Winston wrote:
Pete C. wrote:

Based on that existing knowledge, automating the intermittent function
would indeed be obvious and therefore a patent for such would be
invalid whether issued to an independent inventor or an automobile
manufacturer.

As useless as it was before, I now see that there is *no* reason
for a Patent Office, even for large companies. We can close it.

Until then, we can retroactively invalidate any patent claim
by simply saying "Well, I see it's just obvious that you would
invent this particular kind of assembly robot with these particular
features operated in this particular way."

Genius is recognizing the obvious before everyone else.
It should be rewarded.

--Winston

Yeah, I agree 100% with your statement about Genius. But I'm quickly
approaching the belief that the patent office and intellectual property
laws might be doing more damage than good in this age. Copyright and
trademark registration is fine, but when we try to patent inventions, the
claims start to become too abstract and to far reaching at which time the
patents stop working for us by protecting R&D investments and work against
us by creating nothing more than intellectual property squatters and
speculators trying to out guess the markets and benefit from a gamble that
has zero social value. If they are right, they get free money for making a
guess that has no benefit to society other than in making them richer. If
they are wrong they lose, but society also loses because resources are
wasted on registering patents that have no social value.

Most the payback companies receive from being the first to invent something
comes from the fact that they get to be first to market. No matter how
fast the competition is, there's always a delay as the competition reverse
engineers and tries to catch up which gives the guy first to market a short
term monopoly which is their reward for doing the research and for
investing their research dollars in the right place, at the right time.
First to market advantage alone with trade secrete production offers most
of the good of the patent system with zero overhead and cost and with none
of the bad side effects that the patent system creates. It's hard to
evaluate all the costs, but patents are looking questionable to me.

--
Curt Welch http://CurtWelch.Com/
http://NewsReader.Com/