Earlier this month, I spoke at the Fifth Annual Meeting of the Property and Freedom Society in Bodrum, Turkey (see my Bodrum Days and Nights: The Fifth Annual Meeting of the Property and Freedom Society: A Partial Report). My topic was "Ideas are Free: The Case Against Intellectual Property," though a better title might be something like "Ideas Are Not Property: The Libertarian IP Mistake and the Structure of Human Action." It is now available in audio and video. The other speeches (see the Program) are being uploaded and will be linked here.

PFS 2010 - Stephan Kinsella, Ideas are Free: The Case Against Intellectual Property Rights from Sean Gabb on Vimeo.

I can still OWN an idea, in that I can naturally exclude you from it.

However, I'd agree that ideas are not property, since it follows from their definition that if they can be produced and held in the mind of a creator, then they can be comprehended and held in the mind of a receiver - they need no physical medium other than the human mind (and being bound to the body, brains are not able to constitute property - ethically/practically). Consequently they do not meet the definition of property (an object physically independent of its possessor).

Nevertheless, a burglar can violate someone's privacy in order to read another's ideas that they have set down on paper. Those ideas may not be property, but their possessor still has a natural exclusive right to them.

There are also things known as intellectual works, things that are products of the mind's labours, that being too complex to maintain sufficient integrity within the mind are realised and fixed in a physical medium. Being independent of the mind, these things become the natural property of the creator, i.e. their intellectual property - to which they have a natural exclusive right.

Whilst you refuse to recognise such self-evident and natural intellectual property rights, at least we both agree that creators of intellectual works do not deserve the privilege of a reproduction monopoly.

Even so, there is no case to be had against intellectual property rights (just as there is none against any natural rights). The only case is against the state's grant of monopolies such as copyright and patent.

I might as well expand my first statement given too many people have this crazy notion that ideas supernaturally pervade the universe and assume that 'owning an idea' means not just 'owning the idea that exists within a single mind', but 'owning the pervasion of that idea throughout the universe including all other minds into which it may develop' - which is of course bonkers.

Similarly, if I say "I own the 'ace of spades' in my hand", I'm saying I own that instance, not all 'aces of spades' in all packs of cards throughout the card playing universe. Ownership is not communicated by similarity - that would be magic (aka superstitious nonsense).

Thus if I have an idea for a card game, I own that idea within my mind. It's my idea and no-one else can force it from me. That is true irrespective of whether anyone else coincidentally arrives at an indistinguishably similar* idea for a card game.

* Remember, we can't say "same", because that is an ambiguous word in the English language: 1) indicating a single object, e.g. seen in different locations at different times, 2) indicating two or more objects that have no discernible difference. "That's the same car that was parked here yesterday" vs "You have the same car as me."

Crosbie:

Once again you have brought forward interesting and relevant thoughts. To further your line of thought just a bit more, if someone invents a mechanism A, as long as the person prevents anyone from learning of mechanism A or the design of mechanism A, he will be the sole owner of that property and the intellectual property rights behind that property until such a time that someone else invents that property, though such independent invention might happen next week, of 1,000 years from now.

Software aside, there is virtually no evidence supporting frequent independent invention of mechanical mechanisms. Thus, an inventor of a truly novel mechanical mechanism may well be the sole holder of that mechanism for an indefinite period of time unless that inventor has some reason to share the invention.

I am reminded of the recent stories regarding J.S. Salinger and the alleged 15 novels located in his safe. Regardless of whether the novels are well written or poorly written, J.D. Salinger was, and now his estate is, the sole holder of that intellectual property. Depending on whether Salinger had a will and what Salinger wrote in his will, it is possible that those 15 novels may never be shared with the world. I wonder whether that lack of access to that absolute intellectual monopoly is relevant or not. It is doubtful that anyone will independently create any works using the characters in those books, or will independently write anything that closely resembles Salinger's writing; the very definition of absolute intellectual monopoly.

I'd suggest that on the contrary there was no evidence against the extreme likelihood of independent/coincident invention. It is the circumstances that give rise to invention - 'Necessity is the mother of invention', not the fricking patent system! And it is the height of conceit to presume that each inventor is a genetically peculiar genius rather than substitutable by any of the peers in their field.

If there are many situations in which the circumstances are the same - well fed people with time on their hands to ponder 'There must be an easier way' or 'I wonder why this is so', or 'What would happen if...' and they have the same resources and tool sets, and ponder the same things, then I would not be at all surprised if they invent/discover very similar things (and why they too realise this and must race to the patent office or scientific journal).

It is the low probability of similar circumstances (exacerbated by a grievous man-made drought in terms of knowledge & technology sharing thanks to copyright & patent) that reduces the likelihood of coincident invention.

As to Salinger and his secrets, such privacy is a natural right, not a state granted privilege. That people can write great novels and keep them secret, even to burn them, is up to them. To satisfy the people's piqued curiosity and cultural thirst is not sanction for the state to raid an artist's premises.

To satisfy the people's piqued curiosity and cultural thirst is not sanction for the state to raid an artist's premises. Nor, I meant to add, is it sanction for the state to suspend the people's cultural liberty in order to privilege the publisher with a reproduction monopoly!

1. Mr Kinsella,

As i have already stated there three possible R&D systems: libertarian, liberal and communist. As an inventor i support the extreme liberal system (unlimited intellectual property rights and no involvement of government in R&D, basic or not). You can read my comments on this in these threads (my apologies in advance for some comments, but debates are debates):

link here

link here

I´m highly interested in reading your thesis in order to "demolish" the thesis, as i did for the thesis in Boldrin and Levine book. Is it not avalaible in writing format ? Thanks.

2. Ayn Rand said:

Software aside, there is virtually no evidence supporting frequent independent invention of mechanical mechanisms. Thus, an inventor of a truly novel mechanical mechanism may well be the sole holder of that mechanism for an indefinite period of time unless that inventor has some reason to share the invention

Crosbie Fitch replied:

I'd suggest that on the contrary there was no evidence against the extreme likelihood of independent/coincident invention. It is the circumstances that give rise to invention - 'Necessity is the mother of invention', not the fricking patent system! And it is the height of conceit to presume that each inventor is a genetically peculiar genius rather than substitutable by any of the peers in their field.

If there are many situations in which the circumstances are the same - well fed people with time on their hands to ponder 'There must be an easier way' or 'I wonder why this is so', or 'What would happen if...' and they have the same resources and tool sets, and ponder the same things, then I would not be at all surprised if they invent/discover very similar things (and why they too realise this and must race to the patent office or scientific journal).

It is the low probability of similar circumstances (exacerbated by a grievous man-made drought in terms of knowledge & technology sharing thanks to copyright & patent) that reduces the likelihood of coincident invention.

This two comments are very interesting and adress some of the key problems in R&D and IP. In the second of above´s thread we´ve talked extensively about rediscovery. The truth is that we lack of a good theory on rediscovery. The reason why i support the unlimited intellectual property system (that is as soon as you publish a new result, no matter if obviuos or genius-like you get from the state full property rights over it (that means hereditable)) is because the system is more efficient and fair. Fair becauses since everybody will have incentives for publishing, every researcher will share the same information avoiding the "low probability of similar circumstances"; efficient because no researcher will lose his time rediscovering. as a by product the ideas space will be fully explored in a more systematic way and technological advance will be highly accelerated until it reach its optimal level. With the libertarian system trade secret will rule (R&D will be made in a highly unfair and uneficient conditions). And communist or mixed systems will stick at a suboptimal technological level.

Crosbie, I'm not sure why you think you are adding anything to the conversation by making the obvious observation that if you have an idea in your head you can keep it private if you choose to. Yawn. Or why you think this means you should crankishly call this "ownership". Whatever.

Prion: I don't know what your "argument" is and don't have time to follow your links. I've laid out my case against IP very clearly.

Mr. Kinsella,

Thanks for your answer. I thought IP interested you. When somthing interests me i spare time for it. But i agree the link´s are quite noisy so i´ve summarized my thesis bellow (apologies for typos):

1)Innovation = creation + invention. The purpose of innovations are to allow people to enjoy life. This is done directly by creations (such as arts) and indirectly by inventions, freeing time from work.

2) There are 3 possible Innovation systems: --libertarian: No IP combined with No Public (Statal) intervention in research (by financing and eciding what to research. --liberal: Unlimited IP (full property rights granted by the state and hard enforcement of these rights) combined with No Public (Statal) intervention in research. --communist: No IP combined with Public intervention in research.

Up to now, real systems are mixed: for instance according to OECD data, at present 30% of research in USA is finnanced (and therefore decided) by the State.

3) The perfomance of innovation systems can be measured by the amount of research done, the amount of results published and the amount of results applied (i.e. how quick the ideas space is avalaible and used to/by the public domain). I assume that more research, more publication and more applications are better than less research and less publication and less applications.

Incentives for research production depends on production conditions: fair production conditions means that every producer (researcher) works on same conditions (shares the same information) so that output depends only on its ability; efficient conditions means that duplication of work is avoided (applied to innovation it means that nobody work rediscovering ideas that has been already discovered).

Incentives for research publication and application depends on the degree of appropiation (the existence of IP or not ) and the degree of profit extraction (the existence of liquid ideas market or not). In particular we are interested that the system works in the worst case: that is that it gives incentives for publication to a very rational (clever) but very selfish researcher, which has a very needed applied result by the society.

4) According to all above´s: --libertarian will lead to unfair and uneficient production conditions under secrecy´s rule, no market ideas will arise and therefore the ideas space will be explored, published and applied very slowly. --communist or mixed will lead to unfair limited appropiation, with no full fair and efficient production conditions, no liquid ideas market (we know this for sure), no way to find on the sea of publications which results are relevant (for instance check this interesting recent post link here) and therefore the system will lead us to a suboptimal technological state. --liberal, will allow fair and efficient production conditions and the emergence of liquid ideas market. Under market price mechanism guidance, the ideas space will be fully and quickly systematicaly explored, leading us to the technological optimum soon. In all i think that the debate about if ideas are free, public or whatever could be interesting but it is essentialist (and therefore, european) and we need a more pragmatist (and therefore, american) to this issue.

P.s. Regarding your case, anything new on these conferences besides what you have already published in book and papers ?

Crosbie:

If there is "extreme likelihood" of independent invention, which has zero evidence to support it, why do we have one company working on a microwave oven and one company perfecting the invention - with zero companies even trying to copy for years afterward? Why do we have one company spending millions to prove out a cellular phone concept, battling with the government to free up frequency space for the concept - with zero companies helping support the efforts of Motorola? Why do we have dozens of companies working on an engine compression brake for diesel engines and coming up with inadeqaute designs, not for weeks, months or years, but DECADES, and then a sole inventor working in his GARAGE comes up with a solution that is (1) ignored by engineers who are incredulous that a guy without an engineering degree literally working in his garage invented a design that was elegant, (2) completely different from all the other previous designs, not one of which was even close and (3) a design that was so successful that the same design is in use 53 years after it was invented.

You will pardon me if I have some doubt about the merits of "independent invention." Do I think it happens? Yes. Do I think it happens "often"? Debatable. Evidence? Do I think it happens frequently? In the mechanical world, no. However, convince me. Show me the evidence that shows that "independent invention," with invention being the definition established by the USPTO (meaning physical phenomenon and things that occur naturally are not inventions) happens "all the time," "most of the time," or even "a lot," in any field that does not include software (which I personally do not think should be patentable) or electronics (which may be patentable, but the standard should be very high).

Prion: yes, IP interests me, but the incoherent nature of your post led me to think that there would be little payoff to spending the time chasing down your links. Your further post confirms my hunch.

IP is obviously unjust for reasons I've clearly laid out. Your rambling queries and pontifications don't change this.

I'm not a utilitarian nor a statist, so I don't look at things like you apparently do--wondering about what "system" "we" should "impose" to maximize innovation. I only care about justice and property rights, as a political thinker. Which should be clear if you have read my writings on this topic. I never talk about the "performance" of "innovation systems" because I am not an unprincipled, scientistic, pseudoscientific, utilitarian hack. The purpose of law is not to set up "incentives" but to do justice and protect property rights.

Stephan:

What is "just"? To declare you are for what is "just" is a subjective statement. Of course, you assist in your statement by declaring what you are not in addition to what you are (limited to your support for that which is "just") by declaring that you are not unprincipled (I am an engineer and a scientist by education and practice, and I believe I have high standards for justice and principles, but they are not the same as yours) and you are not scientistic - which I have no idea what that means. Science is science. Science is an observation of that which is rather than that as you would like it to be or that which you believe it to be.

Yet, even in science there are tradeoffs. We know that in electronics we sometimes have to trade off between clarity of signal and amplification. In your world of justice you claim you are for clarity because "clarity," i.e., justice, is a pure, ideal goal that should be your standard of life (I am somewhat gratified that you did not suggest that your standard should be imposed on others). Yet, if your clarity of vision and purpose has no "amplification," perhaps the equivalent in justice meaning the ability to find a common ground of morality with others, then your "clarity" of purpose is for naught (except possibly to you) because no one will follow you. If you create utopia and no one comes to live there, is it really utopia?

Heinlein explored this question in several of his books. You rail against the injustice of the world until you are forced to live in anarchy, and you suddenly find yourself desirous of establishing order. Or course, the first order you establish is (big shock here), your own - which will almost naturally have some measure of injustice in it.

There is nothing "obviously" unjust about IP. Period. You can rail on and provide basis and establishment and yada, yada, yada, it makes no difference. Obviousness is not inherent in the existence of intellectual property. Now, if you wish to properly say that in your system of belief IP is unjust, I buy that. There are many aspects of many branches of Liberterianism (of which the number of variations is, while not unity, nearly as big as the number of professed Libertians, and that variation in beliefs among Libertians is almost a given considerirng the nature of Libertarianism) that I consider to be obviously unjust. These aspects are not and cannot be inherently unjust without establishment of a system of beliefs that are common to all, and such system does not exist.

Stephan, thanks for the 'whatever'. :)

Language is important (it's much of that which separates your position from mine). However, if abolition is going to become at all palatable, then people will need to recognise that what remains to them afterwards is more than what they had before - not less.

I'd put it that people end up with intellectual property that is theirs unencumbered rather than subject to another's privilege or permission. In other words, they end up with more property.

Of course, you can attempt to portray it as the opposite, that abolition should result in no-one owning anything, no-one able to exchange the results of their intellectual labour because it is no longer recognisable by law as property. Then people end up with less property.

I don't think there's any mileage in that approach. It's antithetical to people's instinctive recognition of the fruits of their labour as their property, whether material or intellectual.

I believe it's better to properly define the limits of intellectual property (naturally, by privacy) than to nihilistically extinguish it utterly (though that would certainly be simpler).

That's why I prefer to couch things in terms of possession, ownership, property, and rights. So, rather than entirely abandoning the application of such terms to intellectual work, I suggest they simply need careful definition. And yes, they have been terribly corrupted over the years, especially 'right' (natural vs privilege).

prionpropatentuiq,

Your scheme sounds a lot like something the Vatican would legislate - to look favourably upon any priest who reported any new herbal concoction, any new alchemical potion, any new infernal device, the quicker a papal edict could issue a ban on any further use, manufacture or development of such. Even so, the church would realise that despite such bans (with severe penalties), some practitioners of the dark arts would still disobediently risk further developments (even risk sharing their knowledge with others). But, at least, this system of technological prohibition would impede progress and maintain the laity's ignorance for as long as possible.

Anyone who promotes such a scheme either a) aspires to be the pope leading a world of ignorant and obedient subjects; b) has amassed the majority of the world's more significant patents; or c) has just spent millions setting up an IP law firm or law school.

Being deficient in the logic faculty is another possibility of course... that if a registry is created to prohibit the use of all registered works that this 'logically' expedites mankind's technological progress...

It is however a useful evolution of the current patent system, i.e. useful in the ad absurdum sense to help people recognise why any unnatural monopoly is socially counterproductive.

Crosbie:

An interesting point and I agree with you. If you ultimately end up less well off without IP than with IP, then which will you choose? If people were convinced, as they are not right now, that without IP they would ultimately have more (greater standard of living or some other independent measure), then IP would be eliminated as an unnecessary hindrance to progress.

Of course, we have a president who is basically bullying and extorting money from corporations to the tune of billions of dollars, far beyond any numbers ever presented by Boldrin and Levine regarding the "cost" of IP. If our "government" considers billions and trillions in extortion to be business as usual, how is it possible that something as relatively trivial as IP will ever gain their attention?

Anonymous, remove the cultural and legal constraints and you increase the likelihood of invention and independent invention. And yes, even without patents you can have cultural constraints, e.g. the constraints of dogma and received wisdom (whether corporate, religious, or scientific).

Similar circumstances are not necessarily better circumstances for invention. That you have 100 inventors in a similarly constrained environment doesn't mean that 1 inventor in an unconstrained environment (devoid of dogmatic preconceptions) won't outperform them. How better to have several instead of one?

We can at least eliminate the legal constraints (if we can overcome the powerful commercial incentive of self-interest that retains them).

Reducing or eliminating more social constraints is a matter for society, the educational system and the market. If 'thinking-outside-the-box' results in better performing inventors then those who value invention will arrange such unconstrained environments. But, sure, precisely because loners may be in such less constrained environments, they may well outperform more 'institutionalised' inventors. But, that doesn't mean two loners in similar circumstances aren't unlikely to independently arrive at similar inventions.

So, we may have a lot of reinvention of minor inventions, and very little reinvention of major inventions, but that's because the circumstances that give rise to the former are far more common than the latter.

Anonymous, you have made a very confusing statement: "If you ultimately end up less well off without IP than with IP, then which will you choose? If people were convinced, as they are not right now, that without IP they would ultimately have more (greater standard of living or some other independent measure), then IP would be eliminated as an unnecessary hindrance to progress."

People will be better off without IP because content can be freely exchanged without a transaction cost. Not to mention the fear factor associated with "infringement" lawsuits. Come to think of it, how many advances were never implemented because of the fear possibly being sued or because of intimidation resulting from a lawsuit filing.

You also believe that people are in favor of IP because it would "improve" their standard of living. This is a mistaken assumption. The purpose of IP, today, is to generate a monopolistic perpetual revenue stream for the content creator not to promote the progress of science or the useful arts.

People have been creating content long before IP ever existed and they will continue to do so, whether they are paid or not. The original intent of patent and copyright law was to provide a LIMITED monopoly to encourage advances in the sciences so that the information would then be freely shared. Patent and copyright law have now morphed into perpetual toll-booths to extort revenue, not to advance science. A patent on one-click, absurd. A patent on a natural product such as a gene, absurd. The important point is that society benefits when everyone has unencumbered access to content.

Crosbie:

Again, interesting points, all, and darn objective ones as well.

I am quite fascinated by the work of Liane Gabora (which includes a number of collaborators). She has done a lot of work regarding creativity and innovation and various aspects of those issues. One of the things she seems to be observing is that creativity is something that, as with most other things, tends to follow a half Gaussian distribution. A very tiny percentage of people are highly creative, even to the extent of being breakthrough creators (think Nikola Tesla), and a much larger percentage of people are incremental inventors or creators. What is amazing is that the number of inventors is never really very large.

Is the reason cultural, biological, personal, legislative (trying to be as broad as possible)? Without evidence, one is tempted to choose one of these. It is most likely that there is a conjunction of probabilities, ability, education, cultural, opportunity (or circumstances), possibly legislative, and other things that I have not listed, that make someone inventive or creative.

I have been totally fascinated by a biography of Clessie Cummins. He looked at devices that existed for years and in a "flash of genius" or "flash of inspiration," the biography says something like "it came to him in a flash," that a device could be redesigned to be better. My point is not about Clessie, but about creativity. How is it that not just dozens, but thousands of people have looked at the same device (in the case of Clessie's first invention, possibly hundreds of thousands), these same thousands or hundreds of thousands knew about the problems with that device (the device was the propeller shaft box and the problem was leakage through the box), and yet Clessie, after having dealt with the problem the first time, instantly saw how to make the problem go away?

Creativity is fascinating. Theoretically most people have the ability to be creative. In reality, only a small percentage of people are creative. Why? In many cases, these creators have had to fight to get their creations accepted.

Clessie designed a novel engine compression brake after a couple of decades of thinking about the problem. The biggest hurdle, other than being creative, was the technical world. Diesel engineers just did not accept his invention. In fact, Clessie worked with a brake company to produce the device as an aftermarket add-on. It was only when the brake company was selling thousands of aftermarket "Jake brakes" per year that diesel engine manufacturers finally realized that Clessie had something.

There are ample statistics to show that 100,000 people may look at something, but only 1 of those people will know how to make it better. On the other hand, 99,999 people will know how to make the device once the one person already did it - well, a lot of them will know how, maybe not all 99,999.

Creativity is a funny thing (funny strange, not funny haha).

Crosbie, the system i´m defending is nothing more and nothing less than capitalism: unlimited property rights granted and enforced by the state and free market of the assets (ideas) the property rights cover. This system is implemented in almost all other human activities except ideas. Through price mechanism it guides correctly production of goods, i do not see why it cannot guide also production of ideas.

I agree the system is not perfect (sadly, nothing is perfect in human affairs), but by the communism last century experiments, we know that people prefers it: almost all communist countries either has left communism, either are in transition from communism to capitalism. That´s not a Papal decree, that´s historical evidence (by the way, i´m a proud and irreductible atheist).

Anonymous the 2nd (use a pseudonym eh?),

At the moment, because people see that monopolies are (at least on initial inspection) commercially beneficial and lucrative to those that have them, they assume that what's good for commerce is good to the nation and good to the people. Unfortunately, people egregiously fail to spot the severe thermodynamic costs that monopolies have, let alone the extent to which they impede if not prevent the benefits of common exploitation of what is monopolised. What you've never seen you cannot measure or infer.

So, the abolition of monopolies is for society as difficult as a wealthy individual giving up heroin. Given the drug dealing corporations are more powerful than the government, cold turkey is not going to be easy. And with ACTA extending the monopolists' grip about the planet, it may be too late. Might as well put the heroin in a permanent drip, and leave the wiser individuals to get employed by a major corporation pronto. Monopolies will end up collecting more taxes from the people than governments do (if they don't already), and taxation=representation means corporations usurp governments.

BP's grievous compromises on safety amounts to ecoterrorism, and I wouldn't be surprised if those who analysed the worst case scenario realised it actually had affordable repercussions to BP's bottom line, so "What the heck guys - it's an easily affordable risk. Save the money, do as little as we can get away with, it's a win-win outcome". After all, BP is immortal and needs no oxygen, biosphere, or oceanic foodchain to survive. The US has effectively just granted BP a monopoly on deepwater drilling and collection of oil from the Macondo reservoir, so it's happy...

$20billion from BP? Mere shuffling of poker chips. Cry only crocodile tears for sociopathic corporations.

Now $1trillion from the US taxpayer. That's what you should be upset about. That's banks extorting government. That's what should be called the greatest bank robbery ever.

Mankind as Frankenstein created psychopathic corporations. It can unmake them. It created unnatural privileges for such immortal entities. It can undo them.

Well, we can live in hope... if the planet remains habitable that long.

Steve:

My statement was quite clear, and builds off Crosbie's earlier statement.

People will be better off without IP because content can be freely exchanged without a transaction cost. Not to mention the fear factor associated with "infringement" lawsuits. Come to think of it, how many advances were never implemented because of the fear possibly being sued or because of intimidation resulting from a lawsuit filing.

*Sigh* Yes, the party line. Okay, you like hypotheticals, so I will give you one.

System without IP:

1,000 workers.

Everyone has the potential to be creative and everyone has the potential to imitate.

However, all 1,000 workers know that the moment they create, other than possibly getting credit for the idea, there is no return to them, other than the potential ability to make use of their creation. However, if the cost to prove out the creation is beyond their personal means, they are likely going to not develop or prove out the creation.

The end result, if the 1,000 people started with five devices, at the end of a period of time X, likely to be years, they will have the same five devices. Yes, they may have variations, but they will still have the same five devices.

System with IP:

1,000 workers.

Everyone has the potential to be creative and everyone has the potential to imitate, subject to a temporary moratorium after the first creator of an invention.

Every worker realizes they have a temporary right to limit the production of their invention the moment it is created. Each creative worker is thus encouraged to share their invention with producers in the hope that a producer will desire to use the invention, with some compensation to the inventor.

The end result, if the 1,000 people started with five devices, at the end of a period of time X, let's arbitrarily say 10 years, if 5% of the 1,000 workers is sufficiently incentivized to create each year, and if 1% of the 1,000 workers invent devices that have commercial value each year, at the end of ten years ou have 105 devices, plus variations permitted by the inventor.

Are there "transaction costs" in the system with IP? Yes. But, the desire for the new devices outweighs nominal transaction costs. Further, the inventor typically recognizes that more is to be gained by keeping transaction costs low and providing licenses to as many people as possible (which is what actually happens to the vast majority of inventions that are commercially exploited - only about 1 to 2% of all patents are abused).

You also believe that people are in favor of IP because it would "improve" their standard of living. This is a mistaken assumption.

lol...Which is the mistaken assumption? That people believe this is true or the assumption itself. The fact is that the overwhelming majority of people believe that IP is beneficial. Now, that belief may be wrong, but that is a separate issue. Crosbie's original point remains valid. If an overwhelming majority of people believe they are better off with something than without, you will never get rid of that "something."

The purpose of IP, today, is to generate a monopolistic perpetual revenue stream for the content creator not to promote the progress of science or the useful arts.

I am not sure what you have been smoking. The fact, note carefully that this is FACT, not belief, supposition, guessing, philosophy, tea leaves, or any of the other stuff that passes for arguments around here, is the around 1.5% of patents are contested in one way or another; 1.5%! The rest of the patents just quietly sit there. They are licensed. Many expire. Some are never used by anyone. Many are used by the original inventor. At the end of 20 years from the date of filing, assuming that the patents did not expire due to non-payment of the periodic tax that is due, the patents expire. So, let us examine your dogmatic statement...

"monopolistic" - Yes. If you invent a different kind of head for a fastener, you have a monopoly on that type of head as long as you pay the taxes on the patent. You do not have a monopoly on fasteners. You do not have a monpoly on fastener heads. You do not have a monopoly on tools. You cannot prevent someone from developing their own fastener head. You monopoly is extremely, narrowly, limited.

"perpetual revenue stream" - Straight lie. No sense in gilding the lily. This statement is a lie for several reasons.

(1) Perhaps 30% of patents have any value at all, so if 70% of patents never generate revenue, then this statement begins as false from the outset.

(2) Perhaps 5 - 10% of patents actually earn more money than they cost, meaning a terribly small percentage of patents actually have a revenue stream at all.

(3) "Perpetual" - I have no idea where you heard this word, but there is NO revenue-generating patents or copyrights that are perpetual. It is sad that this myth somehow gets perpetuated.

"People have been creating content long before IP ever existed and they will continue to do so, whether they are paid or not."

This statement is true. HOWEVER, there is a belief that MORE people create because of the existence of IP. There is evidence that more inventions are in fact created because of IP, but there is evidence that contradicts this information. However, the real end result is that to this day, regardless of how Boldrin and Levine like to spin-doctor their book, there is no definitive evidence one way or the other when it comes to inventions.

The original intent of patent and copyright law was to provide a LIMITED monopoly to encourage advances in the sciences so that the information would then be freely shared.

Wrong, again. In general, science if NOT, let me repeat, NOT PATENTABLE. NOT, NOT, NOT. Looked at another way, in general (the absurdity of gene patenting aside), if it is a discovery or a scientific principle (i.e, science), it is not patentable. This statement is straight out of the laws and rules for patents. Science is not patentable. Engineering is patentable. Inventions are patentable. Gravity is not patentable. The rules for hydraulics are not patentable. The quadratic equation is not patentable. These things advanced science. It was the APPLICATION of science that makes invention.

Patent and copyright law have now morphed into perpetual toll-booths to extort revenue, not to advance science. A patent on one-click, absurd. A patent on a natural product such as a gene, absurd. The important point is that society benefits when everyone has unencumbered access to content.

This statement is filled with so many inaccuracies that it is not even worth a response. Come back with a fact-based position without the dogmatic rhetoric and try again.

(trying to turn of prion's bolding)

prion,

"I kindly ask you to point to the incoherences of my posts."

As for incoherence: well in addition to failing to close your overbolding, and your misspellings and failure to use capital letters, there was language like this: "I´m highly interested in reading your thesis in order to "demolish" the thesis, as i did for the thesis in Boldrin and Levine book. Is it not avalaible in writing format ? Thanks."

I suppose you are asking for a written version of my arguments? These are plentifully available at http://www.stephankinsella.com/publications/#IP. For example: "The Case Against IP: A Concise Guide."

In addition, you keep assuming everyone accepts consequentialism in political reasoning. We don't all do.

"I might agree that IP is unjust, as is any property right."

Property rights are just. See What Libertarianism Is. http://www.stephankinsella.com/publications/#what-libertarianism-is

But IP is unjust because it is *not* property. See http://www.stephankinsella.com/publications/#IP

"But coherence obliges: if you accept property rights over land you must accept property rights over ideas."

You don't know what you are talking about. How about property rights in love.

"Personaly i think property rights, as democracy, are really really bad, but the point is that the alternatives (No IP and dictatorship) are much much worst."

This is incredibly ignorant.

"With this purpose i try to start an educated and rational consequentialist debate (society adopts this system, it gets such results; society adopts this other system, it gets these other results)"

We are not all consequentialists. See my Against Intellectual Property (section: "Utilitarian Defenses of IP"), and There's No Such Thing as a Free Patent, both available at http://www.stephankinsella.com/publications/#IP

"i´m open to change position if i read good arguments or good empirical evidence. Unfortunately i´ve not heard none of both yet on this blog."

Nonsense. This very page links to my monograph and Boldrin and Levine's book, which both demolish any argument for IP. Arguments for IP are weak, dishonest, and statist.

I see both PooPatentTroll and Lonnie have been busy. Others have been equally busy mostly demolishing their nonsensical pro-IP arguments. However, I feel the need to address a few specific points.

PooPatentTroll writes:

You can read my comments on this in these threads (my apologies in advance for some comments, but debates are debates)

I must object to this. He cannot reasonably claim to be apologizing in advance for his comments, when he made those comments before he made the apology.

Other than that, apology accepted, PooPatentTroll, conditional on your not making any more comments like the ones you made in those threads.

He goes on, though, to reiterate his nonsense claim that locking inventions away behind copyright and patent padlocks will make them more, rather than less, available and ensure everyone is working with the same information. Instead, one will be working with a tiny public domain (and ever-shrinking in relation to the bulk of human knowledge) plus their own organization's proprietary information, which will be different from any other organization's proprietary information. In fact we'll see a balkanization of information; one company will "own" this info, another one that info, and no-one will be able to combine them except possibly if the companies consent to it and huge payments are made. This, obviously, will be absolutely terrible for innovation.

Furthermore, reinvention and duplication of effort would become the norm. Company A will invent the square wheel and patent it. Company B will avoid having to license (or just get refused permission to use, for any price) company A's invention and will invent their own pentagonal wheel. Company C might notice these wheels, think a bit more, and invent the round wheel. And patent it. Everyone else now has to invent their own wheel that's even worse, e.g. the triangular wheel or one shaped like a brick. Then someone will invent the appropriately scalloped road-surface to give a smooth ride to those in Company A's square-wheeled vehicles, but fat lot of good that will do anyone using any of the other wheel standards ...

A proliferation of mostly-shoddy wheels and roads and of incompatibilities among competing standards is visible today in the smartphone and video-codec spaces, and it's all because of patent thickets.

Lonnie and PooPatentTroll have also made a number of other problematic statements that I don't feel have yet been adequately addressed by the other anti-IP posters. Notably, Lonnie is again inconsistently professing hostility to the one-click patent and to software and business method patents in general, despite trying a couple of times recently to mount strong defenses of the one-click patent specifically. Both have made the typical strawman arguments that nobody will invent anything (so, why then was anything invented before the patent?) and that trade secrecy will rule (trade secrecy is not the bugbear it's made out to be; employees moving on carry information with them and this is what fueled innovation in Silicon Valley), and they've suggested that IP will never be eliminated because "the people love it" (the people are ignorant and can be educated; the filesharing lawsuits, dancing-baby-video-takedowns, Downfall-parody-takedowns, and other things have done much to begin educating them, though not the way the RIAA intended! More and more are coming to feel that there's something rotten in the state of "IP").

Sadly, one of my anti-IP colleagues also made a minor error, saying that creators won't get paid without IP but they'll still create. In fact, they'll still get paid, just as they got paid before IP. They just won't get paid via the specific business model of "restricting copying and selling copies at ridiculously high prices".

Beeshit:

You are a riot. There are at least three different "anonymous" posters in this thread. So, which are you claiming are mine?

"reinvention" and "duplication"? Is that not redundant? If something is already invented, then would "reinvention" be "duplication"?

A proliferation of mostly-shoddy wheels and roads and of incompatibilities among competing standards is visible today in the smartphone and video-codec spaces, and it's all because of patent thickets.

Erroneous statement. Even before patents there were multiple standards. In fact, multiples standards WERE the standard. Blaming a lack of standardization on patents is ignoring history.

Notably, Lonnie is again inconsistently professing hostility to the one-click patent and to software and business method patents in general, despite trying a couple of times recently to mount strong defenses of the one-click patent specifically.

This statement is erroneous for two reasons. First, I have never, ever, not even once, implied hostility to the one-click patent. Conversely, I have never, ever, not even once, defended the one-click patent. That makes you a liar.

so, why then was anything invented before the patent?

Of course stuff was invented before patents. There was probably at least one or two significant inventions per century before the time of patents. Now, we get perhaps hundreds, maybe thousands of significant inventions PER YEAR.

(trade secrecy is not the bugbear it's made out to be; employees moving on carry information with them and this is what fueled innovation in Silicon Valley)

Wow, you are actually correct about SOMETHING! Yes, a lot of knowledge was carried back and forth in Silicon Valley. However, that is not necessarily the exception. The formula for Coke is still not known. Yes, there are purported formulas for Coke on the internet, but they are not the current formula, as has been pointed out abundantly. Nice trade secret that has been held for decades.

Hoeganaes has a number of trade secrets relating to the manufacture of powdered metal. To this day Hoeganaes is considered to have the best quality of powdered metal after having produced powder for decades. Others have approached Hoeganaes quality, but their uniformity and consistency is still measurably better than other companies.

There are literally thousands of trade secrets in existence. Are they a "bugbear"? For a competitor, many times yes. Companies have done many things to acquire the trade secrets of their competitors. Sometimes they get caught doing it...naughty, naughty - that is illegal.

IP will never be eliminated because "the people love it"

Those are YOUR words, no one else's. So, YOU are saying people love IP. I seriously doubt that. I think most people believe there is a benefit to patents. I think most people even think there is a benefit to copyright, but those people rarely connect file sharing with copyright.

saying that creators won't get paid without IP but they'll still create. In fact, they'll still get paid, just as they got paid before IP. They just won't get paid via the specific business model of "restricting copying and selling copies at ridiculously high prices".

What a terribly misinformed statement. The Prius is covered by dozens of patents. Is it sold at "ridiculously high prices"? The computer you are using is covered by dozens of patents. Is it at a "ridiculously high price"? Patents and price are not directly related to each other. Economics set price, not patents. Wake up.

Were inventors paid before patents? Often not. Perhaps mostly not. Some inventors made money not for their inventions, but through a patronage system. Others just ended up making money on a few copies they sold and still ended up in the poor house. Even being an inventor today is no great shakes since competition amongst so-called monopolies is intense. There are extremely few monopolies that exist in a competition vacuum.

Lonnie signed his name to his shit for the first time in a while:

Bee[insult deleted]

No. None of the nasty things that you have said or implied about me are at all true.

You are [implied insult deleted].

No. None of the nasty things that you have said or implied about me are at all true.

"reinvention" and "duplication"? Is that not redundant? If something is already invented, then would "reinvention" be "duplication"?

Of effort, yes. Or, worse, in a particular case it might mean making a poorer invention to do the same job -- a square wheel, say.

"A proliferation of mostly-shoddy wheels and roads and of incompatibilities among competing standards is visible today in the smartphone and video-codec spaces, and it's all because of patent thickets."

[calls me a liar]

No, you're the liar. None of the nasty things that you have said or implied about me are at all true.

"Notably, Lonnie is again inconsistently professing hostility to the one-click patent and to software and business method patents in general, despite trying a couple of times recently to mount strong defenses of the one-click patent specifically."

[calls me a liar]

No, you're the liar. None of the nasty things that you have said or implied about me are at all true.

I have never, ever, not even once, defended the one-click patent.

You spent days arguing with me a couple months ago about the one-click patent. Someone attacked it. You attacked them. I attacked you, and then we went back and forth for a while. I was hostile to the one-click patent; you were defending it, arguing that there was actually something novel and non-obvious in it (though you never were able to specify a particular element that was novel and non-obvious -- unsurprising, since there actually was none).

[calls me a liar]

No, you're the liar. None of the nasty things that you have said or implied about me are at all true.

"so, why then was anything invented before the patent?"

Of course stuff was invented before patents.

So, you admit that you were wrong when you previously implied that patents were essential for invention to occur. Good, good; we're making progress then.

There was probably at least one or two significant inventions per century before the time of patents. Now, we get perhaps hundreds, maybe thousands of significant inventions PER YEAR.

I ate chicken. Three days later my cold went away. Chicken cures colds! Oh, wait, there's a bit of a problem here. It's called the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy, and you're guilty of it. Big-time.

"(trade secrecy is not the bugbear it's made out to be; employees moving on carry information with them and this is what fueled innovation in Silicon Valley)"

[insult deleted]!

None of the nasty things that you have said or implied about me are at all true.

Yes, a lot of knowledge was carried back and forth in Silicon Valley. However, that is not necessarily the exception. The formula for Coke is still not known.

The formula for Coke is not important in the big scheme of things. And if it were, it would have leaked by now.

Yes, there are purported formulas for Coke on the internet, but they are not the current formula, as has been pointed out abundantly. Nice trade secret that has been held for decades.

Er, which is it? The formula has been kept secret for decades, or the formula does keep leaking but whenever it does, they change the formula?

Hoeganaes has a number of trade secrets relating to the manufacture of powdered metal. To this day Hoeganaes is considered to have the best quality of powdered metal after having produced powder for decades. Others have approached Hoeganaes quality, but their uniformity and consistency is still measurably better than other companies.

Never heard of them. Assuming you're not just making this up, tell me, does this company operate in a jurisdiction that has enforceable noncompetes by any chance?

There are literally thousands of trade secrets in existence. Are they a "bugbear"? For a competitor, many times yes.

Funnily enough, if so the patent system clearly has not prevented this. So, it's "medicine" that does not actually work. It's snake oil pushed on the public by a crooked bar of patent lawyers. Ban it!

Thank you for helping make the case for abolishing patent law, Lonnie. :)

Companies have done many things to acquire the trade secrets of their competitors. Sometimes they get caught doing it...naughty, naughty - that is illegal.

It shouldn't be; at least, insofar as there shouldn't be any laws specifically to protect trade secrets, nor should noncompete contracts and the like be allowed to remain binding post-employment. (Indeed, I don't think contracts should ever be allowed to include a permanent injunction or requirement, especially not in exchange for something finite and temporary. Continued noncompete or nondisclosure should require periodic renewal, and periodic remittance of consideration of some sort in exchange.)

Of course laws against e.g. trespassing are another matter. I have no objection to those.

"IP will never be eliminated because "the people love it""

Those are YOUR words, no one else's.

I am paraphrasing an argument made earlier in this thread by either you or your buddy PooPatentTroll.

So, YOU are saying people love IP.

No, I am saying that another poster said that.

Look up "paraphrase" on Wiktionary.

I think most people believe there is a benefit to patents. I think most people even think there is a benefit to copyright

Precisely. Those people are wrong, and once enough of them are convinced that they are wrong, and change their minds about "IP", "IP" abolition will become increasingly politically tenable.

"saying that creators won't get paid without IP but they'll still create. In fact, they'll still get paid, just as they got paid before IP. They just won't get paid via the specific business model of "restricting copying and selling copies at ridiculously high prices"."

[vicious insult deleted]

NO! None of the nasty things that you have said or implied about me are at all true.

Try your argument on an AIDS victim in Africa who can't afford the drugs that could save him, despite their marginal cost being quite low. Go on. I dare you.

Were inventors paid before patents? Often not. Perhaps mostly not.

Plenty of them were paid -- hired by someone to work in an R&D department or whatever. Plenty more invented because they'd find the invention useful themselves, and so directly reap a benefit in personal productivity.

Some inventors made money not for their inventions, but through a patronage system. Others just ended up making money on a few copies they sold and still ended up in the poor house.

The patent system did not change that. Tesla still got screwed; Edison still got rich, much of it off Tesla's inventions. The fact is, inventors without a nose for business will probably end up in the poorhouse if they try to make a go of it as an entrepreneur; so will anyone else without a nose for business. Inventors without a nose for business are also at risk of being taken advantage of. This is unfortunate but patents didn't fix it. If anything, patents make this worse, since the advantage-takers can use a patent to get a monopoly lock on a whole new area of research and can even use it to legally bully the actual inventor.

If trade secrecy and inventors being screwed are a disease, then patents are a snake-oil cure that is ineffective, somewhat toxic to the patient (to the point that people die from the toxicity of pharma patents), and if patents were themselves a drug the FDA would ban that drug in a heartbeat on the data currently available.

Mr Knisella, again thanks for your answer. Also sorry for the typos: i´m not an english speaker; as you, i lack of free time and electronic correction bores me...

I will read your references and answer to your thesis in this same thread. Regarding Boldrin and Levine, i already have read it and demonstrated in my previous comments (the one i linked) that their two main thesis are false and irrelevant.

p.s. ñiiiiii...ñiiiii...Hmmm i see the 9-dan in logic-fu mosquitoe is again around here (or is it a Bee?)...Hmmmm....ñiiiiiii....ñiiiii...PLAS!!!

Beepoop:

I knew you could not resist responding to me, and yet, you did resist.

"Lonnie signed his name to his [heinous and inaccurate Beeshit insult deleted] for the first time in a while"

Who cares? What about all the people you have called me that are not me? I laugh my behind off every time you do that, you sick, paranoid person.

"reinvention" and "duplication"? Is that not redundant? If something is already invented, then would "reinvention" be "duplication"?

Of effort, yes. Or, worse, in a particular case it might mean making a poorer invention to do the same job -- a square wheel, say.

Of course. But, you want to encourage this sort of thing based on your earlier comment.

A proliferation of mostly-shoddy wheels and roads and of incompatibilities among competing standards is visible today in the smartphone and video-codec spaces, and it's all because of patent thickets.

[calls me a liar]

Did I call you a liar? Let me see. Here is the portion you deleted.

Erroneous statement. Even before patents there were multiple standards. In fact, multiples standards WERE the standard. Blaming a lack of standardization on patents is ignoring history.

If you were disagreeing with this factual statement, then, yes, I am calling you a liar. Of course, when you fight facts with paranoia, that will happen.

Notably, Lonnie is again inconsistently professing hostility to the one-click patent and to software and business method patents in general, despite trying a couple of times recently to mount strong defenses of the one-click patent specifically.

[calls me a liar]

Here is the portion you deleted:

This statement is erroneous for two reasons. First, I have never, ever, not even once, implied hostility to the one-click patent. Conversely, I have never, ever, not even once, defended the one-click patent. That makes you a liar.

Why, yes, I did call you a liar. Of course, when you make an unsupported statement, then, yes, I will call you out on that.

I have never, ever, not even once, defended the one-click patent.

You spent days arguing with me a couple months ago about the one-click patent.

Really? Show me.

Someone attacked it. You attacked them. I attacked you, and then we went back and forth for a while.

Show me where I "attacked" anyone regarding the one-click patent. I have no positive feelings toward the patent. I do have some negative feelings. Unless someone was inaccurate regarding the nature of the patent, I would not even make a comment regarding anyone else's statement. However, provide evidence.

I was hostile to the one-click patent; you were defending it, arguing that there was actually something novel and non-obvious in it (though you never were able to specify a particular element that was novel and non-obvious -- unsurprising, since there actually was none).

I think you have me confused with someone else. I neglect to recall ever having argued that there was something novel and non-obvious about that patent. Again, do you have evidence that I made these statements? It should all be there in black and white.

so, why then was anything invented before the patent?

Of course stuff was invented before patents.

So, you admit that you were wrong when you previously implied that patents were essential for invention to occur.

You keep lying about what I said. I have never said, nor implied, that patents were essential for invention to occur. Invention will probably occur with or without patents. Less invention is likely to occur without patents, but it will still happen.

There was probably at least one or two significant inventions per century before the time of patents. Now, we get perhaps hundreds, maybe thousands of significant inventions PER YEAR.

I ate chicken. Three days later my cold went away. Chicken cures colds! Oh, wait, there's a bit of a problem here. It's called the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy, and you're guilty of it. Big-time.

Hey, it is the pot calling the kettle black. You make post hoc ergo propter hoc arguments all the time. However, I call you out on the details, which you then ignore, rather than calling them what they are.

However, fancy names and your bluster along with $1.50 might get you a cheap cup of coffee. After all that bluster and argumentative slight of hand, you failed to provide anything in the way of rebuttal other than a technical one. You have failed, which is typical, to provide any evidence to back up your rebuttal. I infer from your failure to provide evidence that you have none.

Yes, a lot of knowledge was carried back and forth in Silicon Valley. However, that is not necessarily the exception. The formula for Coke is still not known.

The formula for Coke is not important in the big scheme of things. And if it were, it would have leaked by now.

That may or may not be true. Coke continues to take extraordinary precautions to protect the formula. If the formula was unimportant, why bother?

Yes, there are purported formulas for Coke on the internet, but they are not the current formula, as has been pointed out abundantly. Nice trade secret that has been held for decades.

Er, which is it? The formula has been kept secret for decades, or the formula does keep leaking but whenever it does, they change the formula?

There have been several formulas that were supposedly "leaked" well after the formula was changed. So, the answer is that the formulas found to date were old news at the time they were found, or, at least Coke says there were. So, has the formula for Coke been discovered? At least one former version yes. We may never know whether the current version is known.

http://www.snopes.com/cokelore/formula.asp

Hoeganaes has a number of trade secrets relating to the manufacture of powdered metal. To this day Hoeganaes is considered to have the best quality of powdered metal after having produced powder for decades. Others have approached Hoeganaes quality, but their uniformity and consistency is still measurably better than other companies.

Never heard of them. Assuming you're not just making this up, tell me, does this company operate in a jurisdiction that has enforceable noncompetes by any chance?

I have no idea what an enforceable noncompete versus an enforceable noncompete is. Here is a link to their home page.

http://www.hoeganaes.com/

I believe they are and have been for some time the world's largest producer of metal powders.

There are literally thousands of trade secrets in existence. Are they a "bugbear"? For a competitor, many times yes.

Funnily enough, if so the patent system clearly has not prevented this. So, it's "medicine" that does not actually work. It's snake oil pushed on the public by a crooked bar of patent lawyers. Ban it!

Ban trade secrets? I doubt that will ever happen, even if the patent system is abolised, which is probably even more unlikely to happen.

Yes, it was Thomas Jefferson's hope that a patent system would encourage more sharing of knowledge rather than hoarding of knowledge.

It seemed as though it was doing the job until the closing decades of the 20th century when high tech companies (more traditional industries seemed to continue to rely on patent protection versus trade secrets - though they too use both) began emphasizing trade secrets more than patents. Though guessing trade secrets to patents is a guessing game with little to back it up, I have seen some pundits who think that some companies may keep 2/3's or more of their technology as trade secrets versus patenting.

However, IP is not a "one size fits all" right. Some companies are likely to find patents of value with the proviso that they disclose what they know. Others are likely to realize that they do not want to teach the world what they know and they try to keep their technology secret as long as possible. One does not necessarily preclude the other, expecially when considering different industries.

As for your comment about a "crooked bar of patent lawyers," where is your evidence? I have found patent attorneys to be some of the most ethical people I have ever met. Certainly more ethical than you.

Companies have done many things to acquire the trade secrets of their competitors. Sometimes they get caught doing it...naughty, naughty - that is illegal.

It shouldn't be; at least, insofar as there shouldn't be any laws specifically to protect trade secrets, nor should noncompete contracts and the like be allowed to remain binding post-employment. (Indeed, I don't think contracts should ever be allowed to include a permanent injunction or requirement, especially not in exchange for something finite and temporary. Continued noncompete or nondisclosure should require periodic renewal, and periodic remittance of consideration of some sort in exchange.)

Your argument is a slippery slope one. If secrets cannot be legally protected, then how can we protect personal secrets? Ultimately, there can be no secrets, ever. No personal secrets, no government secrets, because there can be no penalties for breaking secrets.

As it is, you can go to prison for revealing a government secret. You can be held personally liable for illegally stealing the data of another person. In many countries it is also a criminal offense. In order to adopt the approach you have suggested would take a rewrite of the laws of multiple countries and enities within those countries. Since there is virtually no controversy over such laws, I do not see that ever happening.

Of course laws against e.g. trespassing are another matter. I have no objection to those.

Me either. However, I have measures just to help encourage people to remember that trespassing is illegal.

IP will never be eliminated because "the people love it

Those are YOUR words, no one else's.

I am paraphrasing an argument made earlier in this thread by either you or your buddy PooPatentTroll.

I have no connection with that person. However, if you are going to make a statement that I said something, then point to it. Do not copy something I said and twist it, as you like to do, to fit your nefarious purposes.

Look up "paraphrase" on Wiktionary.

How about looking up debating techniques? I can find a number that you routinely use, and (I say admiringly) use well, though you are increasingly called out...

- Spurious rejection of a question (a favorite of yours). - Answering a question that was not asked (very favorite response of yours). - Answering the question with a question (yet again another of your favorite techniques). - Obfuscation - You use this technique sometimes as a kind of "hail mary." You claim you often "win." Actually, no. What happens is I figure I made my point and when you resort to obfuscation I know the argument is already over because you failed to make your point. - Reductio Ad Absurdum - Ah yes. How many times have I seen Beeswax do this? - In the post I responded to, you went to the "rationalization" technique.

In fact, you have used so many debating techniques in your response rather than actually arguing the issues that I should just start responding with a catalog of your techniques. It would save me a lot of research time since you never respond to the facts anyway.

I think most people believe there is a benefit to patents. I think most people even think there is a benefit to copyright

Precisely. Those people are wrong, and once enough of them are convinced that they are wrong, and change their minds about "IP", "IP" abolition will become increasingly politically tenable.

Ah, yes. The old Beeswax "I am right and everyone else is wrong" comment.

If you can convince "enough of them" that they are wrong about IP, then you might make something happen. However, you face an uphill battle because IP is written not only into U.S. laws, but the laws of multi-national organizations and nearly every country on the earth. Strangely, IP laws keep getting stronger. If the IP destructionists would stop focusing on destruction and on eliminating expansion perhaps they would have greater success.

Try your argument on an AIDS victim in Africa who can't afford the drugs that could save him, despite their marginal cost being quite low. Go on. I dare you.

I dare you to tell that same AIDS victim that he could not get his drugs because the supply line was not there, even though the drugs were available. Or that he could not be diagnosed because electricity and diagnostic equipment was unavailable. Or medical personnel were not available. I dare you. Go on. In fact, you should give up your computer to help resolve these problems.

http://www.avert.org/universal-access.htm

Were inventors paid before patents? Often not. Perhaps mostly not.

Plenty of them were paid -- hired by someone to work in an R&D department or whatever.

Really? How many R&D departments existed before there were patents? How many inventions? Not too many of either.

Plenty more invented because they'd find the invention useful themselves, and so directly reap a benefit in personal productivity.

Actually, yes, this is true. Many inventors invented for themselves. Many of these inventions are now lost to history because they were never documented. Of course, "plenty" is an indefined term. We do not know if we are talking about 1 person or 1 million. I would guess closer to 1 than 1 million, but I look forward to your evidence.

Some inventors made money not for their inventions, but through a patronage system. Others just ended up making money on a few copies they sold and still ended up in the poor house.

The patent system did not change that. Tesla still got screwed;

Yes, Tesla got screwed by Edison. However, there is some evidence that Tesla's later patents were valuable to Tesla...

http://www.hbci.com/~wenonah/new/tesla.htm

Tesla also suffered from two other problems that tend to plague creative geniuses. First, he was a terrible businessman, as has been well documented. Second, he likely did not patent enough...

http://home.earthlink.net/~drestinblack/invntion.htm

Edison still got rich, much of it off Tesla's inventions.

I have never seen an estimate of how much money Edison might have made from Tesla's inventions. I would like to see some evidence of that.

The fact is, inventors without a nose for business will probably end up in the poorhouse if they try to make a go of it as an entrepreneur; so will anyone else without a nose for business. Inventors without a nose for business are also at risk of being taken advantage of. This is unfortunate but patents didn't fix it. If anything, patents make this worse, since the advantage-takers can use a patent to get a monopoly lock on a whole new area of research and can even use it to legally bully the actual inventor.

Patents remain a great equalizer. As technology has become more complex there are fewer individual inventors, perhaps 20% of all inventors. The patent system makes it easiest for an individual to get a patent and hardest for a company. Companies pay more. Sole inventors have more resources at the USPTO to get help.

Once Tesla got burned, he realized that patents were likely his best option for recouping the huge investments he made in his invention. Most individual inventors and small businesses quickly realize that either they protect their invention or it will be taken from them, which is a significant benefit of the patent system.

If trade secrecy and inventors being screwed are a disease, then patents are a snake-oil cure that is ineffective

Who says trade secrecy is a disease? Businesses are just too concerned regarding the political and judicial nature of patents and the whims of the Supreme Court. Because of these risks, they are looking much harder at trade secrets as a smart, viable option.

As for inventors being screwed, the biggest problem seems to be to the inventor that neglected to get a patent before taking their great invention to a potential buyer.

somewhat toxic to the patient (to the point that people die from the toxicity of pharma patents)

Show me one person who has died from the toxicity of a pharmaceutical patent.

and if patents were themselves a drug the FDA would ban that drug in a heartbeat on the data currently available.

Since there is zero evidence that patents are "toxic," I doubt that highly. If anything, the FDA would probably say we need more of them.

PooPatentTroll blabs:

Mr Knisella[sic], again thanks for your answer. Also sorry for the typos: i´m not an english[sic] speaker; as you, i lack of free time and electronic correction bores me...

This much is evident from your numerous typos.

I will read your references and answer to your thesis in this same thread. Regarding Boldrin and Levine, i already have read it and [calls them liars]

No, you're the liar. None of the nasty things that you have said or implied about Boldrin and Levine are at all true.

p.s. [insult deleted]

No. None of the nasty things that you have said or implied about me are at all true.

And Lonnie non-anonymously embarrasses himself:

Bee[insult deleted]

No. None of the nasty things that you have said or implied about me are at all true.

I knew you could not resist responding to me, and yet, you did resist.

Does not compute.

[calls me a liar]

No, you're the liar. None of the nasty things that you have said or implied about me are at all true.

Who cares? What about [calls me a liar]? [vicious insult deleted].

No, you're the liar and the lunatic. None of the nasty things that you have said or implied about me are at all true.

"Of effort, yes. Or, worse, in a particular case it might mean making a poorer invention to do the same job -- a square wheel, say."

Of course. But, you [false accusation deleted].

Wrong. None of the nasty things that you have said or implied about me are at all true.

It is the patent system's supporters that want to encourage that sort of thing, by making using an existing invention too expensive for most to do and frequently just plain disallowed by the monopoly holder.

Did I call you a liar? Let me see. Here is the portion you deleted.

[calls me a liar]

No, you're the liar. None of the nasty things that you have said or implied about me are at all true.

[calls me a liar]. Of course, [vicious insult deleted].

No, you're the liar and the lunatic. None of the nasty things that you have said or implied about me are at all true.

Here is the portion you deleted:

[calls me a liar]

Why, yes, I did call you a liar. Of course, [calls me a liar].

No, you're the liar. None of the nasty things that you have said or implied about me are at all true.

I have never, ever, not even once, defended the one-click patent.

Liar, liar, pants on fire.

"You spent days arguing with me a couple months ago about the one-click patent."

Really? Show me.

You ought to still be smarting from the ass-whipping I gave you, so it shouldn't be hard for you to remember.

"Someone attacked it. You attacked them. I attacked you, and then we went back and forth for a while."

[calls me a liar]

No, you're the liar. None of the nasty things that you have said or implied about me are at all true.

"I was hostile to the one-click patent; you were defending it, arguing that there was actually something novel and non-obvious in it (though you never were able to specify a particular element that was novel and non-obvious -- unsurprising, since there actually was none)."

[calls me a liar]

No, you're the liar. None of the nasty things that you have said or implied about me are at all true.

The patent is no good and awful. The patent system is no good and awful. End of story.

"So, you admit that you were wrong when you previously implied that patents were essential for invention to occur."

[calls me a liar]

No! You're the liar. None of the nasty things that you have said or implied about me are at all true.

Less invention is likely to occur without patents

Backpedalling, but still wrong. Actually the reverse.

"It's called the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy, and you're guilty of it. Big-time."

Hey, it is [false accusation deleted]. You [false accusation deleted][calls me a liar].

No! You're the liar. None of the nasty things that you have said or implied about me are at all true.

However, [insult deleted]. After all that [implies that I've been dishonest], you [insult deleted]. You have [insult deleted]. [calls me a liar].

No! You're the liar. None of the nasty things that you have said or implied about me are at all true.

"The formula for Coke is not important in the big scheme of things. And if it were, it would have leaked by now."

[implies that I might have been lying]

No! You're the liar. None of the nasty things that you have said or implied about me are at all true.

If the formula was unimportant, why bother?

It's important to them. You ignored that I said "in the big scheme of things" before. As a result you made yet another mistake (or, perhaps, deliberately dishonest argument).

"Er, which is it? The formula has been kept secret for decades, or the formula does keep leaking but whenever it does, they change the formula?"

There have been several ... leak

Well, there you go, then. Their trade secrets have a limited shelf life, it seems, much like Microsoft's moving-target Word document format and other examples of the species.

"Never heard of them. Assuming you're not just making this up, tell me, does this company operate in a jurisdiction that has enforceable noncompetes by any chance?"

I have no idea what an enforceable noncompete versus an enforceable noncompete is.

Your confession of ignorance has been noted for the record.

"Funnily enough, if so the patent system clearly has not prevented this. So, it's "medicine" that does not actually work. It's snake oil pushed on the public by a crooked bar of patent lawyers. Ban it!"

Ban trade secrets?

No, ban patents, you moron. Can't you read?

Yes, it was Thomas Jefferson's hope that a patent system would encourage

It was Thomas Jefferson's hope that a patent system would never exist in the United States:

"If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me."

It seemed as though it was doing the job until the closing decades of the 20th century when

economists like Boldrin and Levine began actually studying this stuff and, eventually, discovered that patents make things worse instead of better and thus ought to be abolished.

As for your comment about a "crooked bar of patent lawyers," [implies that I've been dishonest]. I have found patent attorneys to be some of the most ethical people I have ever met. [insult deleted].

No! You're the liar. None of the nasty things that you have said or implied about me are at all true.

Aside from a few, like Stephan Kinsella, most of them appear to be vampires, parasites upon industries that would be better off without them and their patent system. They are also among the foremost lobbyists for making the patent system continue or even get worse; job security, you see.

"It shouldn't be; at least, insofar as there shouldn't be any laws specifically to protect trade secrets, nor should noncompete contracts and the like be allowed to remain binding post-employment. (Indeed, I don't think contracts should ever be allowed to include a permanent injunction or requirement, especially not in exchange for something finite and temporary. Continued noncompete or nondisclosure should require periodic renewal, and periodic remittance of consideration of some sort in exchange.)"

Your argument is [implied insult deleted].

No! None of the nasty things that you have said or implied about me are at all true.

If secrets cannot be legally protected, then how can we protect personal secrets?

First of all, I'm sure it's possible to protect personal secrets but not trade secrets.

Secondly: should we? Read David Brin's The Transparent Society sometime.

Ultimately, there can be no secrets, ever. No personal secrets, no government secrets, because there can be no penalties for breaking secrets.

That's your straw man. I only suggested to remove legal protection of trade secrets and make things like NDAs only stay binding if you keep paying whoever you want to keep quiet. If it's worth it to you to keep the secret you'll pay. If, after some amount of time, it's not, you'll stop.

In order to adopt the approach you have suggested would take a rewrite of the laws of multiple countries and enities within those countries.

Such is the price of fostering innovation. Abolishing "IP" already requires such rewrites anyway, so it makes little difference to the amount and scope of rewriting needed to throw in those other tweaks as well.

Since there is virtually no controversy over such laws, I do not see that ever happening.

The existence of my posts to this thread disproves your claim that there's "no controversy" over those laws, you moron.

"I am paraphrasing an argument made earlier in this thread by either you or your buddy PooPatentTroll."

I have no connection with that person.

Strange that you're singing the same insane tune, then.

[false accusation of dishonesty deleted]

No! You're the liar. None of the nasty things that you have said or implied about me are at all true.

"Look up "paraphrase" on Wiktionary."

How about [implied insult deleted]?

No! None of the nasty things that you have said or implied about me are at all true.

- [implied insult deleted]. - [implied insult deleted]. - [implied insult deleted]. - [implied insult deleted] - You claim you often "win." [calls me a liar]. What happens is I figure I made my point and when you resort to [false accusation deleted]. I know the argument is already over because you [insult deleted]. - Reductio Ad Absurdum - Ah yes. How many times have I seen Beeswax do this? - In the post I responded to, you [false accusation deleted].

No, no, a thousand times no! You're the liar. None of the nasty things that you have said or implied about me are at all true.

Reductio ad absursum is a perfectly legitimate form of argument. Particularly when the other guy (that would be you) says something ludicrously stupid.

In fact, [false accusation deleted]

No, no, a thousand times no! None of the nasty things that you have said or implied about me are at all true.

"Precisely. Those people are wrong, and once enough of them are convinced that they are wrong, and change their minds about "IP", "IP" abolition will become increasingly politically tenable."

[implies that he thinks I'm lying]

No, no, a thousand times no! You're the liar. None of the nasty things that you have said or implied about me are at all true.

If you can convince "enough of them" that they are wrong about IP, then you might make something happen. However, [threat deleted].

I don't respond well to threats.

"Try your argument on an AIDS victim in Africa who can't afford the drugs that could save him, despite their marginal cost being quite low. Go on. I dare you."

I dare you to tell that same AIDS victim that he could not get his drugs because the supply line was not there, even though the drugs were available. Or that he could not be diagnosed because electricity and diagnostic equipment was unavailable. Or medical personnel were not available.

Infrastructure problems do also plague those stricken with disease in poor countries, but that is no excuse for throwing up additional, wholly artificial obstructions!

"Plenty of them were paid -- hired by someone to work in an R&D department or whatever."

Really?

Really.

How many R&D departments existed before there were patents?

Lots, though the actual term "R&D department" is relatively recent and other names were used in earlier times.

"Plenty more invented because they'd find the invention useful themselves, and so directly reap a benefit in personal productivity."

Actually, yes, this is true.

Well, there you go, then.

Many inventors invented for themselves. Many of these inventions are now lost to history because they were never documented.

Nonsense. Anyone who comes up with something clever has a natural tendency to show off and to tell at least their friends about it.

"The patent system did not change that. Tesla still got screwed;"

Yes, Tesla got screwed by Edison. However,

However, nothing. Tesla still got screwed and your precious patent system did not prevent it. Your patent system is a) useless at preventing trade secrecy and b) useless at preventing inventors sometimes being taken advantage of. Just admit it already.

Tesla also suffered from two other problems that tend to plague creative geniuses. First, he was a terrible businessman, as has been well documented.

Well, there you go, then.

Second, he likely did not patent enough...

Unfortunately, the existence of patents does make it dangerous not to have one's own portfolio to use as a "nuclear stockpile" to threaten mutual assured destruction to anyone trying to stifle you with their patents. Abolishing the whole patent system would, of course, get rid of this unfortunate necessity.

"Edison still got rich, much of it off Tesla's inventions."

[implies that he thinks I'm lying]

No, no, a thousand times no! You're the liar. None of the nasty things that you have said or implied about me are at all true.

You're joking, right? Everyone knows that Edison got quite wealthy and everyone who's done much research knows he actually invented very few of the things that made him rich.

Patents remain a great equalizer.

No, they don't! As I just pointed out.

The patent system makes it easiest for an individual to get a patent and hardest for a company.

A blatant lie; there are millions of patents and a very large proportion are held by companies, not individuals. Few individuals have patents. Fewer still have more than a handful. Meanwhile there are individual corporations that have stockpiled thousands of patents.

Once Tesla got burned, he realized that patents were likely his best option

Didn't help him much, though, did they? He died penniless after putting too much faith in your stupid patents.

Most individual inventors and small businesses quickly realize that either they protect their invention or it will be taken from them, which is a significant benefit of the patent system.

You misspelled "a significant downside of the patent system". Because it's the patent system that enables an invention to be taken from someone; if they don't patent it first someone else will and will then disallow them from using it. Get rid of the patent system and this problem goes away; inventors could not be forced by legal bullying not to use their own inventions, so these could never be taken from them.

"If trade secrecy and inventors being screwed are a disease, then patents are a snake-oil cure that is ineffective"

Who says trade secrecy is a disease?

You pro-patent types. There are two things you love to claim patents do: protect inventors from exploitation (doesn't actually work; c.f. Tesla) and promote disclosure instead of trade secrecy (also doesn't actually work).

As for inventors being screwed, the biggest problem seems to be to the inventor that neglected to get a patent before taking their great invention to a potential buyer.

Because the buyer then patents it and screws the inventor. Get rid of the patent system and this would no longer be possible.

"somewhat toxic to the patient (to the point that people die from the toxicity of pharma patents)"

Show me one person who has died from the toxicity of a pharmaceutical patent.

Remember that African AIDS patient I mentioned?

"and if patents were themselves a drug the FDA would ban that drug in a heartbeat on the data currently available."

[calls me a liar]

No, no, a thousand times no! You're the liar. None of the nasty things that you have said or implied about me are at all true.

Give it up, Lonnie. You know how this always ends: with you frustrated and me victorious. Dragging it out will just worsen your frustration in the end, without changing the outcome. You cannot win. Just shut up and let the inevitable happen; get it over with.

Beeswax: I hope you did not miss me. It took me a while to fold back in all the original comments that you deleted. It does appear that others were keeping you occupied. Thank goodness! I did not want you to be bored.

Beeswax anonymously embarrasses himself:

Lonnie signed his name to his [heinous and inaccurate Beeswax insult deleted] for the first time in a while

Who cares? What about all the people you have called me who are not me? I laugh my behind off every time you do that, you sick, paranoid person.

No. None of the nasty things that you have said or implied about me are at all true.

Really? What did I say that was nasty? Your name? One anonymous name is as good as another, so obviously that was not nasty. That you are anonymous? Beeswax is obviously not your real name. As for implications, that is an outright lie. There are no implications in my comment. Your inferences are your problem.

Anyone who keeps making the same, incorrect and paranoid statement as a substitute for argument embarrasses themselves - continuously. Furthermore, while my comment might be nasty, as opposed to merely true, your comment was heinous and inaccurate.

I knew you could not resist responding to me, and yet, you did resist.

Does not compute.

I knew you could not resist making some sort of inane, scurrilous response to my comments. Yet, even though you made all sorts of irrelevant, pejorative remarks, you failed to address any of the factual information I provided. In fact, you deleted all the facts; quite clever of you to avoid addressing the facts. You know how this will end. You will ultimately repeat your mantra of paranoia and delusion so many times that I will have made my point that you have no substance to your comments. Once everyone is laughing at you and wishing you would go away to the point that visits on this web site begin to drop, I just stop responding to your insanity.

Beeswax essentially deleted huge chunks of comment. I guess if you are unable to respond to something, you play "hide the weenie." In order to put Beeswax's comments into perspective, I restored what he deleted.

"reinvention" and "duplication"? Is that not redundant? If something is already invented, then would "reinvention" be "duplication"?

Of effort, yes. Or, worse, in a particular case it might mean making a poorer invention to do the same job -- a square wheel, say.

But, you want to encourage this sort of thing based on your earlier comment, reproduced below:

A proliferation of mostly-shoddy wheels and roads and of incompatibilities among competing standards is visible today in the smartphone and video-codec spaces, and it's all because of patent thickets.

[calls me a liar]

Did I call you a liar? Let me see. Here is the portion you deleted.

Erroneous statement. Even before patents there were multiple standards. In fact, multiples standards WERE the standard. Blaming a lack of standardization on patents is ignoring history.

If you were disagreeing with this factual statement, then, yes, I am calling you a liar. Of course, when you fight facts with paranoia and assuring others that I am a lunatic when it is you who is the lunatic, that will happen. Regardless, you have no factual support for a link between thickets, which you introduced into this conversation, and standards.

The one offering Beeswax had to this line of comments (no facts - just an unsupported statement):

It is the patent system's supporters that want to encourage that sort of thing, by making using an existing invention too expensive for most to do and frequently just plain disallowed by the monopoly holder.

This comment is provably false. If existing inventions are too expensive for most to do, then patent holders would get no royalties. Those patent holders seeking to license their patents for the highest possible rate of return, which, as any economist will tell you, is when the price is held to a level reasonable for the product. You statement is just pure, unadulterated, ignorant, bull.

Plain disallowed? So, patent holders do not want anyone making a product? Then why bother with the patent? It would seem smarter just to keep the invention a secret rather than putting it out there for others to potentially copy. Just how often does this happen? Rarely?

Notably, Lonnie is again inconsistently professing hostility to the one-click patent and to software and business method patents in general, despite trying a couple of times recently to mount strong defenses of the one-click patent specifically.

[calls me a liar]

Here is the portion you deleted:

This statement is erroneous for two reasons. First, I have never, ever, not even once, implied hostility to the one-click patent. Conversely, I have never, ever, not even once, defended the one-click patent. That makes you a liar.

Why, yes, I did call you a liar. Of course, when you make an unsupported statement, then, yes, I will call you out on that.

Here is another exchange that Beeswax completely deleted. Funny how when someone challenges Beeswax to do some research he just removes that portion of the post altogether. In fact, Beeswax seems to have an aversion to facts. His usual response to facts is "none of the nasty things you have said or implied about me are at all true." Bizarre response to facts: claim that you are being "attacked."

I have never, ever, not even once, defended the one-click patent.

You spent days arguing with me a couple months ago about the one-click patent.

Really? Show me.

Someone attacked it. You attacked them. I attacked you, and then we went back and forth for a while.

Show me where I "attacked" anyone regarding the one-click patent. I have no positive feelings toward the patent. I do have some negative feelings. Unless someone was inaccurate regarding the nature of the patent, I would not even make a comment regarding anyone else's statement. However, provide evidence.

I was hostile to the one-click patent; you were defending it, arguing that there was actually something novel and non-obvious in it (though you never were able to specify a particular element that was novel and non-obvious -- unsurprising, since there actually was none).

I think you have me confused with someone else. I neglect to recall ever having argued that there was something novel and non-obvious about that patent. Again, do you have evidence that I made these statements? It should all be there in black and white.

Then we have another section that Beeswax deleted. Once again, if you fear evidence, then delete the troubling passage. Way to go Beeswax!

There was probably at least one or two significant inventions per century before the time of patents. Now, we get perhaps hundreds, maybe thousands of significant inventions PER YEAR.

I ate chicken. Three days later my cold went away. Chicken cures colds! Oh, wait, there's a bit of a problem here. It's called the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy, and you're guilty of it. Big-time.

Hey, it is the pot calling the kettle black. You make post hoc ergo propter hoc arguments all the time. However, I call you out on the details, which you then ignore, rather than calling them what they are.

However, fancy names and your bluster along with $1.50 might get you a cheap cup of coffee. After all that bluster and argumentative slight of hand, you failed to provide anything in the way of rebuttal other than a technical one. You have failed, which is typical, to provide any evidence to back up your rebuttal. I infer from your failure to provide evidence that you have none.

Less invention is likely to occur without patents

Backpedalling, but still wrong. Actually the reverse.

I am forward pedaling. It is you who keeps avoiding the issues by deleting them. Your willful ignorance will avail you naught.

Here we have another passage where Beeswax protested he was called a liar. Strangely, not once could you even infer from my comments that Beeswax was a liar, though it has already been established that he is.

Yes, a lot of knowledge was carried back and forth in Silicon Valley. However, that is not necessarily the exception. The formula for Coke is still not known.

The formula for Coke is not important in the big scheme of things. And if it were, it would have leaked by now.

That may or may not be true. Coke continues to take extraordinary precautions to protect the formula. If the formula was unimportant, why bother?

[implies that I might have been lying]

No! You're the liar. None of the nasty things that you have said or implied about me are at all true.

Just where are the supposed lies? Do you have a reading disability or are you being deliberately dishonest? I suppose the latter since it seems to be your modus operandi.

If the formula was unimportant, why bother?

It's important to them. You ignored that I said "in the big scheme of things" before. As a result you made yet another mistake (or, perhaps, deliberately dishonest argument).

I disagree. I think in the big picture of things the secrecy is important; so important that Coke has built up a lot of mystique around the secrecy.

Er, which is it? The formula has been kept secret for decades, or the formula does keep leaking but whenever it does, they change the formula?

There have been several formulas that were supposedly "leaked" well after the formula was changed. So, the answer is that the formulas found to date were old news at the time they were found, or, at least Coke says there were. So, has the formula for Coke been discovered? At least one former version yes. We may never know whether the current version is known.

http://www.snopes.com/cokelore/formula.asp

Well, there you go, then.

Yes, there I go. I presented facts. I pointed out that the formula for Coke is not known for certainty. You have zero rebuttals for this fact. You keep trying to make up excuses that are irrelevant to the facts.

Hoeganaes has a number of trade secrets relating to the manufacture of powdered metal. To this day Hoeganaes is considered to have the best quality of powdered metal after having produced powder for decades. Others have approached Hoeganaes quality, but their uniformity and consistency is still measurably better than other companies.

Never heard of them. Assuming you're not just making this up, tell me, does this company operate in a jurisdiction that has enforceable noncompetes by any chance?

The stuff you have never heard of would fill all the libraries in the world.

I also provided a link to their home page. You have all the information you need to tell me whether they are in a jurisdiction with an enforceable noncompete. Go to it!

http://www.hoeganaes.com/

I believe they are and have been for some time the world's largest producer of metal powders.

Funnily enough, if so the patent system clearly has not prevented this. So, it's "medicine" that does not actually work. It's snake oil pushed on the public by a crooked bar of patent lawyers. Ban it!"

Ban trade secrets?

No, ban patents, you moron. Can't you read?

Every time Beeswax is backed into a corner by inconsistencies in his own remarks, he loves to call names. Name calling is always a good substitute for logic and reasoned argument when it comes to Beeswax.

In any case, I doubt that trade secrets will ever be banned, even if the patent system is abolished, which is probably even more unlikely to happen.

It was Thomas Jefferson's hope that a patent system would encourage more sharing of knowledge rather than hoarding of knowledge.

It seemed as though it was doing the job until the closing decades of the 20th century when high tech companies (more traditional industries seemed to continue to rely on patent protection versus trade secrets - though they too use both) began emphasizing trade secrets more than patents. Though estimating the ratio of trade secrets to patents is a guessing game with little to back it up, I have seen some pundits who think that some companies may keep 2/3's or more of their technology as trade secrets versus patenting.

However, IP is not a "one size fits all" right. Some companies are likely to find patents of value with the proviso that they disclose what they know. Others are likely to realize that they do not want to teach the world what they know and they try to keep their technology secret as long as possible. One does not necessarily preclude the other, expecially when considering different industries.

It was Thomas Jefferson's hope that a patent system would never exist in the United States

Jefferson had mixed feelings regarding a patent system and he had multiple discussion regarding this issue. However, while he may have initially been against a "patent system," he was clearly never against ownership of inventions. Further, he ultimately became an enthusiastic supporter of the patent system. References (i.e., facts):

(1) "Jefferson, who called the Office "the Board of Arts" took pride in this duty and gave personal consideration to every application for a patent that was filed between 1790 and 1793. He hoped to be as fair as possible in his administration of patents and to try to develop a system that worked for the benefit of all both inventors and the common man. The system had to work in such a way as to foster invention without making new inventions untouchable to the people." From http://www.earlyamerica.com/review/winter2000/jefferson.html

(2) "He "agreed that inventors should have full rights to their inventions." (As cited in McLaughlin, 1998)."

(3) Jefferson, always the scientist, warmed to his duties and became more open to the idea of patents when he saw how many inventors put forth their ideas as a result of the new system of protection, claiming that "it had given spring to invention beyond my conception." (As cited in Malone, 1951).

(4) This bill [referring to the 1836 patent bill] was the basis of our patent system until contemporary times. Jefferson's hand and influence giving protection to the inventor but access to the user, as well as the utility of the invention are still benchmarks of the United States Patent Office. He truly, should be recognized as a "Father of Invention."

Even broader, Jefferson should be recognized as the Father of the United States Patent System that Beeswax seems to believe he was so against. Many of the features that Jefferson put into the system remain to this day.

(5) "Jefferson's rationale for requiring filing and publication of the patent certificate in every judicial district was to give the public "notice of the thing invented . . . in terms sufficient to point out the general nature thereof, and to warn others against an interference therewith." From http://74.125.95.132/search?q=cache:c2ZUAn-1DRcJ:etext.virginia.edu/journals/EH/EH40/walter40.html+%22thomas+jefferson%22+opinion+of+patents&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

Note that Jefferson again was clear regarding the rights of inventors.

(6) "The Act of 1793 was materially different from the bill Jefferson had proposed, although it did contain a number of the new provisions he had sought. Specifically, patents would henceforth issue on payment of a set fee into the Treasury; the petition would be for an exclusive property right in the invention..." ibid.

Interestingly, one single provision of the Act of 1793 appears to have caused Jefferson to return to his earlier concern regarding the dangers of patents. After all the effort that Jefferson expended in getting a patent act passed, and balancing the needs of society with the rights of the individual, the Act of 1793 became an act of registration rather than an act of examination, and the result was the patents were automatically granted, which Jefferson thought was wrong. Jefferson knew that the automatic granting of patents would cause unnecessary lawsuits and would reduce the well-established benefit of new inventions.

Jefferson was initially concerned about patents. Later, he became a supporter when he realized the number of inventions being revealed quickly that would benefit society faster than if patents did not exist. However, after the Patent Act of 1793, Jefferson became opposed to patents but only because the system went from one of examination to one of registration. Fortunately, the Patent Act of 1793 was replaced by the Act of 1836, which returned the requirements for examination and made obtaining a patent much more difficult. Jefferson would have approved.

As for your comment about a "crooked bar of patent lawyers," where is your evidence? I have found patent attorneys to be some of the most ethical people I have ever met. Certainly more ethical than you.

No! You're the liar. None of the nasty things that you have said or implied about me are at all true.

Delusional…Beeswax is just simply delusional.

If secrets cannot be legally protected, then how can we protect personal secrets?

First of all, I'm sure it's possible to protect personal secrets but not trade secrets.

Secondly: should we? Read David Brin's The Transparent Society sometime.

Yes, it is easy for those with the power, which includes many more entities than our government, to invade the privacy of others.

Interestingly, the entities with the most privacy tend to be those with the most ability to invade the privacy of others because those entities know how it is done and how to keep it from happening or lessening the results of such invasions; i.e., these entities are the best at keeping trade secrets.

However, Brin is not completely accurate regarding surveillance and the loss of privacy. There are people who remain relatively transparent to surveillance because of their lifestyles. Regardless of the amount of surveillance, a person can still take precautions that keep them nearly completely off the radar, so to speak. Some people do so accidentally. Others do so deliberately and take great pains to do so. I suspect there will always be people like that.

Ultimately, there can be no secrets, ever. No personal secrets, no government secrets, because there can be no penalties for breaking secrets.

That's your straw man. I only suggested to remove legal protection of trade secrets and make things like NDAs only stay binding if you keep paying whoever you want to keep quiet. If it's worth it to you to keep the secret you'll pay. If, after some amount of time, it's not, you'll stop.

What you are talking about is not trade secret law, but contract law. So, you have moved from being anti-IP to being anti-contract. Are you also anti-government, by chance?

In order to adopt the approach you have suggested would take a rewrite of the laws of multiple countries and enities within those countries.

Such is the price of fostering innovation. Abolishing "IP" already requires such rewrites anyway, so it makes little difference to the amount and scope of rewriting needed to throw in those other tweaks as well.

Your statement is inaccurate. In addition to IP law a complete re-write of contract law would need to take place. Further, such re-writes would theoretically overturn centuries of jurisprudence in the area of contract law. You are not talking about "tweaks," you are talking about abolishing the fundamental basis of business in the world.

Since there is virtually no controversy over such laws, I do not see that ever happening.

The existence of my posts to this thread disproves your claim that there's "no controversy" over those laws, you moron.

I said "virtually no controversy." Having one obscure pissant complain about something is hardly motivation for anyone to be doing anything.

IP will never be eliminated because "the people love it

Those are YOUR words, Beeswax, no one else's.

I am paraphrasing an argument made earlier in this thread by either you or your buddy PooPatentTroll.

I have no connection with that person. However, if you are going to make a statement that I said something, then point to it. Do not copy something I said and twist it, as you like to do, to fit your nefarious purposes.

[false accusation of dishonesty deleted]

The accusation was in fact accurate. Once I replaced the appropriate comment it is easy to see that, as usual, you are making things up.

No! You're the liar. None of the nasty things that you have said or implied about me are at all true.

I think you need to understand the difference between "imply" and "infer."

Strange that you're singing the same insane tune, then.

"Insane"? The only insane person here is the one who keeps repeating a mantra of paranoia, persecution and delusion - Beeswax.

However, I do not know why you think that multiple people thinking the same way is all that unusual. Of course, you are the only person who thinks the way you do, so perhaps that is why you think you are normal and everyone else is crazy, when it is actually the other way around.

Look up "paraphrase" on Wiktionary.

How about looking up debating techniques? I can find a number that you routinely use, and (I say admiringly) use well, though you are increasingly called out...

- Spurious rejection of a question (a favorite of yours).

- Answering a question that was not asked (very favorite response of yours).

- Answering the question with a question (yet again another of your favorite techniques).

- Obfuscation - You use this technique sometimes as a kind of "hail mary." You claim you often "win." Actually, no. What happens is I figure I made my point and when you resort to obfuscation I know the argument is already over because you failed to make your point.

- Reductio Ad Absurdum - Ah yes. How many times have I seen Beeswax do this?

- In the post I responded to, you went to the "rationalization" technique.

In fact, you have used so many debating techniques in your response rather than actually arguing the issues that I should just start responding with a catalog of your techniques. It would save me a lot of research time since you never respond to the facts anyway.

No, no, a thousand times no! You're the liar. None of the nasty things that you have said or implied about me are at all true.

Reductio ad absursum is a perfectly legitimate form of argument. Particularly when the other guy (that would be you) says something ludicrously stupid.

Unfortunately, the person making the ludicrously stupid remarks is Beeswax. Even more humorous, he makes stupid remark on top of stupid remark. The only thing that would worry me is if Beeswax brought actual facts to our discussion.

I think most people believe there is a benefit to patents. I think most people even think there is a benefit to copyright

Precisely. Those people are wrong, and once enough of them are convinced that they are wrong, and change their minds about "IP", "IP" abolition will become increasingly politically tenable.

Ah, yes. The old Beeswax "I am right and everyone else is wrong" comment.

[implies that he thinks I'm lying]

I believe the facts speak for themselves.

If you can convince "enough of them" that they are wrong about IP, then you might make something happen. However, you face an uphill battle because IP is written not only into U.S. laws, but the laws of multi-national organizations and nearly every country on the earth. Strangely, IP laws keep getting stronger. If the IP destructionists would stop focusing on destruction and on eliminating expansion perhaps they would have greater success.

What follows is what Beeswax did with my comment. Note what Beeswax calls a "threat" in his delusional world.

If you can convince "enough of them" that they are wrong about IP, then you might make something happen. However, [threat deleted].

Specifically, Beeswax called the following a "threat."

However, you face an uphill battle because IP is written not only into U.S. laws, but the laws of multi-national organizations and nearly every country on the earth. Strangely, IP laws keep getting stronger. If the IP destructionists would stop focusing on destruction and on eliminating expansion perhaps they would have greater success.

I don't respond well to threats.

Neither do I. However, I hardly feel threatened by clowns, and you are a clown. But, that distracts from the fact that what you labeled as a threat was just an observation - a factual observation. To change a factual observation to a threat is just plain delusional, or an attempt to derail the topic, again.

Try your argument on an AIDS victim in Africa who can't afford the drugs that could save him, despite their marginal cost being quite low. Go on. I dare you.

I dare you to tell that same AIDS victim that he could not get his drugs because the supply line was not there, even though the drugs were available. Or that he could not be diagnosed because electricity and diagnostic equipment was unavailable. Or medical personnel were not available. I dare you. Go on. In fact, you should give up your computer to help resolve these problems.

http://www.avert.org/universal-access.htm

Infrastructure problems do also plague those stricken with disease in poor countries, but that is no excuse for throwing up additional, wholly artificial obstructions!

You will note in that detailed discussion of the problems relating to getting drugs to AIDS victims in African that intellectual property is not mentioned even once. As you likely know, there are significant quantities of AIDS drugs available, many of them provided by pharmaceutical companies. In other cases, pharmaceutical companies have worked with companies in Africa to help them make AIDS drugs at lower cost because of their lower labor rate. Thank goodness those pharmaceutical companies have the ability to help those companies out; otherwise AIDS deaths in Africa would be even higher.

Were inventors paid before patents? Often not. Perhaps mostly not.

Plenty of them were paid -- hired by someone to work in an R&D department or whatever."

Really?

Really.

How many R&D departments existed before there were patents? How many inventions? Not too many of either.

Lots, though the actual term "R&D department" is relatively recent and other names were used in earlier times.

All we want from you then is your evidence regarding these R&D departments. How many there were and what fields they covered; i.e., how much penetration they had into different technologies.

What about inventions? You cleverly deleted that part in your response because you clearly know there were not many.

Plenty more invented because they'd find the invention useful themselves, and so directly reap a benefit in personal productivity.

The following paragraph is restored to its original version. The stuff that Beeswax could not answer was deleted by him.

Actually, yes, this is true. Many inventors invented for themselves. Many of these inventions are now lost to history because they were never documented. Of course, "plenty" is an indefined term. We do not know if we are talking about 1 person or 1 million. I would guess closer to 1 than 1 million, but I look forward to your evidence.

Well, there you go, then.

Yep, there I go. So many inventions lost to history. Sad.

Many inventors invented for themselves. Many of these inventions are now lost to history because they were never documented.

Nonsense. Anyone who comes up with something clever has a natural tendency to show off and to tell at least their friends about it.

lol…You are hilarious. You are the only person who has your beliefs, and yet you are claiming to have knowledge of what people will do? In fact, there is tons of evidence that you are wrong. Tesla became reclusive and did not share except through patents. Clessie Cummins only shared his inventions through patents. Even Edison only shared his inventions, and the inventions that he laid claim to, through patents. Inventors are not the morons you make them out to be. Inventors know the moment they "share" that their invention that all hope of control and profit from their invention will be lost.

Update: In another thread is a discussion of R. Buckminster Fuller. In his book "Critical Path" he states that his primary reason for filing patent applications was to prevent the loss of knowledge. So, even some inventors have been concerned about the loss of knowledge.

Some inventors made money not for their inventions, but through a patronage system. Others just ended up making money on a few copies they sold and still ended up in the poor house.

The patent system did not change that. Tesla still got screwed;

Yes, Tesla got screwed by Edison. However, there is some evidence that Tesla's later patents were valuable to Tesla...

http://www.hbci.com/~wenonah/new/tesla.htm

However, nothing. Tesla still got screwed and your precious patent system did not prevent it. Your patent system is a) useless at preventing trade secrecy and b) useless at preventing inventors sometimes being taken advantage of. Just admit it already.

There is nothing to admit when it is you who has been wrong from the beginning.

Tesla got screwed because he failed to protect his inventions. Once he realized that the only way an individual inventor could keep from getting screwed is to gain some sort of protection, he became an ardent filer of patents, which then kept him from getting screwed again. Once burned, twice learned.

The patent system was never intended to prevent trade secrecy. The patent system is completely separate and independent from trade secrecy. Jefferson's statements during his creation of the patent system were to the effect that hoped the system would encourage inventors to reveal their knowledge rather than keeping it secret. He was unsure of how well it would work. Later he said that he was quite encouraged by the number of inventions submitted to the patent system, so in fact some inventors did apply for patents rather than keeping things secret, in line with Jefferson's hopes.

Lastly, your characterization of the patent system as being "precious" and "your" are both inaccurate. The first is inappropriate usage of an adjective and is irrelevant. The second is blatantly false. The patent system, per Thomas Jefferson's words, is an institution desired by the people of the separate states. It is, therefore, the system of the states themselves, and considering how closely people were involved with state government at the time, the system of the people.

Tesla also suffered from two other problems that tend to plague creative geniuses. First, he was a terrible businessman, as has been well documented. Second, he likely did not patent enough...

http://home.earthlink.net/~drestinblack/invntion.htm

Well, there you go, then.

Edison still got rich, much of it off Tesla's inventions.

Rather than just throwing out these sorts of statements, how about backing them up? How much did he make from Tesla's inventions? What percentage of inventions applied for by Edison were based on Tesla's work. Rather than just making stuff up and throwing out baseless statements, how about supporting your statements?

You're joking, right? Everyone knows that Edison got quite wealthy and everyone who's done much research knows he actually invented very few of the things that made him rich.

You are joking, right? You throw out a post hoc ergo propter hoc statement and expect it to stand? The old "everybody knows" argument, that is completely irrelevant. If you have no facts, then why bother to say anything at all?

As for what everybody "knows," it has been alleged by a number of researchers that Edison routinely laid claim to the inventions of others. However, it has been very difficult to prove that Edison took the inventions of others for himself. Furthermore, there is very little proof, if any at all, of what Edison might have taken from Tesla and if he did take any of Tesla's inventions, just how valuable those inventions were from a monetary viewpoint.

The fact is, inventors without a nose for business will probably end up in the poorhouse if they try to make a go of it as an entrepreneur; so will anyone else without a nose for business. Inventors without a nose for business are also at risk of being taken advantage of. This is unfortunate but patents didn't fix it. If anything, patents make this worse, since the advantage-takers can use a patent to get a monopoly lock on a whole new area of research and can even use it to legally bully the actual inventor.

Patents remain a great equalizer. As technology has become more complex there are fewer individual inventors, perhaps 10 to 15% of all inventors. The patent system makes it easiest for an individual to get a patent and hardest for a company. Companies pay more. Sole inventors have more resources at the USPTO to get help.

Once Tesla got burned, he realized that patents were likely his best option for recouping the huge investments he made in his invention. Most individual inventors and small businesses quickly realize that either they protect their invention or it will be taken from them, which is a significant benefit of the patent system.

There is another thread with a discussion of R. Buckminster Fuller, yet another individual inventor who obtained a number of patents. He was apparently successful in protecting his inventions against the predations of potential "advantage-takers," as you call them, only because he had patents.

Patents remain a great equalizer.

No, they don't! As I just pointed out.

Yes, they do, as I just pointed out. Of course, I supported my position with facts. Your response was "everybody knows" and "you are being mean to me."

The patent system makes it easiest for an individual to get a patent and hardest for a company.

A blatant lie; there are millions of patents and a very large proportion are held by companies, not individuals. Few individuals have patents. Fewer still have more than a handful. Meanwhile there are individual corporations that have stockpiled thousands of patents.

Your statement Few individuals have patents is a blatant lie, easily proven. Referring to USPTO statistics for individuals for the period 1975-2009 (http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/ac/ido/oeip/taf/inv_utl.htm), 517,089 patents were awarded to individual inventors in that period. During the same period of time a total of 3,763,464 patents were issued. Therefore, 13.7% of all patents awarded in that period were to individual inventors. You failed (big shock there) to define what "few individuals have patents" means, but more than a half million patents hardly seems few to me, and since you also state that only a few inventors have more than a handful, then there should be around a half million independent inventors with a patent. Is that your definition of "few individuals have patents"?

Next time you call me a liar, how about coming with facts to back it up?

Once Tesla got burned, he realized that patents were likely his best option

Didn't help him much, though, did they? He died penniless after putting too much faith in your stupid patents.

Hey, another Beeswax post hoc ergo propter hoc statement: Tesla put faith in patents, therefore he died penniless. Beeswax, you are a gem of logic.

But why did Tesla die penniless? Did his patents earn him income? Well, actually, yes. Though precise amounts are not known, there are records at Westinghouse that indicate that Westinghouse bought the rights to many of Tesla's patents for more than a quarter million dollars, a huge sum of money at that time. Indeed, using Measuring Worth, that amount of money alone, absent other amounts he was likely paid by Westinghouse and others, is worth somewhere between $2.1 to $14 million dollars, depending on the basis of comparison you use. Considering the huge income he realized from patents his faith in patents was entirely justified.

However, Tesla was a scientist and experimenter. His money all went back into his experiments. He gained a fortune from the patents he received, but he spent more than that fortune on equipment and the buildings to house that equipment. If you spend more than you earn you will always end up penniless, which has nothing to do with patents.

Most individual inventors and small businesses quickly realize that either they protect their invention or it will be taken from them, which is a significant benefit of the patent system.

You misspelled "a significant downside of the patent system". Because it's the patent system that enables an invention to be taken from someone; if they don't patent it first someone else will and will then disallow them from using it. Get rid of the patent system and this problem goes away; inventors could not be forced by legal bullying not to use their own inventions, so these could never be taken from them.

Any time something requires this much screwy logic to explain, you suspect that logic might be erroneous.

The simple fact is that individual inventors are much smarter than they once were. They know that without patents their invention will be taken from them. There is tons of historical evidence, much of it provided by you, to prove that. The only leverage an individual inventor has against a big corporation is their patent.

If trade secrecy and inventors being screwed are a disease, then patents are a snake-oil cure that is ineffective

Who says trade secrecy is a disease? Businesses are just too concerned regarding the political and judicial nature of patents and the whims of the Supreme Court. Because of these risks, they are looking much harder at trade secrets as a smart, viable option.

As for inventors being screwed, the biggest problem seems to be to the inventor that neglected to get a patent before taking their great invention to a potential buyer.

You pro-patent types. There are two things you love to claim patents do: protect inventors from exploitation (doesn't actually work; c.f. Tesla) and promote disclosure instead of trade secrecy (also doesn't actually work).

Your statement regarding Tesla has already been debunked. Tesla was only exploited while working for Edison. Once Tesla got smart and protected his inventions with patents, he made millions in current dollars from his patents. He gained huge wealth only because he had patents.

As for your second statement, even Jefferson said that patents were bringing forth inventors and he was surprised at the success of patents to do so. Of course, patents are just like any other tool. A business will always be weighing the likelihood of discovery against the certainty of a patent, also factoring in the likely length of a product incorporating the invention. Boldrin and Levine in "Against Monopoly" have provided significant documentation indicating that trade secrecy is valued much more highly by companies than patents. I have to assume, not having seen your evidence to the contrary, that trade secrecy in fact does work.

As for inventors being screwed, the biggest problem seems to be to the inventor that neglected to get a patent before taking their great invention to a potential buyer.

Because the buyer then patents it and screws the inventor. Get rid of the patent system and this would no longer be possible.

Even if the buyer did not patent the invention, the inventor would still be screwed because the thief would just use the invention without payment or attribution, as you have already amply proven with the Edison and Tesla story. So, what you want to do is eliminate all incentive for individual inventors to invent or take their inventions to potential buyers.

somewhat toxic to the patient (to the point that people die from the toxicity of pharma patents)"

Show me one person who has died from the toxicity of a pharmaceutical patent.

Remember that African AIDS patient I mentioned?

What about that AIDS patient? He died not because of a patent, he died from AIDS. He died because free or low-cost medication could not get to him. He died because the medicine was stolen by warlords during transport to a clinic. He died because of lack of medical personnel to properly administer the drug. He died so you could have your laptop. None of this has to do with a patent.

On the other hand, the pharmaceutical company spent millions to develop and produce the drug that otherwise might not have existed had the company not existed. Then where would your AIDS patient be?

and if patents were themselves a drug the FDA would ban that drug in a heartbeat on the data currently available.

[calls me a liar]

Let's just see if I called you a liar. Here is the passage you deleted.

Since there is zero evidence that patents are "toxic," I doubt that highly. If anything, the FDA would probably say we need more of them.

Disagreeing with you, especially since you provide no factual evidence and only supposition, is not the same as calling you a liar.

No, no, a thousand times no! You're the liar. None of the nasty things that you have said or implied about me are at all true.

It was inevitable that you would return to flaming, paranoia, and delusion.

Give it up, Lonnie. You know how this always ends: with you frustrated and me victorious. Dragging it out will just worsen your frustration in the end, without changing the outcome. You cannot win.

Beeswax, you have never won. All you do is make yourself a joke, and once people laugh long enough and hard enough, I stop responding to you and let the laughter continue.

Lonnie resurrected what was supposed to be a dead thread to viciously attack me:

Beeswax: I hope you did not miss me.

On the contrary, I am disappointed by your constant harassment of me and wish you would go away.

Beeswax [false accusation deleted]:

No. None of the nasty things that you have said or implied about me are at all true.

Lonnie signed his name to his

[calls me a liar]

No, you're the liar. None of the nasty things that you have said or implied about me are at all true.

Who cares? What about [calls me a liar]? [vicious insult deleted].

No, you're the liar and the lunatic. None of the nasty things that you have said or implied about me are at all true.

No. None of the nasty things that you have said or implied about me are at all true.

Really? What did I say that was nasty?

You called me a liar and a lunatic. I am neither. You, however, are both.

Your name? One anonymous name is as good as another, so obviously that was not nasty. That you are anonymous? Beeswax is obviously not your real name. As for implications, [calls me a liar].

No, you're the liar. None of the nasty things that you have said or implied about me are at all true.

I've just explained what was nasty, you moron. Try actually reading for comprehension some time -- if, of course, you're actually capable of it. I begin to suspect that your IQ might not quite be high enough for that, unfortunately.

Anyone who keeps making the same, [vicious insult deleted] statement [more insults deleted]. Furthermore, [calls me a liar].

No, you're the lunatic and the liar. None of the nasty things that you have said or implied about me are at all true.

I knew you could not resist responding to me, and yet, you did resist.

Does not compute.

I knew you could not resist [vicious insult deleted]. Yet, even though you [false accusation deleted], you [vicious insult deleted]. In fact, you [false accusation deleted]; quite clever of you to [calls me a liar]. You know how this will end. You will ultimately repeat your mantra of [vicious insult deleted] so many times that I will have made my point that you [false accusation deleted]. Once [wild and impossible fantasy deleted], I just stop responding to your [vicious insult deleted].

No, you're the idiot, the liar, and the lunatic. None of the nasty things that you have said or implied about me are at all true.

Beeswax essentially deleted huge chunks of comment.

I deleted the personal attacks that can add no substance to the arguments about patents.

I guess [false accusation deleted].

No. None of the nasty things that you have said or implied about me are at all true.

A proliferation of mostly-shoddy wheels and roads and of incompatibilities among competing standards is visible today in the smartphone and video-codec spaces, and it's all because of patent thickets.

[calls me a liar]

Did I call you a liar? Let me see. Here is the portion you deleted.

[calls me a liar]. [implies that I've been dishonest]. In fact, [implies that I've been dishonest]. [implies that I've been dishonest].

If you were [lying], then, yes, I am calling you a liar. Of course, when you [false accusation deleted][vicious insult deleted], that will happen. Regardless, you [calls me a liar].

No! You're the liar and the lunatic. None of the nasty things that you have said or implied about me are at all true.

The one offering Beeswax had to this line of comments ([calls me a liar]):

It is the patent system's supporters that want to encourage that sort of thing, by making using an existing invention too expensive for most to do and frequently just plain disallowed by the monopoly holder.

[calls me a liar]. [further insults deleted].

No, you're the liar. None of the nasty things that you have said or implied about me are at all true.

Plain disallowed? So, patent holders do not want anyone making a product?

Some make their monopoly absolute -- only they manufacture, and they don't license the patent to anyone else.

Then why bother with the patent? It would seem smarter just to keep the invention a secret rather than putting it out there for others to potentially copy. [implies that I've been dishonest]

No, you're the liar. None of the nasty things that you have said or implied about me are at all true.

I don't know why, but many do patent. Probably because they expect if they simply kept it a secret, it would leak faster than a patent would expire.

[calls me a liar]

Here is the portion you deleted:

[calls me a liar]

Why, yes, I did call you a liar. Of course, when you [calls me a liar][threat deleted].

No, you're the liar. None of the nasty things that you have said or implied about me are at all true.

I don't respond well to threats.

Here is another [calls me a liar repeatedly].

No, you're the liar. None of the nasty things that you have said or implied about me are at all true.

You spent days arguing with me a couple months ago about the one-click patent.

Really? Show me.

Someone attacked it. You attacked them. I attacked you, and then we went back and forth for a while.

Show me where I "attacked" anyone regarding the one-click patent.

I don't want to leave this page to find the exact URL, for fear that what I've already typed in this box won't still be intact when I get back and I'll have to start all over again defending myself against yet another one of your excessively long and nasty posts.

But it did happen. You can keep insinuating that I'm lying, but you and I both know which of us is the real liar here.

[calls me a liar].

No, you're the liar. None of the nasty things that you have said or implied about me are at all true.

I was hostile to the one-click patent; you were defending it, arguing that there was actually something novel and non-obvious in it (though you never were able to specify a particular element that was novel and non-obvious -- unsurprising, since there actually was none).

I think you [vicious insult deleted].

No, you're the lunatic. None of the nasty things that you have said or implied about me are at all true.

I neglect to recall ever having argued that there was something novel and non-obvious about that patent.

Feigning amnesia now? How lame.

You said, repeatedly, that the patent's exact claims had to be analyzed to be sure it was obvious. I pointed out that it's basically a patent on having a customer database at the server side and a logon cookie at the client side to enable persistent sessions, and then storing billing and shipping information in the customer database so that the UI could include a default option to just reuse the previous billing and shipping information for an order, which could take the form of a single "buy this right now" button on a product page that is visible to logged-in users. None of this is anything but an obvious progression of the state of the art given that persistent sessions maintained via http cookies, server-side customer data DBs, and the like were existing state of the art.

I made the above argument for the patent's obviousness repeatedly and you repeatedly poohpoohed the argument by saying I hadn't looked at the exact wording of the claims in the actual filed patent, which, of course, isn't even viewable by me without paying a fee to the patent office -- nice way to make it nearly impossible for your opponent to respond. Of course I responded anyway, by ignoring your silly demand and reiterating the above argument for the darn thing's obviousness, and eventually you gave up like you always do when it becomes clear that you're not going to be allowed to have an incorrect last word at this site (such as your implied claim that there was something novel and nonobvious about the one-click patent), not as long as I'm around to keep you honest.

Again, do you have evidence that I made these statements? It should all be there in black and white.

Just reread the fucking one-click thread you moron, it's all in there.

Then we have [false accusation of dishonest behavior deleted].

No! You're the liar. None of the nasty things that you have said or implied about me are at all true.

There was probably at least one or two significant inventions per century before the time of patents. Now, we get perhaps hundreds, maybe thousands of significant inventions PER YEAR.

I ate chicken. Three days later my cold went away. Chicken cures colds! Oh, wait, there's a bit of a problem here. It's called the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy, and you're guilty of it. Big-time.

Hey, it is [implied insult deleted]. You [false accusation deleted] all the time. However, [implies that I've been dishonest].

No! You're the liar. None of the nasty things that you have said or implied about me are at all true.

However, [implied insult deleted]. After all that [implied insult deleted] and [false accusation of dishonesty deleted], you [vicious insult deleted]. You [calls me a liar]. I infer from your [false accusation deleted] that [calls me a liar].

No! You're the liar. None of the nasty things that you have said or implied about me are at all true.

Backpedalling, but still wrong. Actually the reverse.

[calls me a liar]. It is you who keeps [false accusation deleted]. Your [vicious insult deleted] will avail you naught.

No! You're the liar. None of the nasty things that you have said or implied about me are at all true.

The only things I keep deleting are personal attacks. Stop attacking me and there will be nothing for me to delete, so if you don't like my deleting things ...

I don't delete actual arguments about the subject matter that are not laced with any implied or stated personal attacks, contrary to your dishonest implications.

As for arguments partly about the subject matter but laced with invective or innuendo targeting me, well, perhaps you should leave your personal feelings and your opinion of me out of things and just (re)state your arguments dryly and without reference to your debate opponent's person if you want those properly addressed.

[calls me a liar].

No! You're the liar. None of the nasty things that you have said or implied about me are at all true.

The formula for Coke is not important in the big scheme of things. And if it were, it would have leaked by now.

[implies that I might have been lying]. Coke continues to take extraordinary precautions to protect the formula. If the formula was unimportant, why bother?

No! You're the liar. None of the nasty things that you have said or implied about me are at all true.

Why bother? So they can get away with changing it less frequently, of course. Presumably it's expensive to change it. It may even involve retooling their factories.

No! You're the liar. None of the nasty things that you have said or implied about me are at all true.

Just where are the supposed lies?

They don't actually exist, of course; your accusation that I am a liar was a false one. The lies that do exist are yours, including said accusation and numerous others you've aimed at me over the years.

Do you [vicious insult deleted] or [calls me a liar]?

Neither. None of the nasty things that you have said or implied about me are at all true.

You, on the other hand, are both stupid and a liar.

[calls me a liar].

No! You're the liar. None of the nasty things that you have said or implied about me are at all true.

If the formula was unimportant, why bother?

It's important to them. You ignored that I said "in the big scheme of things" before. As a result you made yet another mistake (or, perhaps, deliberately dishonest argument).

I disagree. I think in the big picture of things the secrecy is important; so important that Coke has built up a lot of mystique around the secrecy.

Important to the company. Life on Earth would carry on, for nearly it's entire population, pretty much unchanged if their secrecy failed utterly one day. Not for the company's higher-ups, perhaps, or for some competitors' higher-ups, but even for the rank-and-file employees I doubt much would change.

There have been several formulas that were supposedly "leaked" well after the formula was changed. So, the answer is that the formulas found to date were old news at the time they were found, or, at least Coke says there were. So, has the formula for Coke been discovered? At least one former version yes. We may never know whether the current version is known.

http://www.snopes.com/cokelore/formula.asp

Well, there you go, then.

Yes, there I go. I presented facts. I pointed out that the formula for Coke is not known for certainty. You have zero rebuttals for this fact. You [false accusation deleted].

No! None of the nasty things that you have said or implied about me are at all true.

I don't want to rebut the facts, only your lies, errors, and ill-informed opinions. And the fact that the formula has leaked several times works in my favor and you just admitted it.

Never heard of them. Assuming you're not just making this up, tell me, does this company operate in a jurisdiction that has enforceable noncompetes by any chance?

[insult deleted]

No, you're the ignoramus. None of the nasty things that you have said or implied about me are at all true.

I also provided a link to their home page. You have all the information you need to tell me whether they are in a jurisdiction with an enforceable noncompete.

I do not, since a link to their home page doesn't tell me what jurisdiction their workforce is in, nor did you give me a link to a site that tells which jurisdictions have enforceable noncompetes and which don't.

Besides, the onus is on you to do your research to try to support your points, not on me. I just challenged you to provide data that could support (or fail to support) your thesis and you punted on it. Surprise, surprise.

Ban trade secrets?

No, ban patents, you moron. Can't you read?

Every time Beeswax [calls me a liar], he [false accusation deleted]. [false accusation of intellectual dishonesty deleted].

No! You're the liar. None of the nasty things that you have said or implied about me are at all true.

And since apparently Lonnie's IQ is so low that I must spell it out:

I used the evidence to show that patents were ineffective at the two things they are "prescribed" for: substituting for trade secrecy and preventing inventors from being taken advantage of. David Levine and others have more then adequately proved that patents have harmful (sometimes fatal) side effects. As a "drug" prescribed to the body politic, it seems to be more dangerous than a placebo but no more effective. If it were a real drug, the FDA would not approve it.

It was Thomas Jefferson's hope that a patent system would encourage more sharing of knowledge rather than hoarding of knowledge.

It was not. Jefferson, rather, wrote this:

If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. -- Thomas Jefferson

This clearly indicates an anti-patent stance, liar.

Lonnie continued his worthless diatribe with:

It seemed as though it was doing the job until the closing decades of the 20th century [rest of paragraph deleted]

As noted above, it most certainly was not doing the job. You yourself floated Coca-Cola and a company that makes powdered metal as two examples of trade secrets being used by traditional manufacturers, not software/etc. companies.

Once again, those examples end up biting you in the butt instead of actually supporting your claims.

Yet still it does not occur to you to question whether perhaps your claims are wrong?

Or maybe you know full well that patents are bad mojo, but publicly push for preserving and even expanding the patent system out of a purely selfish desire to avoid your own job going the way of buggy-whip maker, bloodletter, and cassette tape manufacturer.

Indeed, this would explain much, including why you take anti-patent arguments so personally you feel the need to insult and personally attack their proponents and not merely disagree with their arguments. If you were merely wrong, you'd merely disagree. But if you're lying you fear your lie being exposed, and you feel the people you're attacking are attacking you first by threatening your job. Of course, to whatever extent they're really threatening your job at all, they're doing it just as much whether you're lying or merely mistaken; but if you're lying, you are actively trying to preserve that job by subterfuge and persistent sons of bitches like me that keep inconveniently debunking your lies therefore seem to be actively trying to get you fired, which gets your irish up a lot more.

So even your tendency to personal attacks and not merely reasoned debate furnishes evidence, albeit circumstantial, that you are deliberately lying and know full well that patents are bad for everyone except patent lawyers and a few monopolists that luck into key patents in areas like wireless telephony and internet video.

It was Thomas Jefferson's hope that a patent system would never exist in the United States

[calls me a liar]

No! You're the liar. None of the nasty things that you have said or implied about me are at all true.

And since it evidently bears repeating again:

If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. -- Thomas Jefferson

Lonnie continues to spew:

http://74.125.95.132/[rest of long and opaque alphanumeric URL deleted]

Yeah, like I'm going to trust a link to some site so fly-by-night as to not even have a domain name. No, I won't trust it far enough to risk so much as clicking on it. Trying to infect me with malware, Lonnie? That's a new low for you.

[goes on and on for paragraphs reiterating that I'm a liar]

No! You're the liar. None of the nasty things that you have said or implied about me are at all true.

And since it evidently bears repeating yet again:

If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. -- Thomas Jefferson

Lonnie sputters on like some kind of malfunctioning laser printer that's been fed the world's stupidest print job and that nobody's yet thought to simply unplug:

As for your comment about a "crooked bar of patent lawyers," [implies that I've been dishonest]

No! You're the liar. None of the nasty things that you have said or implied about me are at all true.

With a few exceptions (like our own Stephan Kinsella) patent attorneys seem to be a self-serving lot of bastards, beneath even ambulance chasers. Constantly lobbying to expand and worsen the patent system, thus ensuring themselves ever greater fees, in concert with such shady characters as patent trolls and proponents of software, business method, and gene patents.

I have found patent attorneys to be some of the most ethical people I have ever met. [insult deleted].

No! None of the nasty things that you have said or implied about me are at all true.

Of course you'd say that, being one yourself.

No! You're the liar. None of the nasty things that you have said or implied about me are at all true.

[vicious insult deleted]

No, no, no! You're the lunatic. None of the nasty things that you have said or implied about me are at all true.

If secrets cannot be legally protected, then how can we protect personal secrets?

First of all, I'm sure it's possible to protect personal secrets but not trade secrets.

Secondly: should we? Read David Brin's The Transparent Society sometime.

Yes, it is easy for those with the power, which includes many more entities than our government, to invade the privacy of others.

Obviously you haven't read it. Read it. The entire thing. And only then come back and post here if you have any further questions.

However, Brin is [calls David Brin a liar]

No, no, no! None of the nasty things that you have said or implied about David Brin are at all true.

It seems anyone who writes anything that damages your position ends up on the receiving end of your insults and accusations.

One of these days you're going to lose your shirt in libel actions, Lonnie, and probably get disbarred too.

Ultimately, there can be no secrets, ever. No personal secrets, no government secrets, because there can be no penalties for breaking secrets.

That's your straw man. I only suggested to remove legal protection of trade secrets and make things like NDAs only stay binding if you keep paying whoever you want to keep quiet. If it's worth it to you to keep the secret you'll pay. If, after some amount of time, it's not, you'll stop.

What you are talking about is not trade secret law, but contract law. So, you have moved from being anti-IP to being anti-contract. Are you also anti-government, by chance?

No, of course not. You're spewing nonsense as usual. Suggesting that contracts should not be able to compel an unending service from one party in exchange for a temporary one from the other is hardly "anti-contract"; in fact it's a continuation of the same reasoning used to justify not permitting selling oneself into slavery.

I am not anti-contract. I just don't think a contract clause that applies "in perpetuity" should be valid. Contracts for ongoing conduct of any sort from one party should require periodic renewal, and a fee or other consideration from the other party at each renewal. Contracts like that already exist, like leases and utility bills. I simply say that "you do X for me forever in exchange for a one-time payment" or whatever should be invalid on the grounds that you're effectively selling chunks of your inalienable rights (free speech, self determination, whatever) and on the common-sense grounds that continued contractual compulsion should require continued consideration.

In order to adopt the approach you have suggested would take a rewrite of the laws of multiple countries and enities within those countries.

Such is the price of fostering innovation. Abolishing "IP" already requires such rewrites anyway, so it makes little difference to the amount and scope of rewriting needed to throw in those other tweaks as well.

[calls me a liar]

No, no, no! You're the liar. None of the nasty things that you have said or implied about me are at all true.

You are not talking about "tweaks," you are talking about abolishing the fundamental basis of business in the world.

Nicely hyperbolic straw man there, Lonnie. But of course I'm not doing anything of the sort. See above.

Since there is virtually no controversy over such laws, I do not see that ever happening.

You're lying again. The variable enforceability of noncompetes from state to state sure looks like evidence there's some controversy over whether noncompetes, in particular, are a good idea.

The existence of my posts to this thread disproves your claim that there's "no controversy" over those laws, you moron.

[implied insult deleted]. Having one [insult deleted] complain about something [rest deleted].

No, you're the pissant. None of the nasty things that you have said or implied about me are at all true.

I am paraphrasing an argument made earlier in this thread by either you or your buddy PooPatentTroll.

[implies that I've been dishonest]. However, [implies that I've been dishonest]. Do not [rest of rude demand deleted][false accusation of dishonest behavior deleted].

No, no, no! You're the liar. None of the nasty things that you have said or implied about me are at all true.

I do not take orders from you.

[false accusation of dishonesty deleted]

[calls me a liar]. Once I replaced the appropriate comment it is easy to see that, as usual, [calls me a liar].

No, no, no! You're the liar. None of the nasty things that you have said or implied about me are at all true.

Your dishonestly altering comments does not, of course, support your position; far from it. I can't fathom why you admitted to doing so here.

No! You're the liar. None of the nasty things that you have said or implied about me are at all true.

I think you [implied insult deleted]

No, no, no! You're the idiot. None of the nasty things that you have said or implied about me are at all true.

Strange that you're singing the same insane tune, then.

[vicious insult deleted].

No, no, no! You're the lunatic. None of the nasty things that you have said or implied about me are at all true.

However, I do not know why you think that multiple people thinking the same way is all that unusual.

Let's see. Not merely pro-patent but rabidly so, to the point of frequently insinuating that anyone who is anti-patent is not merely wrong but lying, delusional, and intellectually and academically dishonest. Obsessed with attacking me in particular. Unable to let go of debates he's losing; feels a very strong compulsion to have the last word no matter what. Is so pro-patent as to defend even the execrable one-click patent.

How many people on your side are going to have all of those traits simultaneously, really, Lonnie?

Of course, you [vicious insult deleted].

No, no, no! You're the lunatic. None of the nasty things that you have said or implied about me are at all true.

Look up "paraphrase" on Wiktionary.

How about [implied false accusation deleted]?

No, no, no! None of the nasty things that you have said or implied about me are at all true.

- [implies that I've been dishonest]

- [implies that I've been dishonest]

- [implies that I've been dishonest]

- [implies that I've been dishonest][insults deleted]

- Reductio Ad Absurdum - Ah yes. How many times have I seen Beeswax do this?

- [implies that I've been dishonest]

In fact, you have [false accusation deleted]

No, no, no! You're the liar and the failure. None of the nasty things that you have said or implied about me are at all true.

And reductio ad absursum is a perfectly legitimate form of argument. Particularly when the other guy (that would be you) says something ludicrously stupid.

No, no, a thousand times no! You're the liar. None of the nasty things that you have said or implied about me are at all true.

Reductio ad absursum is a perfectly legitimate form of argument. Particularly when the other guy (that would be you) says something ludicrously stupid.

Unfortunately, [vicious insult deleted]. [Vicious insult deleted]. The only thing that would worry me is [implies that I've been dishonest].

No, no, no! You're the idiot and the liar. None of the nasty things that you have said or implied about me are at all true.

I think most people believe there is a benefit to patents. I think most people even think there is a benefit to copyright

Precisely. Those people are wrong, and once enough of them are convinced that they are wrong, and change their minds about "IP", "IP" abolition will become increasingly politically tenable.

Ah, yes. [implies that I've been dishonest].

No, no, no! You're the liar. None of the nasty things that you have said or implied about me are at all true.

[implies that he thinks I'm lying]

I believe [implies that I've been dishonest].

No, no, no! You're the liar. None of the nasty things that you have said or implied about me are at all true.

If you can convince "enough of them" that they are wrong about IP, then you might make something happen. However, [threat deleted].

I don't respond well to threats.

What follows is [vicious insult deleted]

No, no, no! You're the lunatic. None of the nasty things that you have said or implied about me are at all true.

[repeated threat deleted].

I don't respond well to threats.

I don't respond well to threats.

[Implied false accusation deleted]. However, I hardly feel threatened by [insult deleted], and you are a [insult deleted]. But, that distracts from the fact that [calls me a liar]. To [false accusation deleted] is just plain [vicious insult deleted], or an attempt to [false accusation of dishonest behavior deleted], again.

No, no, no! You're the clown, the lunatic, and the liar. None of the nasty things that you have said or implied about me are at all true.

I dare you to tell that same AIDS victim that he could not get his drugs because the supply line was not there, even though the drugs were available. Or that he could not be diagnosed because electricity and diagnostic equipment was unavailable. Or medical personnel were not available. I dare you. Go on.

Infrastructure problems do also plague those stricken with disease in poor countries, but that is no excuse for throwing up additional, wholly artificial obstructions!

Infrastructure problems do also plague those stricken with disease in poor countries, but that is no excuse for throwing up additional, wholly artificial obstructions!

You will note in that detailed discussion of the problems relating to getting drugs to AIDS victims in African that intellectual property is not mentioned even once.

A curious omission. Probably because they don't consider it to be one, not even realizing that the drug prices are vastly inflated compared to marginal cost. If the difference between the price that would exist without patents and the actual price were more visible, say as a separate added line item labeled as the "Big Pharma corporate welfare tax", there'd be one hell of an outcry.

As you likely know, [implies that I've been dishonest].

No, no, no! You're the liar. None of the nasty things that you have said or implied about me are at all true.

Were inventors paid before patents? Often not. Perhaps mostly not.

Plenty of them were paid -- hired by someone to work in an R&D department or whatever.

Really?

Yes, really.

How many R&D departments existed before there were patents? How many inventions?

Lots, though the actual term "R&D department" is relatively recent and other names were used in earlier times.

All we want from you then is [implies that I lied].

No, no, no! You're the liar. None of the nasty things that you have said or implied about me are at all true.

What about inventions? You [false accusation of dishonesty deleted].

No, no, no! You're the liar. None of the nasty things that you have said or implied about me are at all true.

Plenty more invented because they'd find the invention useful themselves, and so directly reap a benefit in personal productivity.

[false accusation of dishonest behavior deleted].

No, no, no! You're the liar. None of the nasty things that you have said or implied about me are at all true.

Actually, yes, this is true. Many inventors invented for themselves.

Well, there you go, then.

Many of these inventions are now lost to history because they were never documented.

Nonsense. Even an invention only used in-house becomes known to many of the employees, and recorded in internal manuals and procedure books (and, these days, source code and other computer files). The knowledge spreads and disseminates over time even if it's not published in a journal or some other such venue.

So many inventions lost to history. Sad.

All those lost inventions in your head. Perhaps you should lay off the downers and find some drug that will give you happier hallucinations, if you find these ones sad, Lonnie.

Many inventors invented for themselves. Many of these inventions are now lost to history because they were never documented.

Nonsense. Anyone who comes up with something clever has a natural tendency to show off and to tell at least their friends about it.

[Insult deleted]. You are the only person who has your beliefs

No, no, no! None of the nasty things that you have said or implied about me are at all true.

Last time I checked, most of the user base of this site shares my beliefs, whereas you have what, one single ally here? And he's PooPatentTroll. With friends like that, who needs enemies, eh, Lonnie?

In fact, there is tons of evidence that [vicious insult deleted].

No, no, no! You're the idiot. None of the nasty things that you have said or implied about me are at all true.

Tesla became reclusive and did not share except through patents. Clessie Cummins only shared his inventions through patents. Even Edison only shared his inventions, and the inventions that he laid claim to, through patents.

The patent system is obviously at fault here. If they'd shared any other way, someone else would have rushed to the patent office -- an unscrupulous partner or journal reviewer or whoever might have been privy to the thing ahead of its publication -- and patented it themselves.

Without a patent system this problem wouldn't have existed.

[false accusation deleted].

No, no, no! You're the one who thinks inventors are morons. None of the nasty things that you have said or implied about me are at all true.

Inventors know the moment they "share" that their invention that all hope of control and profit from their invention will be lost.

Inventors that believe that are wrong. All hope of control is lost as soon as they publish it (even with patents). All hope of profit is not lost (even without patents).

Update: In another thread is a discussion of R. Buckminster Fuller.

Indeed; it's one of three you're currently heavily polluting with your characteristic blend of personal-attack-laced pro-patent nonsense. And you've seen, and replied to, my posts there. Why are you telling me something I already know and that you know I already know?

In his book "Critical Path" he states that his primary reason for filing patent applications was to prevent the loss of knowledge.

Because apparently it never occurred to him to publish in a technical journal, use a vanity press, or even write a letter to his newspaper's editor or something instead to make a public record of his ideas.

Some inventors made money not for their inventions, but through a patronage system. Others just ended up making money on a few copies they sold and still ended up in the poor house.

The patent system did not change that. Tesla still got screwed;

Yes, Tesla got screwed by Edison.

Well, there you go, then.

However, nothing. Tesla still got screwed and your precious patent system did not prevent it. Your patent system is a) useless at preventing trade secrecy and b) useless at preventing inventors sometimes being taken advantage of. Just admit it already.

There is nothing to admit when [vicious insult deleted].

No, no, a thousand times no! You're the idiot. None of the nasty things that you have said or implied about me are at all true.

Tesla got screwed because he failed to protect his inventions.

No, Tesla got screwed because the system allowed someone else to get a government-granted monopoly on them that they could use to enjoin Tesla from working any more on his very own inventions, as well as to squeeze monopoly rents from the market. But more than that, Tesla got screwed because he just wasn't cut out for being a businessman. Patents make no difference to such people -- they need partners to make a credible attempt to market their invention, and those partners are in a position to take advantage of them. Some get lucky with their choice of partner and some don't.

Once he realized that the only way an individual inventor could keep from getting screwed is to gain some sort of protection, he became an ardent filer of patents, which then kept him from getting screwed again.

Really? Then why did he die virtually penniless? Sure looks like he got screwed again. And again, and again, and again. And those patents did nothing to help him die rich instead of poor. So much for your vaunted theories about the usefulness of patents, eh, Lonnie?

The patent system was never intended to prevent trade secrecy.

What is it with you and inconsistency? First your main argument is that patents encourage disclosure. That gets disproved. Then it's that they protect inventors from getting screwed. That also gets disproved. And then you repudiate completely your original claim about encouraging disclosure. What's next -- you'll argue that patents protect patent holders from cancer? Patents get you the girls? Patents give you wings?

Jefferson[rest of paragraph deleted]

And since it evidently bears repeating yet again:

If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. -- Thomas Jefferson

Lonnie steamrolls on like some kind of demented robot run amok:

Lastly, you [insult deleted].

No, no, a thousand times no! None of the nasty things that you have said or implied about me are at all true.

Two lies here. One is the insult. The other is the "lastly" when Lonnie blathers on and on for thousands more paragraphs after this one.

The first is [insult deleted]. The second is [calls me a liar].

No, no, a thousand times no! You're the liar. None of the nasty things that you have said or implied about me are at all true.

The patent system, per Thomas Jefferson's words[rest deleted]

And once again:

If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. -- Thomas Jefferson

Lonnie continues with:

Tesla also suffered from two other problems that tend to plague creative geniuses. First, he was a terrible businessman, as has been well documented.

Well, there you go, then.

Second, he likely did not patent enough.

Unfortunately, the existence of patents does require one to patent as a defensive measure, even if you have no intention of exploiting the market with a government-granted monopoly. First, if you don't patent something, someone else will and they will stop you from using it. Second, you need a patent "nuclear deterrent" ready to use against anyone who threatens to sue you -- though this won't provide much protection against patent trolls, which are the patent equivalent of terrorists with nukes but no home territory that can be nuked in a retaliatory strike.

[calls me a liar]

No, no, a thousand times no! You're the liar. None of the nasty things that you have said or implied about me are at all true.

You're joking, right? Everyone knows that Edison got quite wealthy and everyone who's done much research knows he actually invented very few of the things that made him rich.

[vicious insult deleted]?

No, no, a thousand times no! None of the nasty things that you have said or implied about me are at all true.

The old "everybody knows" argument, that is [insult deleted]. If you [false accusation deleted], then why bother to say anything at all?

No, no, a thousand times no! None of the nasty things that you have said or implied about me are at all true.

There is nothing wrong with appealing to common knowledge. What is remarkable is that you apparently dispute the common knowledge of Edison's financial success and "his" inventions, by and large, being plagiarized.

[A whole paragraph where Lonnie defends Edison deleted.]

You really are a sucker for hopeless causes, aren't you?

The fact is, inventors without a nose for business will probably end up in the poorhouse if they try to make a go of it as an entrepreneur; so will anyone else without a nose for business. Inventors without a nose for business are also at risk of being taken advantage of. This is unfortunate but patents didn't fix it. If anything, patents make this worse, since the advantage-takers can use a patent to get a monopoly lock on a whole new area of research and can even use it to legally bully the actual inventor.

Patents remain a great equalizer.

They do not, as the case of Tesla proved. When he started patenting, he did not get any richer.

The patent system makes it easiest for an individual to get a patent and hardest for a company.

Nowhere near in proportion to how much more resources a company has compared to an individual. Most patents are held by business, indeed by big businesses, which tend to have hundreds or even thousands each.

Once Tesla got burned, he realized that patents were likely his best option for recouping the huge investments he made in his invention. Most individual inventors and small businesses quickly realize that either they protect their invention or it will be taken from them, which is a significant benefit of the patent system.

No, it's a significant curse of the patent system. Without patents, nobody can "take" your invention away from you, i.e. enjoin you from practicing it yourself. Only a government-granted monopoly such as a patent allows them to do that. So you have to patent it yourself, first, to prevent that happening. Get rid of the patent system and this problem goes away.

There is another thread with a discussion of R. Buckminster Fuller, yet another individual inventor who obtained a number of patents. He was apparently successful in protecting his inventions against the predations of potential "advantage-takers," as you call them, only because he had patents.

No, he had a better head for business than Tesla. Patents were entirely beside the point. He'd have done as well (or better) had there been no patent system.

Patents remain a great equalizer.

No, they don't! As I just pointed out.

[calls me a liar]

No, no, a thousand times no! You're the liar. None of the nasty things that you have said or implied about me are at all true.

The patent system makes it easiest for an individual to get a patent and hardest for a company.

A blatant lie; there are millions of patents and a very large proportion are held by companies, not individuals. Few individuals have patents. Fewer still have more than a handful. Meanwhile there are individual corporations that have stockpiled thousands of patents.

[Calls me a liar]. Referring to USPTO statistics for individuals for the period 1975-2009 (http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/ac/ido/oeip/taf/inv_utl.htm), 517,089 patents were awarded to individual inventors in that period. During the same period of time a total of 3,763,464 patents were issued. Therefore, 13.7% of all patents awarded in that period were to individual inventors. You [vicious insult deleted]

No, no, a thousand times no! You're the liar. None of the nasty things that you have said or implied about me are at all true.

Those individuals mostly go on to assign those patents to businesses, rather than holding onto them themselves. Either businesses they start up or businesses they sell the patent to or their own employers get the patent as part of their employment contract.

(Hehehe...Lonnie apparently thinks 86.3% (actually even more, after those reassignments) is not "a very large proportion"...hehehe)

Next time you call me a liar, how about [implies that I've been dishonest]

No, no, a thousand times no! You're the liar. None of the nasty things that you have said or implied about me are at all true.

Once Tesla got burned, he realized that patents were likely his best option

Didn't help him much, though, did they? He died penniless after putting too much faith in your stupid patents.

[insult deleted]

No, no, a thousand times no! None of the nasty things that you have said or implied about me are at all true.

But why did Tesla die penniless? Did his patents earn him income? Well, actually, yes.

Well, actually, apparently not. Or at least not enough to lift him above poverty. So much for your great and wonderful patent system, savior of the poor individual inventor! Fat lot of good it actually did Tesla when he called upon it. Maybe it gave him the skin off a grape or so; big whoop.

Though precise amounts are not known, there are records at Westinghouse that indicate that Westinghouse bought the rights to many of Tesla's patents for more than a quarter million dollars, a huge sum of money at that time.

Apparently not. Tesla, as we all know, was not a millionaire or anywhere close. So either he needed most or all of this putative quarter-million just to get himself out of hock to someone, or you're lying again as usual.

Indeed, using Measuring Worth, that amount of money alone, absent other amounts he was likely paid by Westinghouse and others, is worth somewhere between $2.1 to $14 million dollars, depending on the basis of comparison you use.

The lack of precision here (nearly a full order of magnitude variance?!) does not bolster your credibility, Lonnie.

Considering the huge income he realized from patents his faith in patents was entirely justified.

The "huge income" that either evaporated out from under him or never actually existed?

However, [calls me a liar].

No, no, a thousand times no! You're the liar. None of the nasty things that you have said or implied about me are at all true.

Most individual inventors and small businesses quickly realize that either they protect their invention or it will be taken from them, which is a significant benefit of the patent system.

You misspelled "a significant downside of the patent system". Because it's the patent system that enables an invention to be taken from someone; if they don't patent it first someone else will and will then disallow them from using it. Get rid of the patent system and this problem goes away; inventors could not be forced by legal bullying not to use their own inventions, so these could never be taken from them.

[insult deleted].

No, no, a thousand times no! None of the nasty things that you have said or implied about me are at all true.

The simple fact is that individual inventors are much smarter than they once were.

No, IQs have in fact been approximately steady over historical time, and the peak value attained also hasn't changed much.

They know that without patents their invention will be taken from them.

To be precise, that if there's a patent system and they don't take out a patent, someone else may do so and thus take their invention away from them. Without a patent system this of course could not happen.

The only leverage an individual inventor has against a big corporation is their patent.

No, they have their expertise, proven by their ability to come up with the darn thing in the first place and without which it could be very difficult to duplicate successfully. Reverse engineering is hard, in case you weren't aware of that fact.

They can also do things like demo the thing for company reps and then make an ultimatum: large sum of money or employment contract or whatever in exchange for disclosure.

Etc.

If trade secrecy and inventors being screwed are a disease, then patents are a snake-oil cure that is ineffective

Who says trade secrecy is a disease?

Well, it used to be your chief bugbear here: if patents were abolished you claimed everyone would start using trade secrecy as a kind of poor-man's patent system, which I proved was a) wrong and b) no biggie if it somehow happened anyway as each secret would diffuse out over time if it didn't leak all at once.

But lately you seem to have done a 180 on that. Good old Lonnie, inconsistent and incoherent to the very end.

As for inventors being screwed, the biggest problem seems to be to the inventor that neglected to get a patent before taking their great invention to a potential buyer.

Resulting in that potential buyer turning them down, then sneaking off to the patent office and taking out their own patent.

Of course there's another defense now: publish. Demo the thing at a press conference and you'll have a strong claim of prior art if anyone else tries to patent it later. Or if you don't mind revealing how it works without first getting paid or hired to disclose that, publish the plans themselves. An unscrupulous journal editor might run off to the patent office with it, but if you demo it first (to establish prior art) or publish via blog or whatever that becomes a nonissue.

And of course if the patent system went away this whole problem would disappear along with it.

You pro-patent types. There are two things you love to claim patents do: protect inventors from exploitation (doesn't actually work; c.f. Tesla) and promote disclosure instead of trade secrecy (also doesn't actually work).

[calls me a liar]

No, no, a thousand times no! You're the liar. None of the nasty things that you have said or implied about me are at all true.

Tesla was only exploited while working for Edison. Once Tesla got smart and protected his inventions with patents, he

died penniless, you moron.

As for your second statement, even Jefferson

And here we go again:

If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. -- Thomas Jefferson

Lonnie stumbles on:

Boldrin and Levine in "Against Monopoly" have provided significant documentation indicating that trade secrecy is valued much more highly by companies than patents.

So, they wouldn't be impacted much by patent abolition, other than that it would save them the bother of defensive stockpiling and the odd expensive lawsuit.

Well, except for firms of patent attorneys. They'd be out of business, and you'd be out of a job.

But what's bad for them (you) is good for society, and the Constitution makes it clear that any "IP" laws passed are to be for the good of society, not just special interests. It has now been adequately proven that none of them are. So they should all be repealed forthwith and posthaste.

[implies that I've lied]

No, no, a thousand times no! You're the liar. None of the nasty things that you have said or implied about me are at all true.

As for inventors being screwed, the biggest problem seems to be to the inventor that neglected to get a patent before taking their great invention to a potential buyer.

Because the buyer then patents it and screws the inventor. Get rid of the patent system and this would no longer be possible.

Even if the buyer did not patent the invention, the inventor would still be screwed because the thief would just use the invention without payment or attribution, as you have already amply proven with the Edison and Tesla story.

Patents don't make a difference here. An inventor without a head for business is at the mercy of partners that do being scrupulous. Edison wasn't; Westinghouse was.

The inventor gets nothing from a personally-held patent but a false sense of security. It avails them of exactly as much as the copyright held by a new artist signing up with a major record label. The artist inevitably gets screwed unless their stuff really, really hits the big time, and sometimes even then. In fact even big acts rarely see much money from the record labels. They make their money touring and being screwed by a label just was once the only way to get your music widely enough disseminated to build up demand for your concerts. (It isn't anymore, thanks to Youtube among other things.) Same will apply to the inventor with his shiny new patent and insert name of large corporation here as with the artist and big record label, only without the inventor having an alternative revenue stream analogous to the artist's concert ticket sales.

So, what you want to do is eliminate all incentive for individual inventors to invent or take their inventions to potential buyers.

No, that's not true at all. I don't believe that abolishing the patent system will eliminate that incentive. I thought I'd make that clear. Then again, perhaps I have and you're being intentionally dishonest by deliberately misrepresenting my position to make me seem less sympathetic. I certainly wouldn't put it past you at this point.

Show me one person who has died from the toxicity of a pharmaceutical patent.

Remember that African AIDS patient I mentioned?

What about that AIDS patient? He died not because of a patent, he died from AIDS.

Which could have been treated, if the treatment for his condition had been available at cost instead of only at however many tens of thousands of dollars a year. And yes, the figures I've heard quoted for the price tag on HIV treatment really are that high, most or all of it monopoly rents to pharma companies and the highly cartelized hospital/doctor business.

In the third world he'd be treated in a hospice that probably isn't anything like as expensive and cartelized as the medical business here is, but the treatment is still not affordable. These places have such poor governments, with such heavy disease burden, that even if the government there granted universal health care it could not afford the drugs at the prices the big pharma companies demand.

He died because free or low-cost medication could not get to him. He died because the medicine was stolen by warlords during transport to a clinic. He died because of lack of medical personnel to properly administer the drug. [false accusation deleted].

No, no, a thousand times no! You're the murderer. None of the nasty things that you have said or implied about me are at all true.

Some patients may well die from those causes. Others die because everything else is in place but the particular medication they need is not low cost, due to patents.

[calls me a liar]

No, no, a thousand times no! You're the liar. None of the nasty things that you have said or implied about me are at all true.

On the other hand, the pharmaceutical company spent millions to develop and produce the drug that otherwise might not have existed had the company not existed.

Ah, the old "but without patents the company wouldn't have existed!" straw man again.

Of course it would. There's market demand for drugs, so a marketplace lacking a supplier is an unstable and thermodynamically-unlikely state of affairs, patent law or no patent law. It might have a different business model but a supplier will exist.

and if patents were themselves a drug the FDA would ban that drug in a heartbeat on the data currently available.

[calls me a liar]

Let's just see if I called you a liar. Here is the passage you deleted.

[calls me a liar]

Yep, you called me a liar.

No, no, a thousand times no! You're the liar. None of the nasty things that you have said or implied about me are at all true.

Disagreeing with you, especially since you [calls me a liar], is not the same as calling you a liar.

Yes it is.

No, no, a thousand times no! You're the liar. None of the nasty things that you have said or implied about me are at all true.

If I say something is definitely, factually true (not just a matter of opinion) and you contradict that then you are indeed at least implying that I'm a liar. Certainly we can't both be telling the truth.

Of course, since I am not a liar it follows that any time you do so it is you who is lying.

No, no, a thousand times no! You're the liar. None of the nasty things that you have said or implied about me are at all true.

It was inevitable that you would [vicious insult deleted].

No, no, a thousand times no! You're the lunatic. None of the nasty things that you have said or implied about me are at all true.

Give it up, Lonnie. You know how this always ends: with you frustrated and me victorious. Dragging it out will just worsen your frustration in the end, without changing the outcome. You cannot win.

Beeswax, you [false accusation deleted]. All you

[It looks like some kind of software bug ate the very end of my post. Here it is again.]

Beeswax, you [false accusation deleted]. All you do is [false accusation deleted], and once [Lonnie's wild fantasizing deleted], I stop responding to you and [implied insult deleted].

No, no, a thousand times no! You're the joke. None of the nasty things that you have said or implied about me are at all true.

Give it up, Lonnie. You know how this always ends: with you frustrated and me victorious. Dragging it out will just worsen your frustration in the end, without changing the outcome. You cannot win.

PLEASE

Yeah, Lonnie, PLEASE. Just give it up already!

None:

I think I will keep responding as long as you keep deleting facts and replacing them with rhetoric. I also do not appreciate your slanderous comments, which is further reason to keep responding. When someone deletes facts and substitutes name-calling for reason, they desire to be shown for the fool they are.

Because this post is lengthy, it will take me a while to compile a response, but I guarantee you that I will; you do not determine when a thread is too old or dead.

Lonnie blubbers:

I think I will keep responding as long as you keep [false accusation deleted]. I also do not appreciate your [false accusation deleted], [threat deleted]. When someone [false accusation deleted], they [insult deleted].

[vicious threat deleted].

No. None of the nasty things that you have said or implied about me are at all true.

I don't respond well to threats.

Give it up, Lonnie. You know how this always ends: with you frustrated and me victorious. Dragging it out will just worsen your frustration in the end, without changing the outcome. You cannot win.

Beeswax:

You are soooooo funny. Oooh, oooh, [vicious threat deleted]. That sounds so ominous. In fact, the only threat in my post was the one you imagined.

I have been meaning to speak with you further about the whole "victorious" thing. Several times I have responded to your absurd, delusional and shrill posts with lengthy responses, only to have this web site lose them after submission. After spending several hours researching and providing you with facts, having a post deleted is frustrating. That problem will no longer happen. I am saving your obnoxious responses in a Word document and forming my factual response to your fantasies there. Zero chance of losing the response then.

So, I can keep responding to your delusions quite nicely with no frustration now! Or, until one or both of us are banned from this web site.

Beeswax:

Yeah, Lonnie, PLEASE. Just give it up already!

Why would I want to disappoint you? You have specifically invited me to respond to your unfounded accusations. I want to meet that particular expectation of yours.

Lonnie doesn't know when to quit:

Beeswax:

[vicious insult deleted].

No, you're the lunatic. None of the nasty things that you have said or implied about me are at all true.

I have been meaning to speak with you further about the whole "victorious" thing. Several times I have responded to your [vicious insult deleted] with lengthy responses, only to have this web site lose them after submission.

No, you're the lunatic. None of the nasty things that you have said or implied about me are at all true.

Perhaps they've decided your lengthy vitriolic posts are no longer welcome here, Lonnie. If so, I quite understand their reasoning and suggest you simply go away.

After spending several hours researching and providing you with facts, having a post deleted is frustrating.

How would you know? You never have spent several hours researching and providing me with facts. You've sometimes spent several hours repeatedly calling me a liar and other vile insults, but being thwarted at doing that isn't something I'm gonna sympathize with.

That problem will no longer happen. I am saving your [insult deleted] responses in a Word document.

No. None of the nasty things that you have said or implied about me are at all true.

So, [vicious insult deleted]! Or, until one or both of us are banned from this web site.

No, you're the lunatic. None of the nasty things that you have said or implied about me are at all true.

You probably will be completely banned before long if you keep behaving the way you have been.

Yeah, Lonnie, PLEASE. Just give it up already!

Why would I want to disappoint you?

Your shutting up wouldn't disappoint me. Rather, it is seeing that you've posted another comment that disappoints me. It means I have work to do whenever I see one, work that's about as pleasant as pumping out a septic tank and that often takes over an hour.

You have specifically invited me to respond to your [false accusation deleted].

No. None of the nasty things that you have said or implied about me are at all true.

That's a lie on two levels: the false accusation you aimed at me, and the claim that I've specifically invited you to do anything other than shut the fuck up.

Give it up, Lonnie. You know how this always ends: with you frustrated and me victorious. Dragging it out will just worsen your frustration in the end, without changing the outcome. You cannot win.