Linked by weildish on Sat 24th Jan 2009 22:44 UTC
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Member since:
2006-01-19
What is IP?
It is a artificial term which sums up things like trademarks, patents, copyrights, creator's rights, ... .
And it is a murky territory nowadays.
Whereas patents are necessary for pharmaceutic innovation (long development times, long testing times, high development costs), patents in areas like mechanical engineering are less useful as a tool to foster innovation.
For software, ideas are vast, the development costs are close to zero, obtaining a software patent costs as much as the person who does the PTO paperwork costs. Consequently, software patents are not worth protecting. Nobody would protect a single one dollar bill, whereas Fort Knox with all it's gold is heavily guarded.
Patents are a tool to make people and companies innovate, despite high costs of innovation. if innovation does not cost much, patents are not needed, quite the contrary, they are a hindrance to innovation.