From: mcgregor@netcom.com (Scott Mcgregor)
Subject: Re: Why Patents on that???
Date: Thu, 03 Sep 92 21:18:27 GMT
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services (408 241-9760 guest)

Without taking a position on whether patents are good or bad, there are two
statements in original posting that bear some criticism.

First:

> Through all the ages knowledge was shared to further
> civilization. Kids had to know how to make fire. Never were they discouraged
> (like us) to experiment and build on existing technology.

Well, also through all ages knowledge was carefully guarded and kept
secret.  Master builders kept secrets and shared them only with THEIR
OWN apprentices.  Nations kept military and production technologies 
secret from their neighbors.  Even when secrecy was not the
intent, before widespread cheap publication, it was very expensive to
share information except informally--in which case it often stayed
local or was dispersed only slowly.  In many cases incentives had to
be raised to get that information transmitted more widely.  Nations
often offered prizes, or limited monopolies to those people who went
to the trouble and expense to publish widely beneficial technologies.

The cost of publication has declined with the advent of movable type
printing, telegraph, telephone, widespread postal routes, radio, TV
and other new media.  The costs have changed substantially.  We can
argue about whether the current incentives are now too onerous and
that smaller incentives are necessary today now that costs are
cheaper. But we shouldn't conclude that even if these incentives are
unnecessary today that it was always so.

Second point:

> I don't agree with copying and selling for the sake of profits but why
> restrict to the degree that no-one can improve and build on
> inventions?. Licencing manufacturing processes is common place. This
> control the profiteer  and rightly so because he only copies and does
> not create anything new. The question now is. Why are we getting so
> restricted ?. Why be so over protective of knowledge ?. What is wrong
> with improving exponentially on yesterdays technology ?. 

The issue I have here is that author implies that patents prevent
improvements and building on existing technology.  Further the author
seems to conceive that licensing in manufacturing processes is
fundamentally different.  In fact neither is true.  Many patent
improvements are made by people other than the initial patent holder.
The initial patent holder cannot prevent the improver from publishing
the improvement nor from patenting that improvement.  At best, they
can prevent the improver from selling or making the unimproved bit. A
customer might have to buy both pieces separately or the one company
might license the others technology.  But the situation is bilateral,
the original patent holder can't make or sell the improvement without
a license either. 

It is instructive to note that licensing came up in this explanation.
The manufacturing processes whose licensing was mentioned by the
original author are in fact often PATENTED.  A patent does not
necessarily restrict or inhibit--that depend upon the patent holder.
Even manufacturing processes that are not patented but which are
licensed are TRADE SECRETS, not information that is widely published
because it would be beneficial to anyone else who might want to have a
similar process.  In fact, published processes would not be licensed
at all.

The interesting point this raises concerns LICENSING, not merely
patents or copryrights.  Ideas can be shared  and their originators
fairly compensated (regardless of whether protected by secrecy,
copyright or patent) if licensing takes place.  Some members of the
software industry are concerned that licensing won't take place, or
will be too onerous or costly. This may cause them to oppose patents,
copyrights, or trade secrets so that licensing is unnecessary.
Another approach is possible, and that is to try to ensure that
licensing is easy, cheap, and ubiquitous, regardless of whether the
licensed material is a secret, copyrighted or patented. Some feel that
the amount of potentially licensed materials in software are too much
to handle.  But other industries, such as radio, handle hundreds of
pieces of licensed materials EACH day.  Their industry has developed a
way to handle this through clearing houses (ASCAP, BMI). Their are
hundreds of licensed components and processes in every automobile too.
But automotive engineers are typically not inhibited from using them
because licensing is common in that industry and they are set up to
handle it.  They do that so effectively that most engineers don't even
know whether many of the components they use are patented or not.
Some people believe that it has to be different for the software
industry, but there has been relatively little evidence raised in
support of those beliefs to date.



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