[pp.int.general] Protection for inventors

[Mikko Särelä]

On Wed, 2 Sep 2009, Chris Lockie 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?

Most of the time, the one thing that an inventor needs is freedom from law 
suits and the possibility to put all the time he has into making products 
and finding a suitable business model. 

Old and big companies are typically prisoner's of their existing business 
models and that's why many times they cannot fully utlize new inventions. 
It is worth reading "Innovator's Dilemma" to get a better understanding of 
this. 

The biggest threat for most inventors does not come from old and big 
companies copying them, but them or someone else suing them for 
infringement (which not only is costly in money, but distracts the 
innovator into a non-productive legal case for many years in the time he 
should concentrate making the products happen). 

-- 
Mikko Särelä
"It is through exchange that difference becomes a blessing, not a
curse", Jonathan Sacks, Chief Rabbi of Great Britain