On Sun, 18 Mar 2007 13:08:19 -0500, John Fields
wrote:

On Sun, 18 Mar 2007 17:41:28 GMT, Jonathan Kirwan
wrote:

On Sun, 18 Mar 2007 12:10:13 -0500, John Fields
wrote:

...

but my
personal view is that if it's not my invention and I copy it in
order to keep from having to pay the inventor his just due then I
have stolen from him what he deserved to earn and am nothing more
than a common thief.

And here we may need to disagree, though I'm not interested in
debating it at length. The patent system wasn't created because of
some fundamental underlying idea that 'theft of ideas is wrong' and a
conclusion that inventors are under some attack by thieves demanding
social remedy, but instead because there is a value for the social
commons in encouraging inventors to disclose what novel things they
discover that might otherwise be lost as an art when they die.

---
Agreed, and the reward for the inventor is in the form of a monopoly
which generally prohibits the copying of the invention for the
lifetime of the patent.

I disagree slightly with your use of the word 'discovery' over
'invention', the implication being that the Venus de Milo was
already in the block of marble just waiting to be let out.
---

I don't have a precise enough mental model of my own. But I'd imagine
that patenting vs copyright might play in this example you gave, in
some fashion. I don't imagine that the 'good for social commons'
concept underlying patents needs to capture every conceivable idea
that anyone might come up with -- just something likely to capture
some of the more important inventions.

If the EU constructs a patent system, which is also based upon the
commons idea, but designs it somewhat differently to serve different
exacting design purposes, I see no problem with that, at all.

---
Depends.

If they design one where, say, copying for personal use is allowed
then it may well be that patented inventions imported from countries
with prohibitions against copying for personal use will be
infringed, with no relief available to the inventor.

Isn't that just life, though, in a world where countries claim any
sovereign power? It seems already the case that US patents will be
treated differently, elsewhere. And in particular, if I'm reading
correctly, in the case of personal use already as a matter of reality
we now live with. I think that's just the world that an inventor
anywhere must accept or reject on their own. We may lose some
inventions because some folks are riled by the treatment of patents
outside their own legal environment, or inside their own, but at least
the existing systems capture _some_ useful inventions that might be
otherwise lost. And that is all anyone can reasonably hope for.

I don't personally grant much commons value for inventions that would
otherwise be invented repeatedly and frequently and with variations of
little importance in difference, as who cares? We can just wait a
little longer. I've no problem with that and wouldn't want to
exchange much value back for getting it a few months or a year earlier
(except in VERY RARE hypothetical circumstances, which I wouldn't bend
over backwards to get.)

Jon