|
|
Patents and intellectual property law - stimulating or preventing innovation?
9. December 2007 - 18:51 — deltabrava
Hello I would like to open the discussion with a really interesting topic, especially for inventors. Patents and intellectual property law - are they stimulating or preventing innovation? As an inventor you might want to have your special idea or prototype protected. Without this protection it might not even be worth the effort of all the Sunday afternoons in the garage ;-)). But is patent protection running years and years really the right way to boost inventions? You could say it prevents others to use and innovate the product respectively invention further... What do you think? Kind regards deltabrava |
(c)2007-2008 BeeQuu.com
Re:
Hi Deltabrava,
Patent do prevent others to use your invention without permission but they definitely do not stop them from innovating the product or invention further.
I think that is the whole purpose of the patent, to make current technology public unlike previously when in order to protect his rights inventor never use to reveal his secrets and hamper further innovation, but now by making his invention public using patent as a tool not only he gets his protection, but also give vast new knowledge to other users to develop over him and make real innovations.
Information and protection
Hi Navendu
Thats a good point. Information and publication of the state of the art is a major function of the patent. But the protection of IP is another one. And that makes sense for sure. Developing products and processes costs a lot of money. In some sector like pharmacy or semiconductor industry more than in others. It is important to keep up the incentive to take the risk of this high R&D-expenses in expectation of high gains. But it can also disable the free competition by creating monopolistic structures especially in capital-intensive branches. Furthermore companies tend cover all possible ways of furter development by protecting bundles of “neighbour” follow-up patents. That makes it complicated for other innovators or competitors to catch up or step in this area of development. That could be destructive for innovation, dont you think?
Hi HoyerE
I think patent system may have effect on free competition in case of simple inventions, but to address this also, laws such as compulsory licensing, etc plays an important role.
Esp. in case of complex inventions scenario is quite opposite, imagine if there is no patent system at all, people will never be able to understand products or idea in the market as it is not possible to replicate product by just purchasing a product.To make it further worse manufacturer/ inventor will start to keep most components or ideas as trade secret to minimize replication, and now this will suppress innovation in a hard way.
In regards to your point of coverage umbrella of follow-up patents, I will say if you cannot innovate faster than another, you cannot blame other. If he has better skill set and knowledge than he will keep innovating faster than you, but at least you are in race now, earlier you didn't even have the option to participate in the race, as race was unknown.
So in all as I see patent system creates a platform to balance sharing knowledge of innovation and harnessing its economic value.
Ahhh the good ol topic of IP Protection
Being very new to the innovation spectrum, one aspect I have found to be daunting is IP Protection. Reading some of the comments in this forum one can instantly spot those that work for larger organisations and the single innovator working from the garage on a Sunday afternoon. As that single innovator without the wealth or resources to develop my innovations fast enough how is this fair? Therefore I am a strong believer in IP Protection, however I do believe it would be good if the process was made simpler. If my IP Attorney agrees that it is very complicated and open to debate.
Regarding the "monopolistic" comment by one poster. Lets think about it for a minute, yes monopoly is counter productive in that there is no competition, but if I am hard working inventor who comes up with a fantastic innovation then I am damn sure (excuse the langauge)that I want to monopolise it as much as possible, because monopolisation = commercialisation and any business guru will tell you that.
In closing is IP Protection good - I agree 100%. Should it be made simpler and less expense - Agree 100%. Is monopolisation bad - only to a certain extent but it has its merits
I thank you
evolve | adapt | innovate