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Intellectual Property Overreach
Continuing our effort to flesh out the parameters of technoprogressive policy ideas by building our “Technoprogressive Policy Wiki”, we turn now to the problems created by the push to patent everything, including human genes, and shut down all fair use and copying of music, texts and film. IEET intern Ed Miller has been engaged with open source and intellectual property issues for some time, and has taken a crack at a general policy statement on this issue. We welcome feedback. - J. Hughes
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COMMENTS
Posted by EmbraceUnity on 08/06 at 05:15 PM
Thanks for your help with this document, Joseph Jackson!
Posted by Ben Scarlato on 08/06 at 05:34 PM
Ed,
You said on email that you could use some more links to wiki articles and external sites. The only TP Wiki links I can think of are hyperlinking "Enlightenment" and perhaps working in a link to Biotechnology. I would just include links to sites like gnu.org at the bottom.
Nice work, I like that you kept the article concise and under 1000 words. One nitpick is that I would prefer a word more academic-sounding than "ridiculous" under Copyright Reform, but I can't find a better alternative if you want to express that level of outrage.
Posted by Hervé Musseau on 08/07 at 07:42 AM
Amen to that article.
I am in favor of ending all IP, but until such time (which I hope happens before MNT, so we don't get more artificial scarcities), those propositions seem like a rather fair middle-ground.
Ben, would the word "incomprehensible" sound more academic to you, without changing Edward's meaning?
Posted by staff1 on 08/07 at 09:55 AM
"However, the concept of "intellectual property" is an artifact of a 1980's campaign to lump distinct legal regimes (copyright, patent, and trademark) into a purposely misleading concept that is fundamentally dissimilar to physical property rights."
Ever read the US Constitution circa 1787?
Section 8 - Powers of Congress...
To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;
Think again.
Patent reform is a fraud on America...
Please see http://truereform.piausa.org/ for a different/opposing view on patent reform.
Posted by Vic Kley on 08/07 at 10:14 AM
Edward,
Having made my living as an inventor for 40 years I have a different perspective on many elements of your article. The basic and most important comment is this:
All flat treatments of IP owners which equate an individual inventor like myself and a major corporation like Microsoft are doomed to failure. I will obey the law and if it says I can't get compensated for my exploratory work to develop software for a new 3D Inverse Fourier Transform (a real project) then quite simply it WILL NOT BE DONE. Microsoft will pay its army of lawyers and lobbyists to subvert and change the law to its advantage as it is doing today via the current Patent Deform abomination making its way through congress.
That said I think there is merit to carefully considering genetic patents. Certainly in the past a discovery of a new mineral whether in the Australian outback or inside common bituminous coal was not a basis for a patent. On the other hand some incentive to develop and refine the gene based technology must exist. The clear advantage of patents over copyrights or trade secrets is exactly that they come to an end and the entire world can then freely benefit from the invention.
There is much more worth commenting on and if you find this comment helpful and encourage me I may be persuaded to add more.
Posted by Ben Scarlato on 08/07 at 11:49 AM
Hervé,
The word "incomprehensible" sounds good to me.
Posted by EmbraceUnity on 08/07 at 12:16 PM
Vic,
Patents are fundamentally different from copyrights. They actually place a restriction upon everyone else from utilizing a certain idea, no matter how that idea was thought of. To infringe a copyright, on the other hand, requires proof of actual theft.
Copyright should be enough for anyone, and indeed it lasts absurdly long. If you don't think your invention is good enough to stand on its own merit, without requiring legal restrictions against anyone from ever implementing something similar, then your idea probably isn't meant for proprietary development. My entire goal for patent reform is to break down the barriers to open innovation, and especially open source and copyleft development.
This will enrich everyone in the long run, and this think tank is dedicated to a forward-looking perspective. Sure, Wikipedia reduces the centralized wealth of Encyclopedia Britannica, as well as their incentives for production.... but their model is obsolete! So that is a good thing!
I think it is time to re-orient your perspectives for the 21st century, and adopt a development model more in tune with the Internet Age.
Posted by EmbraceUnity on 08/07 at 12:30 PM
staff1,
I didn't see "Intellectual Property" in that passage. Perhaps it was in anagram form?
To be honest though, this part doesn't tick me off that much. My friend Joseph recommended that passage, though I see nothing wrong with it.
Posted by EmbraceUnity on 08/07 at 12:37 PM
Vic,
Also, Jefferson called patents an "embarrassment" to society. He was harshly critical of it both because he denied that it was a natural right, and he didn't see any particularly large increase in innovation as a result of it despite his time in patent offices.
http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/a1_8_8s12.html
Posted by Vic Kley on 08/07 at 01:06 PM
Embrace,
Jefferson's anecdotal observations are hardly a substantive criticism of our 21st century world.
When I created AFM guided nanomachining in order to be able to shape material at the scale of 10 to 20 atoms I created a "basic" set of over 40 separate inventions and added another 50 more to bring the product to market (see the product which created the company www.ravenano.com ) I hardly could have raised capital if I had said that the very first version of the product was all we could keep the Japanese and Germans from copying (an effort they began immediately). This series of products by the way included substantial copyrighted software see Probe at www.gennano.com which was subsequently the subject of a theft by a large semiconductor related company. All the people trying to take this disruptive technology were large companies with large legal budgets only patents and copyrights give us the slightest chance of prevailing against them. Even so we typically have to give up 40% of our recovery to a contingent law firm in order to defend our rights! All of this you understand just to make the salary level of a tenured academic.
Most inventors die broke or in debt. Witness Tesla.
Everything you propose ha no provision for us to live. We want no part of academia or large companies- we are free and will stay that way.
Posted by EmbraceUnity on 08/07 at 01:36 PM
Vic,
The Jefferson quote was actually meant for staff1, but it works just as well for you.
The difference between us is that I am not coming from the perspective of an inventor with interests to protect. To be quite honest, I think it is incredibly immoral that genius inventors can end up broke and that they even need to engage in wage labor or any other sort of economic activity merely to survive.
I am an advocate for the Basic Income, in order to free inventors to work on things they find valuable, as opposed to things which they or corporations find marketable.
True, eliminating patents would eliminate one potential artificial advantage over competitors, but that advantage would also be removed from corporations. True, they can engage in espionage more effectively (which they do already), but that is legally protected against under copyright if evidence exists.
Thus, I can't see any reason why additional protections be afforded from the perspective of public interest... as opposed to the private interest of a particular inventor.
I believe the private inventors should have a large social safety net in the form of the Basic Income to free them to engage in any sort of invention they wish, but beyond that, the main driving force of innovation should be cooperation and competition of the ideas based on their own merits.
Posted by Giulio Prisco on 08/07 at 01:51 PM
Vic is stating a fact: if he cannot make a living as an inventor, he will have to make a living doing something else. Same for most writers, musicians, and artists. They are not evil corporations, they are persons who must put food on the table for their kids.
I am all for a radical reform of IP laws, but this is an issue that every proposed reform should address.
Posted by EmbraceUnity on 08/07 at 01:57 PM
Ok, I'll advocate that the Basic Income be smuggled into the bill, hidden into a line somewhere on page 5043. Problem solved.
Both policies are necessary and important, and indeed have shared philosophical assumptions, but I can't imagine them ever making it into the same proposal. They need to be implemented separately.
Posted by Giulio Prisco on 08/07 at 02:08 PM
A basic income sufficient to enable everyone to do what they want, instead of being forced to do things they hate for a living, would be not only a very good thing in itself, but perhaps the only means to compensate creativity if IP rights are weakened.
Posted by ben lipkowitz on 08/09 at 01:38 AM
While I agree with everything else in this position statement, I'd like to point out that seeds with the terminator gene were primarily intended to prevent the spread of other recombinant genes throughout wild and cultivated plant populations. Although some agricultural companies have turned this into a business advantage (since it requires farmers to buy seeds from them directly) the terminator gene still fulfills its original and primary purpose of preventing accidents and reducing "genetic pollution".
Not all recombinant DNA is harmless; in the near future we may see a great deal of drug production and synthesis of biotech reagents in GE plants. Some of these gene products will have poisonous or at least unexpected effects in different circumstances. Finding traces of human hormones or a recombinant virus in your corn flakes is a bad way to start the day. Fire is useful and should be shared, but don't burn down the house!
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