On Tue, 2008-12-02 at 18:17 +0000, Alex Hudson wrote:
simo wrote:
On Tue, 2008-12-02 at 17:19 +0000, Alex Hudson wrote:
You don't patent things because they are "valuable", you patent them to make them valuable. That's the whole point of IPR as far as I can see.
I disagree. You patent things to make them exploitable when there is a need of an initial investment in research. Patents, in theory, should protect investments in realizing valuable ideas by granting a short term monopoly.
Sure, but there is no guarantee research leads to a patentable product. The investment is effectively risk capital, and the patent balances that. The investment could be lost.
If the research fails, you get nothing patentable anyway, or you get something that even patent has no value, so where is your point ?
Anything that does not require an important initial investment should not be granted a patent, because it does not deserve it.
I think that's a different model. If you care about the value created, then you fund the research up-front (somehow) and remove the risk.
No I think you misunderstood what I said, and I think you may have confused investment with risk.
There is no risk in thinking, the risk exist only when you have to actually put money where your mouth is. That's why awarding a patent for researches that actually required real investment make some sense (and they still need to come up with something novel, non-obvious, etc..). But risk or investment alone do not justify granting any monopoly of course.
Simo.