[pp.int.general] Protection for inventors

[Andrew Norton]

I am one of those small inventors (or was, I've not had time, money or
equipment to design for a few years now); I even have a UK patent,
that I co-hold with my old business partner. However, Bayliss' ideas
are a bit potty. If you can't bring it to market, and can't afford
lawsuits, then the value of your patent is not millions, it's zero,
and when you consider the negative cost for society, it's actually a
negative worth. Restrictions on what can be patented is a much better
idea, on what, and when. I can't think of anything to replace the
patent system with, and without a suitable replacement, abolishing the
patent system will only benefit the people who can afford reverse
engineering, and economies of scale (large corporations) and
negatively affect those that will end up doing the inventing (the
home-inventor). After all, reverse engineering is a lot cheaper, and
you have the benefit of being second to market (after a small initial
market breaker) and thus there's marketing data from that. You can
also forget licensing designs, which is how my patent is being
produced right now.

Andrew

On Wed, Sep 2, 2009 at 8:31 AM, Chris Lockie<chris at lockie.org> wrote:
> Just been watching this story on the
> news: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8232130.stm
>
> I find myself surprised at how much this story has confused me. On the one
> hand I am obviously oppsed to the insane use of patent law if certain
> fields, medicine being the obvious example, but on the other hand I wonder
> how best a small inventor such as Trevor Bayliss could protect his ideas
> from large companies who can copy them without breaking any criminal law and
> then deploy a battery of lawyers to minimise damages from a civil suit.
>
> Is the answer simply to redefine what can and cannot be patented, or to
> abandon the patent system and introduce a better way to protect ideas from
> unfair exploitation by others?
>
> CL.
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