Posted on 12/01/2015 6:00:59 PM PST by Kaslin
It is disappointing to see so many people who usually reside on the Right go screaming Leftward on an issue so fundamental to all-things-free-market as private property protection. In this particular case patent protection.
All sorts of things that in every other instance the Right loves to excoriate and ridicule - these Converts-to-the-Left must ignore or accept as a part of their effort to undermine the patent system. Do these Converts mean to undermine the system? I doubt it. But we do know that's what the Left wants to do (Hello, Google) and these Converts are helping them do it.
One of the things these Converts have to ignore is something that is ordinarily their bread-and-butter: government incompetence. Lots and lots of government incompetence. Congress is rife with it but these Converts suddenly have in it profound confidence. To with exquisite precision delineate between patent lawsuits they deem worthy and patent lawsuits they deem unworthy.
Which in the absolute best of circumstances - is nigh impossible. Because legislation and law don't work that way. If a law makes something difficult for someone - it makes it difficult for everyone. Yet somehow this time we're going to write legislation that can so pristinely discriminate? Our Congress? Threading that stack of needles? I don't think so - and I don't know how anyone on the Right could.
And in fact, the bills currently under consideration - which the Converts are promoting - fail completely in this regard.
And this discussion isn't even the one we should be having. Because the actual, original sin - is government incompetence at the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). The USPTO approved many, many patents - that had no business being approved. It is these patents that are the font of all the lawsuits in question.
But here's the rub: lawsuits on patents that should have been approved and those filed on patents that should not have - are ALL legitimate lawsuits. Because the government approved the patents. Thus there is actually no such thing as a "patent troll."
Attacking litigants for filing suits based upon government-approved patents is absurd, woefully misaimed - and cataclysmically damaging to the entire patent system. Rigging the courts against private property holders - only makes it easier for thieves of that private property.
My defense of these bedrock conservative principles has drawn some direct fire from a few Converts. I responded to several shots from Mytheos Holt here. I'll now respond to Chuck Muth - who recently took a shot:
"As a bona fide, card-carrying, 007 Patent Troll Hunter, I have to take issue with my conservative colleague, Seton Motley of Less Government, who recently accused patent troll hunters of suffering from an 'obsessive fetish' with patent trolls. 'Just say 'patent troll' in front of any member of this tiny cohort,' Seton suggested, 'and watch them freak out.'"
"Um, not quite. Seton maintains that patent holders who file lawsuits are just 'trying to protect their private property from unauthorized use by someone who doesn't want to pay to use it.' He adds: 'Is someone who owns a house and calls the police to roust squatters a 'property troll'? Is someone who reports their car stolen an 'automobile troll'?'"
"Clever questions but completely beside the point."
Really? How so? That last line is all Muth does to address these key ideas. Saying something is beside the point - is not the same thing as actually proving it is. Muth does not come anywhere near the latter. He instead goes on to (inadvertently, I'm guessing) agree with me:
"If you're defending a legitimate patent, no problemo. But that's not what we're talking about here. What we're talking about are extremely questionable patents."
They're questionable - but they're approved by the USPTO. Which means from a legal perspective - they aren't questionable. Thus any subsequent action based upon them is legitimate - up to and including lawsuits filed in protection thereof.
But again, Muth and his other Converts' "solution" - is to undermine the holders of all government-approved patents. Whether they mean to or not - because that's how legislation and law work.
The Left's intent here is not to solve the problem - it is to solve their problem. They have to pay for the patents they use - and they don't want to do so. They'd rather steal them - and this legislation would make it exponentially easier for them to do so.
Which ain't at all good for those of us who understand the vital importance of private property - including the protection of inventors working to deliver us an endless supply of the Next Great Things.
The only legitimate question that remains unanswered is: Why do these Converts want to help the Left do all that?
Is Motley getting “Republican” and “the Right” mixed up, like so many others?
Our patent system is terribly antiquated and no longer encourages innovation. It needs a MAJOR overhaul.
Fail, Mr Motley.
You were incoherent and did not state what the specific issue is.
And I say this as one who has interest in the important topic and was ready to learn something.
Maybe backlash against the robber barons that squash opposition, and obtain in unethical manners licensee to use monopoly rights to soak the public?
“Our patent system is terribly antiquated and no longer encourages innovation. It needs a MAJOR overhaul.”
Ok.
I’m listening.
Article 1 section 8 gives Congress the sole power with respect to copyright and patents. However, since 1790 the Congress had dumped patent duties into the hands of the Executive Branch via the State Department, giving it a separate office from the SecState in 1836; it migrated into the Department of the Interior in 1849, and ended up in the Department of Commerce in 1925. This is one of the first cases of Congress surrendering an enumerated power to the executive branch.
It's about campaign financing.
This might interest you PING!!
Flat wrong.
Patents and copyrights are not property. They are monopolies. The term "intellectual property" is just a rhetorical device to hoodwink you into thinking they are legitimate.
What on Earth is "free-market" about having the government stick a gun in your face?
Exactly. When someone can patent an idea such as, “A program that creates a box for a person to type their name into,” then sue the crap out of anyone who has something like that in their actual program, is a troll.
A patent on an actual invention - a working machine - is legit.
Patents should be eliminated. They don’t reward folks who invent or create new things so much as they reward the person who runs to the patent office first.
Patent Definition, and the Difference between Copyrights and Trademarks
A patent is a property right granted by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. A patent holder may exclude others from using, making, or selling an invention for a limited time. As long as the applicant pays the applicable maintenance fees, the exclusive right for utility and plant patents lasts for a term of 20 years from the application date. The exclusive rights granted for a design patent lasts for 14 years from the date of the grant.
There are three types of patents: utility, design, and plant.
While a patent, with the exclusion of a design patent, protects inventions of new processes, copyright protects published and unpublished original works, including works in literature, music, art, architecture, software, and choreography. Like a patent holder, the copyright owner has exclusive rights, including the right to reproduce, make derivatives, distribute copies, display the work in public, or perform the work publicly.
In some cases, an applicant can obtain both a copyright and a patent. Overlap, for instance, can occur between a design patent and copyright in circumstances where the ornamental design qualifies both for a patent and as a work of art subject to copyright protection.
Was there some point to your post? Patents are called property to trick you into thinking they are legitimate. The boilerplate you posted does not refute this, if that was your intent.
You were incoherent and did not state what the specific issue is.
Ditto.
You can’t “undermine” a system that no longer functions.
Try to brake a patent and see what happens
So you got the recent 2013 law change correct, from first-to-invent to first-to-file, but patents stimulate innovation and the enormous monies required, such as in the drug industry, as one major example. Patents have a huge potential in rewarding the inventors.
I’ve always taken “patent trolls” to be those who buy patents to sue people rather than doing anything of value with the technology.
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