On 02 Aug 2004 16:48:43 GMT, (MKloepster)
wrote:


Sure, in theory, but the distinction between allowing someone to "fairly
profit" and granting a license to gouge is more than a little subjective.

Gov't can't decide what "fair" profit is. The market decides that.
It's not gouging, because anyone is free to not use it just as before
the invention. The gouge is if others compete with me by using
(stealing) an idea that I invested the time and money to develop.
I need to recoup my investment or repay loans, so I'd be at a
competitive disadvantage with my own idea.

Again, people were innovating long before the advent of intellectual property
as a concept--they entered the market and took their chances while others were
free to improve upon the design.

They still are, after I've had a fair chance to recoup my investment.
Meanwhile, they're always free to invent something better than I did.

If you absolutely insist on injecting
government into the process, why not simply legislate a "reasonable" (i.e.,
low) maximum licensing duty and allow all willing to pay the license to the
inventor to produce the product? This would still be artificial and
anticompetetive, but it would also still grant some exclusive profit to
inventors and, I think, decrease overal cost and time to market for most
products and services.

I don't insist in injecting government at all, as in proposing
legislation of what someone other than the market deems "reasonable".
If you don't want to pay what I ask to license my idea, you are free
to not use it and pay me nothing. You should not be free to steal
the fruits of my labor by abusing the legal system. You can have it
free when the patent runs out.

I wonder how much of the software you're using is pirated (stolen)
rather than legal licensed copies.....

Let's not confuse the public good with the public greed. Inventors
are part of the public too. If you remove temporary proprietary
advantage then things won't get better because there's no point in
investing to make things better, only to make the same things cheaper.