[ExI] IP vs. a free society

[Dan]

Value is subjective, but I imagine if B wants to make the product and can get 
customers, then she expects value from it.

Also, one can handle the problem of independent people expending effort here 
without a patent system. Someone could broadcast, "I'm working on X," and then 
others can decide whether it's a waste of their time to work on X. (And, surely, 
you're not going to suggest, as some fans of central planning do, that 
competition is wasteful?)

Regards,

Dan

----- Original Message ----
From: Adrian Tymes <wingcat at pacbell.net>
To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Sent: Tue, July 20, 2010 12:48:46 PM
Subject: Re: [ExI] IP vs. a free society/was Re: medical marijuana

--- On Tue, 7/20/10, Dan <dan_ust at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Finally, IP as it exists now, isn't just about someone
> copying what someone else 
> has done. It's also about preventing others from
> independently doing the same 
> things. For instance, you invent some new product and get
> it patented. Imagine 
> someone else, with no knowledge of your product, comes up
> with the same thing -- 
> "same" from the perspective of current law. While that
> person didn't copy your 
> work, she will most likely be prevented from selling that
> product.

There may be a silver lining to that.  If person B refuses
to do any research and independently recreates person A's
work...has person B added any value, when they could have
simply looked up the patent database and copied person A's
work?  Sure, there is an issue of doing this a year or two
after - but what about 20 or 30 years?  I've seen
independent reinventions of things that old, spending
months or years to do what could have been accomplished
with a simple patent search.  I would not be surprised if
the same problem existed when patents were invented.

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