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[Powder Miner]

OK, for those who consider copyright theft, if somebody invents a fantastic new invention, is patenting it now stealing it from the community? Should everyone now be able to create and sell his invention?

1: invention is covered by patents, not copyright.

2: the value of art exists only in the context of culture and the people who are exposed to it, not so with invention.

3: Patents have not been subject to endless extension and will return to the public domain within our lifetime.

1. Part of why I asked the question, and in the question. Copyrights and patents are related to a fairly large degree.

2: This devalues your own argument. If it's art and only matters to the culture and people exposed to it, why should it not belong to the people who created it?

3:  Patents are unfortunately shorter than copyrights, but they have been extended, for six years. Six years only, but they have been extended. (Well, it's more like they had their length utterly screwed with repeatedly, but it was extended.)

[ChairmanPoo]

"Unfortunatedly"? Excessively long patents are as bad to continued R&D as excessively short ones. A balance must be kept

[Powder Miner]

Hmm. I guess that's true. I just don't think the product should be able to be completely ripped and sold in its form at the time of patent departure from another person as "their own invention."

[G-Flex]

It's not sold as "their own invention". After patent expiration, it's nobody's invention. Any company actually claiming they invented it would be defrauding the customer and misrepresenting themselves.

So basically, you're afraid of something that doesn't actually happen.

[SalmonGod]

Matters of personal integrity aside, I still consider it a positive thing if greater numbers of people are able to benefit from someone's invention, even if the inventor themselves isn't getting some benefit they feel they exclusively deserve.

Such as with medical patents.

[Willfor]

PLEASE NOTE that there is no solid parody exemption under Canada's fair use ("fair dealing") laws, just in case there are some clever Canadian upstarts looking for loopholes.

[sneakey pete]

Matters of personal integrity aside, I still consider it a positive thing if greater numbers of people are able to benefit from someone's invention, even if the inventor themselves isn't getting some benefit they feel they exclusively deserve.

Such as with medical patents.

That seems to assume that inventions themselves are free, which they are not (usually)

[G-Flex]

Not only that, but being able to profit from inventing provides incentive for people to invent in the first place.

[Criptfeind]

You know what I would like?

Certain types of inventions that can be basically forced to be sold to... Not sure, perhaps the government, who would release it into the public. So certain things like penicillin could just be purchased by "the public" so anyone can make it thus making it available (in theory) cheaper, but still provide a incentive for these things to be invented.

Of course such a system would be ripe for abuse, but... Eh.

[SalmonGod]

And allowing a temporary monopoly allows inventors to price gouge, even on stuff with the potential to save tons of lives.  There have been multiple long and hard fought legal battles with major pharmaceutical corporations to allow generic production of patented anti-retrovirals in developing countries.  Not only do those drugs help those with AIDS, but they help prevent its spread meaning this is an issue that effects the safety of everyone in the world, not only those already ill.  The stuff is cheap enough to produce that generic brands drop the price by over 90% in some cases, enough to allow treatments to be applied on a much larger scale.  Still, millions of lives are sacrificed to enforced patents on these drugs.

Worth it?

[Lysabild]

And allowing a temporary monopoly allows inventors to price gouge, even on stuff with the potential to save tons of lives.  There have been multiple long and hard fought legal battles with major pharmaceutical corporations to allow generic production of patented anti-retrovirals in developing countries.  Not only do those drugs help those with AIDS, but they help prevent its spread meaning this is an issue that effects the safety of everyone in the world, not only those already ill.  The stuff is cheap enough to produce that generic brands drop the price by over 90% in some cases, enough to allow treatments to be applied on a much larger scale.  Still, millions of lives are sacrificed to enforced patents on these drugs.

Worth it?

Not at all, and I must say that I agree with everything I've seen you write in this thread so far, so yeah.

Please keep that banner you're waving high, because it's the banner that signals the possibilities of a better world. For all of us.

[G-Flex]

And allowing a temporary monopoly allows inventors to price gouge, even on stuff with the potential to save tons of lives.  There have been multiple long and hard fought legal battles with major pharmaceutical corporations to allow generic production of patented anti-retrovirals in developing countries.  Not only do those drugs help those with AIDS, but they help prevent its spread meaning this is an issue that effects the safety of everyone in the world, not only those already ill.  The stuff is cheap enough to produce that generic brands drop the price by over 90% in some cases, enough to allow treatments to be applied on a much larger scale.  Still, millions of lives are sacrificed to enforced patents on these drugs.

Worth it?

Two things here.

• Manufacturing cost isn't all that matters. The inventor of the drug has to recoup losses from research, development, and testing, which can be extremely expensive. Naturally, this is not something that the generic drug manufacturers have to deal with, so it's not just "price gouging" that's causing the price difference.
• It's possible to have both a patent system and some level of price control or other legislation involved that prevents abuse, especially in cases where millions of lives are at risk.

[SalmonGod]

And this is where we run into the issue of capitalism simply causing problems.

Even from a capitalist viewpoint, investments are all about risk.  If a business succeeds at developing a drug, but then cannot succeed in getting that drug into the hands of a maximum number of customers, then maybe they don't deserve that monopoly.  They failed to follow through on their own investment.

I understand the notion of long-term benefit that providing an extra, guaranteed incentive for research is attempt to get more research done, but what good does that do if at the same time this method limits the benefits of that research?  Plus, I have a major issue with the sacrifice of people's lives who are given no choice in the matter for the sake of abstract potential future benefits.

[G-Flex]

I've debated this several times before, so please don't condescendingly dismiss me Use whatever word you like. "Loophole" or no, it allows one to make a new work based on an old (copyrighted) one.

Words have meanings that you should probably respect, though. It's pretty silly to call something a "loophole" when it's a very much intended and very much important part of the legislation/policy.

[GlyphGryph]

For the patents, what I'd most like to see is a patent (and copyright for that matter) that is not developed, sold, published, distributed or manufactured in, say, some 6 month period, immediately lapses. It sickens me the number of companies that will buy up patents simply so no one else can use the technology against them, and they hope that by the time the patent expires the advantage it offers to the consumer and the country will be irrelevant.

That, in a word, is bullshit.