Rackman
Well-known member
I think this is a key point. IP systems can be anything from no law at all "wild west" like we have with gutiars in Japan, to extremely restrictive like we have on music and movie copyright in the US. It's not at all obvious which is better but I think there's some evidence that the less restrictive regime produces a more vibrant market.
For example I am an inventor on a crapton of US patents on computer memory and storage devices. In some cases the sole inventor. It's quite likely that every byte involved in this thread passed through one or more of my patents. Perhaps this is egotistical, but a lot more work went into inventing that hardware than went in to figuring out that you could cut away a guitar body where your thumb needs to go. Some design tasks are just more difficult than others.
Because of the vagaries of how of how patent law and the computer industry works, most of the computer hardware that embodied those patents infringes on them (that is, there was no permission to use the invention and no royalty was paid to the IP owner).
I don't think the world would have been a better place if my employers had been able to enforce those patents, because if they did so AND their competitors did likewise, it would be essentially impossible to build any sort of data storage device with modern capabilities. The patent-free data storage device is a 2000s type hard drive with a capacity of like 100GB. The same logic would apply to CPUs and other essential components as well although that's not where I work.
My point is that IP law that strictly compensates the people who invent or design things is often times bad for everyone. If that law has an extremely long duration (for example if my patents could be enforced or 70+ years) it can be exceptionally bad.
. You keep talking, but you don’t provide any evidence of proof or, well, anything of substance. Post up that mile long receipt tape. It’s right there at your fingertips, right?
