[CLUE-Talk] Patent Infringement

[Jeffery Cann]

On Monday 03 March 2003 12:44 am, bill ehlert wrote:
>     so why are we making fun of it???

The U.S. Constitution granted provisions to create a patent system.  Many of 
the Constitutional Framers were against patents because they are essentially 
a government-granted monopoly.  The idea originally comes from Medieval 
times, and patent systems (not called patents) were common in many European 
countries.  First one verified in Venice in 1474.

Monopolies (later called patents) used to expire at 14 years, but over the 
history of our country, especially recent history (i.e., since the 1900s) 
patents have been extended until well beyond the 14 years.  As a side-note 
the 14 year period was the length of an apprentice becoming a master...

Since the original intent of a patent is a social contract - i.e., the patent 
owner will invent something great - forward the state of the art as you put 
it.  Then during the monopoly period, after he regains financial costs from 
the research and development, he will release this invention into the public 
domain and complete the social contract because his monopoly expires - anyone 
can now 'copy' the invention without fear of a patent infringement claim.  A 
good example of this is generic prescription drugs, which have a different 
patent term.

Here's what Article 1, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution says:

"Congress shall have power ... to promote the progress of science and useful 
arts by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive 
right to their respective writings and discoveries."

Unfortunately, they key phrase is 'limited times' - originally 14 years.  
However, now that the U.S. patents can be extended well past 100 years, many 
believe that the patent system has degenerated into nothing more than a 
government-santioned monopoly and many view that the social contract is 
broken because the invention can effectively never be copied - at least for 
the next 100 years or so.

BTW - This is not the first time that public opinion has been against patents 
(see link below).  It's just that the Congress never seems to reduce or 
restrict the patent laws.  They have simply granted more and more time to 
extend a patent.  So, now my grandson can extend my patent that I created 
decades ago.  This doesn't seem fair to me, does it to you?

Finally, with regard to software, even the original 14 year period of patents 
is a long time in software technology.  14 years ago was DOS 2.0 and Linus 
Torvalds was in high school.  So, the opinion of many software folks ranges 
from the idea that software patents are outrageous (e.g., Richard Stallman) 
to the idea that limited grant (2-5 years) is sufficient (e.g., Tim 
O'Reilly).

+ http://www.ladas.com/Patents/USPatentHistory.html

Jeff



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