Microsoft patents double-click

[CanOWorms]

Again, why would the competitors even bother to pay the inventor for the idea? If they know that another company will release the pill, they'll just buy the pill, re-manufacture it and start selling it a week later.

They would buy it because if they didn't they wouldn't have anything to manufacture in the first place.

They would shift their priorities and manufacture something else. Who would pay $100 million to the inventor company just to have a one day head start? If it costs $100 million for the R&D, how would the inventor company make any money back when the selling price for the initial pill is $20?

In this hypothetical situation, let's assume that the company that bought the drug from the inventor is a brand-name company and that the company (another brand name company) that just took the and put it in a machine that automatically recreated it (exactly so that there is no difference between the brands besides the names) and automatically teleported somehow to all store shelves.

Both manufacturers might profit from the drug, but the initial purchaser would profit a bit more by the fact that they got it out faster, making up for the cost of the initial purchase. However, let's even assume that the day the drug is launched another manufacturer can start competing right then and there. In this case the problem of no one wanting to buy a drug to manufacture would hurt the industry because it would simply have nothing to manufacture. In other words if they all waited for the next guy to buy it, then they would all suffer. Therfore, the manufacturers would merely make agreements amongst themselves which would be enforced by private arbiters.

You didn't read my scenario. Company A pays $100 million to the inventor company and gets the pill. Company B just buys the pill and pops it into the machine which creates an exact replica and teleports it into the store shelves. Company A just wasted all of their money for a 1 hour head start.

If all the drug manufacturers were in collusion together, then the inventor company would get little profit. Where's the incentive to even spend $100 million when the drug manufacturers all agree to give a maximum of $1 million and then they split that $1 million amongst themselves and they all start popping it into the machine.

And since you brought up brand name, how would a small company ever survive? They would buy the pill and sell it, then a big brand name company will just take it and remanufacture it.

You are assuming that a small company must survive in every industry. This is just not true. Look at the CPU industry, it only has big companies and no one is complaining. Some industries are only competitive at the big level, such as manufacturing. If you try to manufacture say paperclips in your garage you are not going to be able to sell them profitably compared to a giant manufacturer. This is just the nature of free markets.

I'm not saying that some industries need small companies. However, your model makes small companies completely irrelavant. If a large company can just take your product, pop it into a machine, and recreate it automatically, the small company has no rights for their IP. Large companies can do everything, they would spend almost no money on product development or research. They see something making a profit, they would just take it and pop it into the machine and sell everything under the sun under one brand name. So, basically we end up in a society that completelly stops innovative processes.

You're arguing on an economic standpoint, but I don't see how your viewpoint is furthering scientific innovation more than the current system.

 

[Infohawk]

Originally posted by: Dissipate
If you think that innovation is fueled by bureaucrats who control men with guns you are sorely mistaken.

Avoid strawman arguments. I don't think anyone argued that bureaucrats who control men with guns fuel innovation.

 

[Dissipate]

Originally posted by: Infohawk

Originally posted by: Dissipate
If you think that innovation is fueled by bureaucrats who control men with guns you are sorely mistaken.

Avoid strawman arguments. I don't think anyone argued that bureaucrats who control men with guns fuel innovation.

Uh, that's what patents are essentially. It is the government doling out a portion of its power to exercise force against individuals.

 

[DaiShan]

Originally posted by: bykim5
What about right-click, thumb-click, and the underappreciated middle-click?

/me goes to the patent office

 

[Harvey]

Originally posted by: Dissipate
Patents are a crock, especially this one.

Ummm.... NO!!! A patent is a means to encourage creativity and invention by granting inventors the first right to the rewards for their inventive work.

I hold two patents for unique electronic circuitry, truly world's best circuits at what they do. I did the work. I came up with the circuits, and I'm entitled to protection for my right to earn a living for that work.

OTOH, I think a patent should never have been issued for double clicking. The criteria for granting a patent is that the invention must be new, useful, and unobvious. I don't see how double clicking meets passes the DUH! test. :roll:

 

[cquark]

Originally posted by: CanOWorms
i disagree with all the anarchy government sux people. i think patents are vital for an innovative society

I agree with you. However, patents are not only a way to promote innovation, but also a method of stifling competition. Even if there is prior art and the patent is absurd, can you afford to litigate against a large corporation when the average cost of litigating a patent is over half a million dollars? Large corporations can afford to pay their lawyers or can simply cross-license their portfolios of thousands of patents with each other.

The important question is how many and what type of patents are best to fuel innovation?

We currently have too many patents that are too broad on too many obvious "innovations," many of which were created by another party before the patent claimer. The problem is that the USPTO makes money by granting patents and Congress likes the fact that the USPTO is one of the few government departments to generate income.

 

[Mandos]

I think this has to be the siliest thing I've read in a long time.

 

[teiresias]

I'm hardly one to support frivolous patents (which this double-clicking patent more than likely is, we'll see how long it stands up in light of prior-art arguments), but this farmaceutical (sp?) example going on this topic seems pretty ridiculous to me.

Aside from the other arguments made it seems to be forcing companies to be either R&D entities or manufacturers, but they are not allowed to be both. To jump it over to the electronics world that's like saying Sony is allowed to incur all of the costs of developing the Playstation3, but then when they're finished they're not allowed to manufacturer it themselves, they have to sell it to a separate manufacturer to make a ONE TIME profit on the idea, while the manufacturer has the opportunity to make long-term and repeatable profit that Sony is henceforth unable to take part in. So basically, all of the fabs Sony has set-up for itself would be incompatible with this idea of them making the Playstation3 design and then having to fork it over to someone else to design, because heaven forbid they manufacturer their own design and make money off of it. :roll:

The whole idea just seems ridiculous. Of course, this R&D and manufacturer separation already happens in the PC graphics card world, but I believe the manufacturer partners or working under a kind of license for the technology from either Nvidia or ATI, but both of them can still make their own cards if they like.

 

[MadRat]

But once you have a legacy product, a chain of intermingled patents that becomes a standard, then it secludes the pool of available manufacturers. Would MS really be the company they are unless they over-agressively bought up the small fry that invented new programs?