This speaks to the patent system being so far perverted from its original purpose that I feel it's time to seriously begin considering if we want to support it in any form. Are patents in 2015 being used more for "promoting the useful arts"[1] or more as a weapon for large enterprises to use against their large and small competition?
This same broken-ness applies to another system of legal monopolies too: copyrights. Are those used more to "promote the useful arts" in 2015, or are they used more by rightsholders to stamp out that which they don't like?
I wonder what our economic, artistic, and technological landscape would look like if we decided, as a society, that these legal monopolies are causing more harm than good, and that they should be severely curtailed, if not outright abolished? I wonder if it would really be as bad as the people who have a financial interest in these things say it would be?
[1]: http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llsl&fileName=00...
(interestingly, the copyright laws use the same "useful arts" wording almost verbatim)
This same broken-ness applies to another system of legal monopolies too: copyrights. Are those used more to "promote the useful arts" in 2015, or are they used more by rightsholders to stamp out that which they don't like?
I wonder what our economic, artistic, and technological landscape would look like if we decided, as a society, that these legal monopolies are causing more harm than good, and that they should be severely curtailed, if not outright abolished? I wonder if it would really be as bad as the people who have a financial interest in these things say it would be?
[1]: http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llsl&fileName=00...
(interestingly, the copyright laws use the same "useful arts" wording almost verbatim)