simo wrote:
On Tue, 2008-12-02 at 17:19 +0000, Alex Hudson wrote:
You don't patent things because they are "valuable", you patent them to make them valuable. That's the whole point of IPR as far as I can see.
I disagree. You patent things to make them exploitable when there is a need of an initial investment in research. Patents, in theory, should protect investments in realizing valuable ideas by granting a short term monopoly.
Sure, but there is no guarantee research leads to a patentable product. The investment is effectively risk capital, and the patent balances that. The investment could be lost.
Anything that does not require an important initial investment should not be granted a patent, because it does not deserve it.
I think that's a different model. If you care about the value created, then you fund the research up-front (somehow) and remove the risk.
So they just don't do it ;) There are plenty of SMEs that are patent holders, and this is really just an argument to reduce the cost of obtaining a patent, which isn't really what we want.
It would level a bit the field by allowing more SMEs to get patents, but certainly will not change any of the problems of the current system
Absolutely.
Cheers,
Alex.