Comments on: Many Don’t Understand The Purpose Of Patents

By: Bernard Hugueney

Bernard Hugueney — Sun, 14 Aug 2005 18:18:16 +0000

You say “the true value comes over centuries of discoveries, the many lifetimes of hard work, all published for everyone to study and research.”

Obviously, you have not been reading any software patent, have you ? Please, all computer scientists (I am one) use IEEE journals, citeseer and google scholar, not junk patents written by lawers.

It’s funny to see you repeating the mantra “patents promote innovation” but to not insult those who have better understanding of software market and research field.

Try to back up your faith with a few facts if you really want to be taken seriously.

By: Anything Under the Sun Made By Man

Anything Under the Sun Made By Man — Fri, 12 Aug 2005 09:59:15 +0000

What if VisiCalc was Patented?

One of the Patentbaristas has talked a little bit about the link between innovation and patents. I have also been thinking about the correlation as well. Many articles about software patents refer to the fact that Dan Bricklin was not…

By: Anything Under the Sun Made By Man

Anything Under the Sun Made By Man — Fri, 12 Aug 2005 09:59:12 +0000

What if VisiCalc was Patented?

By: Stephan Kinsella

Stephan Kinsella — Wed, 10 Aug 2005 00:24:21 +0000

Maybe I’ve missed it, but the comments here don’t seem to appreciate the main point I was trying to make in this article http://www.mises.org/fullstory.aspx?Id=1763 . The point is that you cannot just assert that the patent system encourages innovation, nor is this enough anyway. My point is that when patent lawyers or others try to make normative assertions about patent law–what it should be, whether it’s justified or a “good” idea–they routinely adopt the utilitarian, wealth-maximization mindset, as if this is obvious to everyone, and needs no defense. And they also ignore the costs of the system, and not only do they never try to seriously determine the costs of their proposals, they don’t even seem to think anyone else needs to do so either.

These views fail to recognize that utilitarianism is itself a very controversial ethical doctrine. And even if you adopt the test that it’s okay to weigh a law’s validity based on whether or not it helps to contribute wealth to society, they look at only the benefits flowing from the law not the costs. You have to compare the costs to the benefits to see if it’s a net gain. The comments here and elsewhere focus only on the gains–not on the costs. You can’t ignore the costs.

By: Stephan Kinsella

Stephan Kinsella — Tue, 09 Aug 2005 01:11:46 +0000

When patent attorneys discuss the effectiveness or “value” of a patent system, never do they attempt to seriously account for its costs, and to subtract the costs from the alleged benefits to arrive at a net-benefits calculation. I discuss this here: There’s No Such Thing as a Free Patent. http://www.mises.org/fullstory.aspx?Id=1763