Bayer acquires Monsanto

[Kath]

Michael Malice's podcast has just moved over to Gas Digital. In his first new episode he had Stephen Kinsella on.

This is a good introduction to the anti-IP line of thinking.

Thanks. I'll give a listen.

[Speaker to Animals]

Problem isn't that patents are bad - problem is SCOTUS and Congress are utterly corrupt....


Without patents...how does a startup prevent itself from being stomped out of existence by Google and friends?

Trade secrets.


But more importantly, how would you get a quasi-monopoly like Google without patents?

[Fife]

Stephan Kinsella, guys. Expose yourself to some rigorous arguments and ideas on the anti-IP plane.

[Zlaxer]

Problem isn't that patents are bad - problem is SCOTUS and Congress are utterly corrupt....


Without patents...how does a startup prevent itself from being stomped out of existence by Google and friends?

Trade secrets.


But more importantly, how would you get a quasi-monopoly like Google without patents?

1) Trade secretes are hard to keep secret - and how does a trade secrete protect you when your invention is a new widget that needs to be sold?

2) Corrupt politicians and judges who won't use anti-monopoly laws.

[Speaker to Animals]

Problem isn't that patents are bad - problem is SCOTUS and Congress are utterly corrupt....


Without patents...how does a startup prevent itself from being stomped out of existence by Google and friends?

Trade secrets.


But more importantly, how would you get a quasi-monopoly like Google without patents?

1) Trade secretes are hard to keep secret - and how does a trade secrete protect you when your invention is a new widget that needs to be sold?

2) Corrupt politicians and judges who won't use anti-monopoly laws.

1) A trade secret you cannot practicably keep a secret is hardly worth basing your business model upon. Indeed, that we see a proliferation of exclusionary businesses built around weak ideas that are only supported by patents constitutes an argument against the idea of patents, not for them.

2) Corruption isn't going to stop people from using the Google pagerank algorithm without patent law.

Added:

3) Patents are antithetical to free markets in that, by definition, they are anti-competitive and actually create incentives to avoid innovation. Without patent law, anybody can build some product and bring it to market. They have to compete on the quality, price, etc. If there is some technique that increases those things, and they are able to keep that a secret, then they should keep that technique a trade secret. I am all for stiffening trade secret laws in exchange for abandoning patents.

4) I would prefer a warrant system to create incentives for difficult but needed technology. For instance, instead of multi-decade patents and government subsidies to deliver an economical electric car, I would prefer a warrant that is paid out to whomever delivers such a vehicle and is able to bring it to market, pulling a profit in the process. That warrant would then reward the corporation for it's innovation and contribution to society in such a way that does not subsidize shit products and helps them fund further research and development to pursue more warrants.

[Zlaxer]

Trade secrets.


But more importantly, how would you get a quasi-monopoly like Google without patents?

1) Trade secretes are hard to keep secret - and how does a trade secrete protect you when your invention is a new widget that needs to be sold?

2) Corrupt politicians and judges who won't use anti-monopoly laws.

1) A trade secret you cannot practicably keep a secret is hardly worth basing your business model upon. Indeed, that we see a proliferation of businesses built around weak ideas that are only supported by patents constitutes an argument against the idea of patents, not for them.

2) Corruption isn't going to stop people from using the Google pagerank algorithm without patent law.

The problems go far beyond what you're talking about......How about a new way to process ultrasound microphone data so that images are 20X clearer than the prior art...That should be worthy of a patent right (system / method and/or non-transitory medium) ? USPTO and CAFC says no because [see google lobbying money].

Google and FB have nearly killed the US patent system.....

[Speaker to Animals]

1) Trade secretes are hard to keep secret - and how does a trade secrete protect you when your invention is a new widget that needs to be sold?

2) Corrupt politicians and judges who won't use anti-monopoly laws.

1) A trade secret you cannot practicably keep a secret is hardly worth basing your business model upon. Indeed, that we see a proliferation of businesses built around weak ideas that are only supported by patents constitutes an argument against the idea of patents, not for them.

2) Corruption isn't going to stop people from using the Google pagerank algorithm without patent law.

The problems go far beyond what you're talking about......How about a new way to process ultrasound microphone data so that images are 20X clearer than the prior art...That should be worthy of a patent right (system / method and/or non-transitory medium) ? USPTO and CAFC says no because [see google lobbying money].

Google and FB have nearly killed the US patent system.....

No, it shouldn't be worthy of a patent.

I would develop the algorithm, mark it as a trade secret, and demonstrate it to somebody like Motorola. If they choose to purchase it, we would work out a contract for it, they would pay me, and the trade secret would become their property to bring to market. Then Motorola would build that algorithm into it's devices and they would have mobile devices with microphone quality that is 20x clearer than all their competitors.

I will grant you, for this to work, we would need to develop code obfuscation techniques that would make machine code very difficult to reverse-engineer.

The way we do things now is insecure and fragile because patent law is one of the most anti-fragile ideas that came out of the 18th century.

But FYI... NOBODY outside the West gives a shit about your patents now. China is stealing technology left and right because they literally don't give a squatting shit about your patent laws. It's better to go to trade secrets and develop means to keep those secrets by rendering products difficult to reverse-engineer.

Go read Foundation, baby. It's all there.

[Zlaxer]

NOBODY outside the West gives a shit about your patents now. China is stealing technology left and right because they literally don't give a squatting shit about your patent laws. It's better to go to trade secrets and develop means to keep those secrets by rendering products difficult to reverse-engineer.

So because China doesn't respect our laws we should just abandon our laws?

[SuburbanFarmer]

NOBODY outside the West gives a shit about your patents now. China is stealing technology left and right because they literally don't give a squatting shit about your patent laws. It's better to go to trade secrets and develop means to keep those secrets by rendering products difficult to reverse-engineer.

So because China doesn't respect our laws we should just abandon our laws?

Well, if China’s not going to be prosecuted, then it does render the existing laws an undue hinderance on domestic companies...

[Zlaxer]

NOBODY outside the West gives a shit about your patents now. China is stealing technology left and right because they literally don't give a squatting shit about your patent laws. It's better to go to trade secrets and develop means to keep those secrets by rendering products difficult to reverse-engineer.

So because China doesn't respect our laws we should just abandon our laws?

Well, if China’s not going to be prosecuted, then it does render the existing laws an undue hinderance on domestic companies...

No - because if the law was followed - China's shit would be seized by an ITC order at the port of entry...and POTUS would slap them silly with tariffs or embargos....If they want to throw sand in our sand box - we kick them out of the sand box...that fucking simple.....but money and corruption prevents this.