Are you for or against patents?

For, but they need to be modified

4 (15.4%)

For, and they are just fine how they are

1 (3.8%)

Against

18 (69.2%)

Undecided

3 (11.5%)

Total Members Voted: 15

Voting closed: March 18, 2009, 02:46:02 PM

[NHArticleTen]

This is a really shaky subject for me. I think that people should be able to keep and be rewarded for their mental labor as well as the physical things they produce. However, the best thing for the human race in general is for all ideas to flow from one person to another so that everyone can build off the original idea. Saying that a physical object someone builds, such as a chair, is property, but an idea that takes 5 years for someone to come up with is not,  is quite a paradox.

Most people here would ask the question: "Why would I build a chair if anyone could just come and take it from me? Where is the incentive?" The same idea holds for IP. As a scientist, why figure out the theory behind cold fusion if a manufacturing company can take your theory, build a reactor and make a bazillion dollars without paying you a cent.

People come up with new ideas because of competition.  People do not just come up with ideas all by themselves.  They use the ideas of others, and build upon those.  If I own a car making business, do I try to come up with ideas to make my product safer, faster, more reliable, better looking, etc., etc. because of patents or because of competition?  The answer is obviously competition.  However, what patents do do is make it so that when someone figures out some way to make their car safer, I cannot copy it, resulting in a loss to the consumer, as they now do not have as many safe products to choose from.

People build chairs because of property rights, not because of competition.

If you are going to defend patents, then you have to defend the time limit.  But you cannot, because it is completely arbitrary.  And in fact, I am sure the longer the length of time, the more you would oppose it, because you recognize that it is really a monopoly, and stifles competition.  But that is what it does from day one.

I don't know the answer to this one. Your arguments are good and I tried to make some of your same points in my jumbled post earlier when I said what is best for humanity is to let all ideas flow freely. I just feel like that scenario enables the collective world to benifit while the individual gets screwed. Something in me just feels like the person who comes up with the idea should be rewarded for the breakthrough.

But then again, what if we were all cavemen and you invented a way to make fire from rocks? I would copy that idea in a heartbeat! Screw IP!

Like I said, I just don't know on this one. 

Let's settle this once and for all with this real life scenario...

I teach a class of the brightest of the bright and I've been teaching this team of students for years and I've brought them all up to the same exact level of intelligence, drive, and ability...

Now remember, they are all right at the cutting edge and one day, in class, we achieve success in creating, lets say..."anti-gravity matter"...

If there are no "patent rights" and "intellectual property rights"(which don't/can't exist without gunpoint governments anyways) then all my students will be encouraged to either get together and produce this substance...or to go their separate ways and all start their own companies/schools to produce and teach others how to produce...

With gunpoint government, they all run out of the room and all attempt to get to the patent/copyright office first...some even hire hit-men to kill or hold the others back...
(not to mention all the looters, bureaucrats, jackboots, and mercenaries that will be after them for a piece of the action)

TO BE CLEAR:
I believe you have the right to take a piece of wood, plastic, metal, etc. and mix your labor/ideas/creativity into it and then dispose of it as you see fit...

I don't believe you have a right to use the gunpoint government's jackboot enforcers with their supposed magical mystical murder wands of power...to maintain ANY monopoly!

Regardless of whether it's a "process" or a "product" or an "idea" or an assemblage of pixels/words/images/moving-images/etc.

This movie might be helpful to you:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0115857/

Plot summary for
Chain Reaction (1996)
Keanu Reeves, Morgan Freeman, Rachel Weisz, etc.

Eddie Kasalivich, an undergraduate at the University of Chicago, works as a technician for a scientific team that discovers an alternative, low-cost, pollution-free fuel source. When one of the chief scientists is murdered and the invention stolen, Eddie and physicist Lily Sinclair are framed for it and have to flee for their lives, with the FBI, CIA and other involved parties in close pursuit. Paul Shannon, Eddies mentor, is the director of a scientific company which - unknown to Eddie - has commercial interests in the invention. Eddie and Lily set out to find the stolen invention and hopefully clear themselves of the false charges. Written by The Ramp Runner

A team of scientists deduces a machine and process to use regular water to produce energy. After the celebration of their sucess the industrial warehouse that was home to their experiment is blown to flaming bits. With one member of the team dead and another missing two other members are the object of FBI scrutiny. They go on the run with the feds hot on their tails. The two lead the FBI to a secret underground facility where they find a replica of their machine and the missing scientist. A government conspiracy is unmasked and an exciting escape must be tried as the machine is started up and set to blow yet another crater in the Earth. Written by FMJ_Joker

[YixilTesiphon]

Somebody will be able to make money off of an idea. If that person isn't you, it's better for the consumer (ie, everybody) for that person to start making money off of it now instead of 17 years from now, which is really the only difference.

[Kevin Freeheart]

Against.