[Ferro List] to patent or not to patent

[Keith B]

Doug

You need to know what a patent is, why patents were so beneficial, and 
how they interact with the larger scope of intellectual property law.  
Then you will better understand why and how the bad things you write 
about happen.

Patents date back to the 15th century but the modern elements date to 
British law of the 17th century.   The problem they address is that 
inventors were often secretive, hiding new technology to keep its use in 
the inventor's or family hands, or even suppressing all information to 
prevent anyone profiting from something the inventor couldn't or didn't 
want to pursue.  The effect was to drastically slow development of 
knowledge and skills, especially when information became protected by 
guilds in Europe and clans in China and elsewhere. 

The British scheme was a simple bargain between the state and the 
inventor.  The inventor agreed to "teach the art" of something original, 
novel and unobvious, so that anyone of ordinary skill in the area of the 
invention could practice it.  In return, the state granted the inventor 
the right to exclude anyone else from practicing the invention for 17 
years (now 20).

The result was that ideas became immediately common knowledge, often to 
be quickly applied in other fields than that of the patent, inventors 
could protect  ideas which otherwise would be copied, or sell their 
rights, and Britain launched and enjoyed the Industrial Revolution.  In 
contrast, China then had technology many centuries ahead of Europe, had 
no patent system, so basically didn't advance, only now achieving more 
than a primitive economy.

Lawyers and businessmen quickly got into the act, which originally 
involved only the original inventor(s).  That happened when disputes 
arose, inventors sought patent enforcement, sold their rights, or were 
hired to make inventions under agreements that patent ownership would be 
assigned.  That developed a body of law relating to other areas like 
contract law, but it must be remembered that the new patent laws did not 
disturb the right of an inventor to choose to keep his mouth shut and 
protect his invention by secrecy rather than by patent.  Such 
proprietary inventions can be freely reverse engineered, but it's 
illegal to use industrial espionage or to reveal secrets by breach of 
confidence or employment conditions.  Copyrights involve similar and 
different questions.   All this falls into the general category of 
Intellectual Property Law, and, like any other legal field, has 
instances of shysters, sharp practice, outright fraud, injustice bought 
by deep pockets, upright judges, corrupt ones, bamboozled ones...

Patents are further complicated by practical difficulties in deciding 
what is original to the inventor, novel and unobvious, and the needs of 
modern industries and economies are causing movement towards patent 
issuance to encourage and reward corporate research and/or development 
investment, rather than actual novelty and individual inventors.

kb


































































































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