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Against Monopoly

defending the right to innovate

Monopoly corrupts. Absolute monopoly corrupts absolutely.





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Some patents go "too far"--New York Times

The New York Times editorializes on patents today, in particular the application for one on a "method for hedging financial risk in energy trading" that is now before the Supreme Court link here.

It concludes, "Allowing an abstraction of this kind to be protected would take patent law too far."

Most of the argument misses the weakness of patents. Instead, it ends with "Patents perform a useful function, promoting innovation by ensuring inventors the right to profit from their creations for a period of time. But overprotection through patents is as dangerous as underprotection. It can stifle competition and infringe on the rights of non-patent holders. Not every bright idea should be protected as a property right."

The positive in this is that a main stream newspaper would question patents, observing the costs of overprotection except that it fails to mention that, in practice, they stifle innovation in contravention of the constitution.

However, those of us who have concluded that the whole system of patents and copyrights is systematically harmful and has to go, need to recognize that it is not going to happen by court cases, no matter how helpful. What is required is legislative change. That will require a political party, e.g., like Pirate Bay.


Comments

Pirate Bay is not a political party, it's a Bittorrent tracker and website. You are referring to the Pirate PARTY i think ;)

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