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Patently stupidPatently stupidPosted Oct 9, 2012 9:40 UTC (Tue) by kugel (subscriber, #70540)In reply to: Patently stupid by man_ls Parent article: The Patent, Used as a Sword (New York Times)
Who else would you ask? They are clearly biased, but still have the knowledge about law and you have not.
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Patently stupid Posted Oct 9, 2012 12:32 UTC (Tue) by KSteffensen (subscriber, #68295) [Link]
How about asking the people whom the law actually affects on a day to day basis? They must have some knowledge about the law and how to improve it-
Who you know makes a difference. Posted Oct 9, 2012 17:45 UTC (Tue) by dmarti (subscriber, #11625) [Link] Timothy B. Lee: Social Distance and the Patent System.One has to imagine that if people close to [Judge] Michel—say, a son who was trying to start a software company—were regularly getting hit by frivolous patent lawsuits, he would suddenly take the issue more seriously. But successful software entrepreneurs are a small fraction of the population, and most likely no judges of the Federal Circuit have close relationships with one. In contrast, every judge on the Federal Circuit knows numerous patent attorneys, so they’re well-attuned to the concerns and strongly pro-patent worldview of the patent bar.
Patently stupid Posted Oct 9, 2012 13:11 UTC (Tue) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link] This argument would work for all kinds of laws, since lawyers have the knowledge of the law. However if you are drafting a law to regulate, I don't know, librarians, you don't ask the lawyers; you ask the librarians. Why is "IP" law different? Ask inventors, who are supposed to be the beneficiaries of the law (at least for patents).In practice, there is no need to ask inventors because of my original argument: the law works well enough for many people, and they are powerful.
Patently stupid Posted Oct 9, 2012 15:28 UTC (Tue) by nybble41 (subscriber, #55106) [Link]
> Ask inventors, who are supposed to be the beneficiaries of the law (at least for patents).
While this is a common misconception, inventors are not the intended beneficiaries of patent law. Patent law is supposed to benefit the public, by incentivising invention and encouraging inventors to publicize the workings of their inventions. Benefiting inventors is only a side-effect, not the goal.
(How well it accomplishes that goal, and whether the cost in liberty was justifiable in the first place, are debatable; however, that is an argument for another time.)
While inventors may have some input to offer on the effectiveness of any given incentive structure, it is the public which pays the cost of these patent monopolies, ostensibly implemented for their benefit, and which should have the ultimate say regarding both their existence and their form.
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