Patent = disclosure for protection

Patent = disclosure for protection

Posted Oct 25, 2007 9:58 UTC (Thu) by forthy (guest, #1525)
In reply to: Patents != innovation by bojan
Parent article: A visit from the trolls

Guys, remember that a patent was once granted to exchange disclosure of trade secrets for time-limited protection. This is what's IMHO covered with the original idea to "obvious to one skilled in the art". I.e. something that doesn't need a tantamount of reverse engineering is not worth a patent, because disclosing the blue print is not necessary.

The current legal interpretation of "obviousness" is rather different, but has recently changed a bit. Neither the old nor the new definition really takes the idea of the patent as such into account (an idea which was there before the industrialization took off at around 1860). A patent is not there to protect innovators, it's there to increase the overall amount of knowledge, by giving an incentive to disclose trade secrets. That's the deal, nothing else. For all things which can be copied without much troubles, there's copyright.

The whole ideas of copyright and patents don't fit in well with our modern understanding of state and economy, anyway. A patent is a privilege, granted by the state. Patents as such are a medieval idea; only in the 19th century, this idea was applied to innovations. The whole idea of a privilege is contrary to the idea of a free society.

A more appropriate concept for today would be to generally reward disclosure, and punish trade secrets. Free software culture shows that this can be done: not disclosing the source of a software is considered "evil", opening up is rewarded by community feedback. The state, if we need a leviathan to do this kind of stuff, could encourage disclosure with tax reduction. The open-sourcing of some software could be regarded as "charitable", and as consequence, tax-free allowances could be given to the project members (opposed to taxed salary). Same for innovations in other fields. This takes people right at their greed - even Bill Gates would open-source Windows, if he can save lots of taxes by doing so. Many people invest into tax-saving schemes even if it's a total loss.

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