How to stop Piracy?

The people who propose this kind of law promote corruption - that's my point. And I hope this proposal will backfire. Do corporations elect politicians? I thought not.

AFAIK a few years ago grey imports into the EU were allowed. Now they are forbidden - corporate wants this. So you can't even take a Nike shirt that's legal in the US and bring it to Europe - not for trade anyway. And is customs is overzealous you couldn't even travel in brand name clothing :)

And this is used - Volkwagen had customs impound the 'new beetle' at the time when it was available in the US but not yet in Europe. But that is a lousy car anyway.

Thomas

I think we have some disagreement on the topic of what is theft. We both agree that if I break into your house and steal your notebook, I have commited theft - of valuable property - the information in it may be of great worth.

Where we disagree is that you feel you can put your information on a giant sign facing the highway and then still claim to have exclusive ownership of that information. I feel that a passing literate motorist is not a thief.

If for some reason you don't want people to know some information, and to take full advantage of it for their own purposes, then you'd best keep it to yourself.

So, you're claiming you have a "right" to go to the public library, copy a book, and sell the copies for profit, depriving the author of his rightful income?

That's theft. You're nothing but a common thief.

Thanks, Rich

That is because of the way authors are being paid these days - which is the result of a printing press being something very expensive in the past, not reachable for the humble author.

If books were written on demand (we all give Win some cash to finish the

The way copyright, patents and trade marks are handled now is because what was best in the past. It may still be the best way now, but chances are that for the incumbent business these ways are good, while for the writer, inventor, and consumer, better possibilities exist.

I doubt whether good books are translated into every language possible - it may be that the original publisher will demand a big advance that the local publisher cannot afford. At the same time the author may think: "I have noting to lose, and perhaps I can gain a little. And if not at least I hope those people enjoy my book."

Similar to software : I feel the days of ever more restricting licenses are over. Compliance costs effort and money.

Thomas

And so are you. Did you make up all those symbols you just sent me, or copy them? "Thief".. did you make that word up are are you simply stealing the work of previous linguists?

Give me a break. Of course I can go to the library and copy a book. If I want to sell the copies for profit I'd better have a good business plan because there's a lot of competition out there doing just that.

What you said was that before ownership of an idea can be determined, some body has to rule on whether it can be owned or not.

That's not at all like saying that until ownership is established everyone owns it, it's like saying that until ownership is established _no one_ owns it. It follows, therefore, that if I don't own it I'm not free to use it, if you don't own it you're not free to use it, and if no one owns it then no one is free to use it until the body making the ownership decision makes their determination. Once that decision is made, then whether it can be owned, what part of it can be owned and who owns it, and what part goes into the public domain will have been ruled on and life will go on with that matter settled

Perhaps that's not what you _meant_ to say, but that's what you said, nevertheless.

LOL, I didn't miss a thing, including you moving the goalposts!

--- I think that what's been happening with the patent office is that over the past 10 or 20 years technology has exploded and the patent office hasn't been able to keep up with either the volume or the complexity of applications so they just threw up their hands and said, "The hell with it, let's just let it all go through and if there's a problem we'll let the courts sort it out."

If that's the case, then the obvious solution would be to get more and better examiners in there and toughen up on what gets through.

Also, I'd make the filing fee more expensive, and make the maintence period yearly in order to force those patents that aren't working out for their owners into the public domain sooner.

Copyrights I don't have a problem with since I think the output of an artist isn't as much affected by them as by their muse...

And software I would _immediately_ reclassify as an invention which would have to be patented for protection.

-- John Fields Professional Circuit Designer

Lassaiz-faire to the max...

Quite seriously though, I have some doubt how secret most ideas of practical use in commerce can remain once they are used.

The bargain that is a patent dates from an era when secret knowledge was a serious problem. (guild knowledge, the design for some of America's first mills being smuggled over in an engineer's head because of English export controls on the paper documents, etc) Today it's often enough to know that something is possible or have an example of it - if you really want to understand it, you then can.

Also any research funded by government should include a requirement of open publication, excepting perhaps a few narrow national security cases.

Finally there are many companies realizing that it's better to share knowledge even when they know their competitors will make use of it - open source software being an example of sharing not only knowledge, but the actual product that embodies it.

There's also a lot of disclosure in what amounts to bragging right publications, participation by industrial scientists in academic journals and conferences, and of course technical sales documents and data sheets.

It's possible that without patent protection data sheets would only be available under NDA, but my guess is that this would not be workable on a grand scale. A few companies do work that way, but they mostly sell to a handfull of high volume customers, more specifically, they mostly sell subsytems consisting of both silicon and firmware for applications where there's no comparable complete open solution.

About 20 years ago the UPSTO went from a cost center to a profit center for the US government. They exist to grant patents rather than pass any real judgement on them (though I recently had a patent denied for prior art that wasn't published when mine was filed). The problem then is compounded because the courts tend believe the USPTO is the final arbiter (they are the "obvious" experts).

Didn't they just hire 500 more examiners a couple of years ago? Since the USPTO is a profit center the examiners are "graded" by the number of patents they crank out, though I've noticed recently pretty much all patents are rejected the forst pass through (keeps up the examiner's numbers).

This would only make it harder on the little guy. Major corporations would still file a bazillion defensive patents.

I'd prefer that the art go into the public-domain upon the author's death, or perhaps a *few* years later (not the corporate assignee). Trademarks (e.g. Mickey Mouse) should remain part of the corporate property "forever" though.

How would you propose to patent solitare? I prefer software stay as it is. Software patents make me queazy (I'm on a patent review board, fortunately we only do software by accident).

The alphabet is in the public domain.

Linguists don't invent language.

Rich is right. You are nothing but a common thief.

Yes, until ownership has been established there is no owner - it's actually still in doubt if the idea is even one which can have an owner under the applicable laws.

However where you are going with this makes no sense:

That is completely illogical and does not follow at all.

The natural state is freedom to do anything you are physically capable of doing or bringing about - restrictions can only come into play once a body with the authority to impose restrictions decides to impose them. In the case of abstract property concerns that would usually be at the request of someone claiming an ownership interest.

You are free to print or manufacture until I convince a judge that it's sufficiently likely that your product infringes my patent or copyright, that the judge is willing to assue a temporary restraining order and force you to stop while the question is decided. It's possible that if I win I will be awareded damages for what you have already done, but until I present a plausible claim of ownership there is no restriction on you, and until I prove my claim any restriction would be only temporary.

But even if you are infringing my ownership, there is nothing to stop you absent action by myself or someone I have asked to look out for my interests.

(though in a few cases, such as pirate DVD's being sold on the street the request to the authorities for action may be quite general, plus there are occasional cases of mistaken ownership claims)

Yes, but such a decision need only be made if someone attempts to exercise an ownership right by stopping someone else from using the idea. Absent such action action by a plausible owner, there is no restriction. Absent a reason to expect such action, there is no need to worry about it or wait for resolution.

Granted, some may be hesitant to invest in something until they have satisfied themselves that no enforceable claims will be made against them, but that tends to be either self-imposed, or imposed as part of the investment/securities rules. It's about the conditions you have to satisfy to get the money or assistance to do something, not about what you are actually allowed to do with your own money and your own hands.

That's a different area. What is protected about the Coca-Cola logo on it is not the information content. A trademark is a different sort of protection.

Actually, depending on the importance of the sign to the overall scene, the motorist may very well be able to sell pictures of the local area that include it.

But this is a silly case anyway. If you want to use Coca-Cola as an example, put the secret formula on the sign.

There's nothing to stop anyone from manufacturing it then (well, getting legal coca extract is an issue) - the major theoretical issue is that they couldn't use Coca-Cola's trademark on it. Instead it would probably be something like the Target mouthwash bottle that says "compare to Scope Cool Peppermint". That bottle doesn't even include the usual 'not produced or distrubed by [major company], the makers of [trademark](R)'

Please explain to me what legal impediments there are to using something for which no one has claimed ownership.

Fears yes - legally enforced impediments, no.

I'm asking about our present system here in the US, actually.

That is not the system I espouse. This idea of only being able to do something by explicit permission is your idea, not something that I have advocated at all.

What you seem to be missing is that ownership does not need to be adjudciated until knowing the result is necessary to process a claim of infringement. Impediments to infringement do not exist until someone objects or exerts an ownership claim that would customarily imply objection. This is not theoretical - it's how things work in the US today.

Infringement may be illegal, but until an attempt at enforcement is made and adjudicated, an activity is only potentially illegal, because it has not yet been decided if the activity actually constitutes infringement of something that is actually owned. There's no need to rule on the issue of ownership until an attempt at enforcement of an ownership right is made.

While the patent office does do a little examination before awarding a patent, it's been a long time since that by itself constituted an award of ownership. In reality, it's only potential ownership - the real question will only be decided in the courts, and only if there's enough doubt that parties who can afford to fight it out decide to. Otherwise the question will never actually be decided - yet the world will keep going.

If you are a Harvard student and write a book in your spare time, you do not have to prove ownership of the contents to publish it yourself, though you may have to sign some statements for a publisher to get them to print it. If someone else then claims you have infringed their copyright of a different book, they can attempt legal action to stop you and retroactively punish you - but there were no impediments until they objected. Indeed, if you are a best selling author and your publisher stands behind your art history / religious mystery novel, they may take the risk of going right on printing it even while waiting for the courts to rule on a claim that someone has brought against you.

If you import a container of DVD's in packages imprinted with a well known title and the copyright notice of a major Hollywood studio, and there is some doubt if they are authorized by the entity whose ownership claim is asserted by that copyright notice, customs may indeed impound them until you can prove they are authorised, because there's been a general request to enforce those copyrights. If you import something that looks like a Hollywood movie, without documentation, customs might mistakenly impound them until you convince them that it's actually an authorised copy of something original. Mistakes happen, but the basic mechanism is that there are no governmental impediments except where there's an impression that apparent owners have requested enforcement of apparent rights. (Bringing customs into it complicates things as there are other laws being enforced there as well, but it is one of the few major points where government has a standing request to interedict infringing works on behalf of the rights owners)

There is another problem with this 'intellectual property'.

Whenever I make something, the ownership of physical items is easy enough. Do not steal them, but buy them. And build whatever you are building - it is not built out of stolen materials. Or materials illegal to use.

Now comes along 'intellectual property'. That window frame I'm making may well turn out to be 'illegal' because of its construction. But there is no way to find out! - well, I could go and do a patent search. But that would make a very expensive window frame, wouldn't it?

Of course this situation also exists with normal law. I'm not allowed to take iron tubing, harden it, and make it into a gun (no where I live anyway).

This is what makes patents so problematic: with copyright, independent creation trumps the copyright. With patents, it doesn't.

The problem is that there are too many inventions and too many intentors: the system doesn't scale as teh number of patent attorneys needs to rise with the square of the number of inventors. Which makes attorneys happy, but I have no clue why it makes inventors happy.

Business seems to have a fatalistic approach towards patents - unless business is 'big business', in which case they use them to keep newcomers out or extract money from them.

That said, patents are the protectionism of this century.

Thomas