Talk:Patents

Copyright issue is closely related to patents. I would very much like to hear how would you vote on the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act and if you have any thoughts on the copyright issue?--Piotrus 19:47, 8 December 2005 (MST)

I'm not sure what's the best way to work it into your text, or if it's politically advisable to, but I think any good discussion of IP law, whether patents, copyrights, trademarks or trade secrets, should keep in mind the original historical goals behind those notions. Specifically with respect to patents, discussions these days are so often framed in the terms you use: "protection" for inventors. But protecting inventors was not the goal. The purpose of patents was to encourage inventors to publish the details of their ideas rather than keeping them secret. Publication is the real goal, to encourage the spread of new ideas. Protection is just the carrot that society offers to inventors to give them a reason to publish and a reason not to fear publication. Even the word "patent" supports that interpretation. It's derived from the latin "patere", which means "to be open", and medical and scientific communities still use the word to mean "open" or "free from obstruction" (though they pronounce it "pay-tent" instead of "pa-tent"). Any provisions of patent law which don't encourage inventors to publish as soon as possible do society a disservice. In practice, it is the fact that US law allows patent protection from the date of invention rathat than the date of application that permits "submarine" patents, and understanding the purpose of patents makes clear just how silly it was to make that particular modification to patent law: Why in the world should society offer patent protection prior to publication, if publication is society's goal? Swillden 08:31, 7 February 2006 (MST)