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Patently stupidPatently stupidPosted Oct 9, 2012 13:11 UTC (Tue) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091)In reply to: Patently stupid by kugel Parent article: The Patent, Used as a Sword (New York Times) 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.
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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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