take it seriously. There's a bunch of stories of anti-maskers pleading regret on their death beds, and I'd rather not keep seeing them, but people like you make them inevitable.
"But trying to marginalize the majority of the people who are dealing with economic collapse is not a solution"
Unless you're a billionaire, everybody's dealing with economic collapse, no matter what or who Trump is telling you to ignore.
"And neither is marginalizing the vulnerable who are facing painful death."
Nobody's marginalising those people. Trying to prevent them from facing such things, but not marginalising them.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
So if your point was to say:
Why would you have this in your initial post:
Along with a bunch of bitching about "Yeah, but young people exist, and some of those young people are dumb, so fuck 'em"? Is this more of that "but both sides" insight which only rich people seem to have? What makes our privilege (which you're the one perceiving, mind you) so much more indefensible compared to yours?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Source pls
There have been a few studies along those lines. This book (which reads like a doctoral thesis) looked at industrialization in the Netherlands during a period when it had no patents at all, and in Switzerland during a period where patents were extremely limited, and not in the industries that were industrializing (mainly dyes, which were the precursors to pharma).
https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691647449/industrialization-without-nationa l-patents
Both nations brought in patent systems post industrialization, from the very companies that grew out of the no-patent world, and no longer wanted upstarts to eat away at their market. IOW, the patents were about protecting their market share, not inspiring innovation.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Hey, Maz: let's agree on need actual product, an
No comment has been removed. I don't know what you're talking about or why you're responding to a random comment.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Hey, Maz: let's agree on need actual product, an
I'm NOT LYING about your position
You did. You claimed I never had and never would present ideas for patent reform. I have. And I've shown you it before.
You lied, you got caught.
Now you're throwing a temper tantrum.
Such a whiny snowflake.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Hi, I’m neither rich nor privileged. I’m also pleased to be the anecdotal experience that proves you wrong.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Hey, Maz: let's agree on need actual product
Why would a corporation provide the research facilities, and fund research if the researchers are free to license the results of their research to the highest bidder?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
"Why would you have this in your initial post"
I'm going to guess one of two things. One is that he's no such thing and he's just forgetting which story he was telling in that post. The second is that he's not particularly good as judging risk and he's one of those people who thinks that being asked to wear an extra piece of clothing outside is somehow tyranny rather than sensible measures to protect him and those he cares about.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Hey, Maz: let's agree on need actual pro
Why would a researcher provide the research if the corporation is free to license the results of their work?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Hey, Maz: let's agree on need actual
Because they are given the facilities and are paid to indulge in their passion, and their name will be on any papers and patents should they need a new job. Not everybody is focussed on becoming the richest person on earth.
Spend some time looking around Prusa research, the company of one of the leading researchers into 3d printing, which is thriving despite all the competition enabled by all their hardware and software development being released open source. I doubt that that company will grow into a giant, but t does meet the objectives of Josef Prusa, and that is indulge in his passion.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Re: "COVID-19" ANOMALY is no basis for either "side" her
"And ... if you can't get young people to stop taking toxic chemicals for the fun of it, despite the fact that it's the biggest killer for their age group, just what possible argument could you use to make them take Covid seriously?"
So how come the rest of the world is somehow still managing to keep the Covid numbers down? Are american youths just a particularly special brand of incurably stupid?
Sure, the two ways of looking at covid you describe exist. But the explanation as to why the grim reaper is putting in for overtime stateside has more to do with some 30% of the damn population, irrespective of age, believing the whole thing is a democrat hoax and that taking any precaution at all is "weak" and possibly unamerican. Well, they've made the latter a truth because "dying from the sheer stupidity of fellow citizens" has indeed become the American Way.
With dozens of millions of nutjobs acting as plague rats as they throw defiant "covid parties", congregate to pray/rant at the gorram libs, and/or generally go the full extra mile just to NOT socially distance it's no big surprise to see the virus spreading like a wildfire. And that's just the maliciously ignorant people.
This, incidentally, is just yet another of those "Only In America" things we've gotten used to seeing. A saying that half a century ago still held positive implications.
"...face it, manual work in a mask in a hot humid industrial site (or in the Southern states, or in the Summer anywhere) is the next thing to being waterboarded--for no visible gain."
Yeah, and the tragedy there is that if there was a full program of testing rolled out, if the CDC hadn't been literally gutted the months before the pandemic struck, if one third of the citizenry wasn't hell-bent on actively spreading the disease, if the president himself wasn't churning out misinformation and utterly ridiculous quack cures drawn from his rear end or that demon sperm doctor he's now so fond of, if contact tracing and targeted lockdowns had been performed in any way...the US would have parity in death toll with the rest of the world - meaning well over 150k dead americans wouldn't be - and the blue collars could do their jobs maskless in the summer sun with a minimum of precautions without dragging a lethal infection home for grandpappy to enjoy.
In short, it took real god damn work to fuck this up for the US to this point. Not just casual negligence. You can't put this on "dumb young kids" - if that was the case the rest of the world would be in a similar pickle.
Because it has now gone that far you in the US won't be suppressing covid with reasonable and minimal expenditure anymore. At this point it's full lockdown and an economy stopped dead...or it's nothing, because it's by far too late for mere mitigation to work.
And if it's nothing, well, then, we'll eventually be looking at a toll of US dead which makes the combined military losses of every war the US fought in the last two centuries look tame. And a far higher proportion of the US citizenry turned into the "long haulers" with permanent partial disabilities courtesy of SARS-CoV-2.
Closing the country down and putting every last citizen on welfare for a year might bankrupt the US.
Not doing that might destroy all hope of recovery within this generation. THAT is the choice the US now faces.
And all of it courtesy of Trump letting his case of dunning-kruger use the whole country for a chew toy.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Source pls
"IOW, the patents were about protecting their market share, not inspiring innovation."
I keep saying that most of "Intellectual" Property legislation is nothing more than a series of flimsily disguised Red Flag Acts.
With the one notable exception being Trademark which, albeit abuseable, has to do with brand identity and fraud prevention rather than just making sure to kick down the ladder once you've climbed it so no one else can follow you up.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: "COVID-19" ANOMALY is no basis for either "side"
"So how come the rest of the world is somehow still managing to keep the Covid numbers down? Are american youths just a particularly special brand of incurably stupid?"
Well, the rest of the world is having various degrees of success, but the fact is that the US is disproportionately affected both in terms of infections and death.
Is this directly due to the youth? Probably not. Superspreader events like Trump and Sturgis rally are not known to be attended by reckless youths as their most prominent demographic. Also, when I see some protest by people claiming that wearing an extra piece of clothing for 20 minutes when they go to Wal Mart is a violation of their basic human rights, I'm not usually struck by the youthful faces.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: "COVID-19" ANOMALY is no basis for either "side" here!
"For a virus that's only 0.14% deadly. "
A virus which - so far - has 210k american dead to it's name. More than the US lost in all the wars it's fought the last two centuries combined.
Compared to the rest of the world that's still 150k too many, all thanks to your Dear Leader actively opposing any viable mitigation, meaning that now only extreme measures remain.
"Now, just where is the incentive to spend on development in your assertions?"
I'm sure you're saying this in full knowledge that the rest of the world spends significant portions of public money funding the development of that vaccine? This is essentially the exact sort of thing taxes are supposed to be used for.
"No, the vaccine can be nationalized meaning openly published, GIVEN to all."
And at a point not all that long ago the US wasn't shy of nationalizing patents when the interests of the actual nation were at stake. The aviation patent pool created when the US couldn't put a single plane into the air in world war 1 springs to mind. The constitutional protection extended to patents and copyright are optional, Bobmail. You keep forgetting that. Or possibly repressing it in favor of whatever fantasy you want to push as truth.
All in all that was a bit weaksauce don't you think, Baghdad Bob? You only got three major falsehoods into a relatively verbose comment. Have you been skimping on the self-medication lately perhaps?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: "COVID-19" ANOMALY is no basis for either "side" here!
[Edit]
More than the US lost in all the wars it's fought the last century combined.
But give it time. If Covid keeps up at the same rate the US death toll should plateau around a few million dead.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: "COVID-19" ANOMALY is no basis for either "side" here!
"A virus which - so far - has 210k american dead to it's name."
Erm, not quite...
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/
https://www.forbes.com/sites/joewalsh /2020/10/20/covid-may-have-caused-far-more-deaths-than-previously-thought-study-finds/
The running estimate is currently 225k, with good evidence that you can add at least 20% on top of that with other factors when the dust is settled.
The problem with trying to downplay these numbers is that they're constantly increasing. Add to that the fact that we now know that there are common long-term negative effects of the disease other than death, that can't be properly accounted for yet but will definitely put pressure on a country where there are millions newly unemployed but healthcare is tied to employment, and you have to be pretty wrong to downplay all this, even if it weren't for the obvious fact that the US is vastly disproportionately affected to begin with.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: "COVID-19" ANOMALY is no basis for either "s
Calling bullshit on that assertion. I'm not rich or privileged.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Hey, Maz: let's agree on need ac
Isn't that what Edison (spit) did and his company continues to do? The man never invented anything outside of his "creative business practices" that is the mainstay of Corporate America .
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: "COVID-19" ANOMALY is no basis for either "s
Looking from outside I find it a bit concerning that the bald faced liar in office is getting all the flack, though not undeservedly yet none of the others in positions of power further down the chain who could have done something get narry a sidelong glance.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Hey, Maz: let's agree on nee
No, because Edison abused patents to the extent that the Movie Industry moved to Hollywood to get away from his lawyers. Josef Prusa on the other-hand publishes on his website everything you need to make a copy of his printer designs, which you would have seen had you bothered to look.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Hey, Maz: let's agree on need ac
"Because they are given the facilities and are paid to indulge in their passion, and their name will be on any papers and patents should they need a new job. Not everybody is focussed on becoming the richest person on earth."
Some companies require the signing of a doc that turns over all inventions, even those 100% done not at that said company and not in the said company's field.
They are paid ... not much. Richest? Hardly. Fair compensation would be nice.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Re: Source pls
Q: What's the best part of Copyrights and Patents?
A: When they expire.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Another opinion
That is the key.
The COPYRIGHTS.
Public or private.
Who makes the money on Copyrights.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Did you miss an argument?
Can I give you another?
The Whole thing is about-
COPYRIGHTS
Not the products. Only the Rights to get paid by others who want to Make your product.
really sounds like a lazy job dont it.
But its been posted that China has been Buying allot of them up. and making their OWN.
The Mentality that the USA is the Only smart nation, or that Only the EU WHITE MAN has any smarts, is abit STUPID.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
So, what is happening.
Everyone understands How the Pharma industry works?
Where they take an Almost expired patent, and add 1 other drug to it and Have NEW patent, even tho both drugs are expired? Look up Mucinex(good drug with a time release).
What would happen if we opened ALL patents and Copyrights to this idea?
A new toy has 1 extra plugin on it and get a NEW patent. The Same TV/Monitor has 1 plug, and then 2 plugs, then More. And each one has a patent. $0.10 for each extra plugin, but a $50 dollar increase in price for EACH.
IF we go back to the old/original system, all those patents, china and other countries have, WILL EXPIRE and we can copy everything they have, bought, created, made NEW, updated.
Or do we want to THINK we are the smarter group, and think China and others WONT enforce Copyrights?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
To be fair I don't think they intended to downplay the numbers, rather the numbers go up so fast in the US that it's hard to keep track of just how high the pile of bodies has grown unless you double-check on a daily basis.
The rest of your comment though is spot on, even if I really wish it wasn't.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Hey, Maz: let's agree on need actual product, an
"I won't be sharing stories from here in the future."
Ah, you're about to tell us all how you'll never post around here again, ever? For the what...twelfth time in a row or something?
Damn, Baghdad Bob, your usual cycle of behavior has been speeding up, hasn't it? You used to be able to keep up a whole half year's worth of just shitposting ad homs and wild accusations about how we aspies were all in on the vast globalist conspiracy of Big Tech before you ran out of steam...
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: "COVID-19" ANOMALY is no basis for eithe
"...yet none of the others in positions of power further down the chain who could have done something get narry a sidelong glance."
Oh, they do. The loud clown throwing poop at the audience gets all the overt attention, naturally...but the more low-key malicious monkeys grinding the death cult organ have been mapped out. It's just that they don't make top-of-the-line news except when they stand up and rant against a woman's right to choose, or how riots should be handled with drone strikes.
But anyone following US politics has at least a few dozen names around trump who share personality profiles with the likes of Goebbels - willing to do and say anything as long as Dear Leader and The Party benefits.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Re: "COVID-19" ANOMALY is no basis for either "side" her
"Erm, not quite..."
I wrote that number hoping someone would produce good evidence I was wrong. And someone did. Just not in the way I hoped for. Pardon me for not being overly grateful about that. 😟
"The running estimate is currently 225k, with good evidence that you can add at least 20% on top of that with other factors when the dust is settled."
...which assumes SARS-CoV-2 stops dead tomorrow and takes a break...which is unlikely to happen no matter how much Dear Leader commands it to do so.
I've been wondering what, at this point, Biden could even do in office to stop this. With about a third of the US citizenry hell-bent on playing a game of Typhoid Mary I don't see anything you could realistically do to stop the spread.
"...there are common long-term negative effects of the disease other than death, that can't be properly accounted for yet but will definitely put pressure on a country where there are millions newly unemployed but healthcare is tied to employment..."
I've sort of gone over my by now pretty dim memories of the epidemiology courses I went through in college - and I've come to the conclusion that the US is currently experiencing the pandemic version of the Perfect Storm. Everything which could go wrong, has gone wrong in the way most likely to turn a tragedy into a monumental cataclysm;
The CDC gutted right before the pandemic hit.
A narcissistic clown without a shred of risk assessment in office who takes expert advice to be malicious personal attacks.
A significant portion of the population eager and willing to deny the existence of the virus at all, and highly incentivized to adopt the most reckless super-spreader behavior possible.
Yet more nationwide race riots.
The foremost medical authorities, rather than fixed, put under the command of fundamentalist doom-cult stooges for the Clown-in-Chief.
...Honestly, if there's a silver lining to be found here it'll be under the eventual millions of americans killed by the failure of their electoral system to produce a leader who wasn't the worst possible option at ANY point in time but a force magnifier for this particular crisis especially.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Makes sense
"...where you constantly have to worry about being shaken down by parasitic individuals/groups who produce nothing but legal fees should you look like a profitable enough target and happen to do anything that even might be covered by a junk patent they have."
You just described the smartphone patent wars which went on for about a dozen years or more before all the major actors had a sufficiently tall pile of junk patents to be able to respond to a 20,000 item list of "patent violations" of the most ridiculous sort with a similar list of their own.
It's why Google had to buy 5 billion USD'd worth of obsolete motorola patents before they dared to launch their first Nexus, after all.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re:
"To be fair I don't think they intended to downplay the numbers"
They meaning the CDC / state and medical authorities in question? Sure. They as in Trump and his cronies? Absolutely not. I have grave suspicions about the change in reporting requirements a couple of months back which of course just happened to coincide with a drop in official numbers...
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: "COVID-19" ANOMALY is no basis for either "side"
Don't forget, one of the many choice comments from Trump in the last week was that he was telling his cult that Biden would be listening to Fauci and the rest of the medical community and acting on their advise... and he meant that as a negative to get more votes.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re:
'They' in this case meaning Scary Devil Monastery, as while Trump, his cult, and anyone he's managed to compromise very much do have reason to downplay the numbers I don't see Scary Devil Monastery falling into any of those categories.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Re:
I made the same mistake. If you need to use puny pronouns for the great me, then "him" will do just fine. Or SDM. We are not a royal plurality, after all. 🤪
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: "COVID-19" ANOMALY is no basis for either "s
"...and he meant that as a negative to get more votes."
Yep. Hence my somewhat pessimistic outlook on Biden's ability to handle covid. He'll employ the greatest experts in the field to provide advice and the Trump cult will all go;
"See? SEE?! Dear Leader was right, it's Fauci!! Do nothing of what he says or the democratic hoax will strike you down and Obama will sneak into your house, abduct your children, and peddle them on e-bay while you're busy fighting off the chinese bioweapon and the deep state satanist pedo ring with a bible and an AR-15"
...I swear, when I wrote that above paragraph I truly believed I was being hyperbolic and sarcastic. Then Poe beat me around the head and neck with his Law.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Noted, as a not-so-slightly deranged man once said, 'I figured, but didn't want to assume.'
[ link to this | view in thread ]