“I simply wonder what your thoughts are on IP when “major” life changes and improvements to men’s are involved.”

Sell your product right away and don’t reveal your trade secret.

Not every product would fall into this category; many mechanical and chemical designs that may be of great value are not necessarily that hard for other companies in similar fields to copy.

“Something on such a scale as this is prize-worthy to many people, including people with enough assets to create prizes. I expect that there would be donations coming in from many sources.”

I agree with you here and it is getting closer to the point, in fact, I am starting to understand and agree with the anti-IP argument a lot more too. My primary concern what would an IP free world look like and what would society’s general attitude and treatment of discoverers and inventor’s be like in a free market full of idea sharks searching for easy prey.

My primary concern was really this from the start. What would an IP free world really look like and how would an individual or a small company possible ever hope to bring an invention possibly worth billions to market without it being noticed and having it ripped away from them like a piece of raw meat?

Would a society based on libertarian espoused principles and law see the value in promoting small companies or individual’s with big idea’s and inventions… would they form private foundations that would offer grants and prizes or have investment groups that would help offer the resources – development, marketing and distribution channels — necessary? What kind of private confidentiality agreements would even be binding or enforceable in such a society?

Actually the problems and solutions are starting to become a lot clearer to me now so I guess I am getting there slowly but your response, like most others here, was very informative and helpful… thanks!

“I simply wonder what your thoughts are on IP when “major” life changes and improvements…are involved.”

Without IP, major improvements can happen in small increments because men are free to build on all existing ideas. I think this might actually accelerate technological advancement.

“…it appears the only men who truly stand to benefit, in any real or substantive sense, from any new ideas, are the ones who are already the most capitalized…”

I could say the same about IP…it takes a lot of capital to acquire and defend a patent. There are surely counterexamples in either scenario, and I don’t see how this justifies a restriction of liberty anyway. Ownership of capital is inherently an advantage in the marketplace. You open up a whole can of worms if your aim is to reduce that advantage.

1) Such an invention would be very tough to reverse-engineer, and in that time, said company or individual would have a monopoly on it, being the only one able to provide the service, unless said company or individual gives it out freely. This means that anybody who wishes to have the product, for awhile, can only go to one company or individual to obtain it.

2) Something on such a scale as this is prize-worthy to many people, including people with enough assets to create prizes. I expect that there would be donations coming in from many sources.

Patents just make it so that a company/individual cannot do something without having to pay another company/individual even if the company/individual never even knew of the existence of the patent holding company/individual. The only way to make sure such a payment exists is through force. Force is against the non-aggression principle, therefore patents are anti-ethical.

As I stated above, I could care less about whether the latest pop artist can protect his or her new CD or not… and I am not referring to what I consider everyday consumers goods that do not add any significant value to the economy, My point is more directed towards substantial leaps in technology.

Why should a man pour years of his life energy into the development of a new product or technology that would dramatically change men’s lives, perhaps even allow people to live twenty or thirty extra years, or provide a means of launching cargo into space 1000 times cheaper and then expect there only reward be a pat on the back and, the selfless mercy of his fellow brothers, to be allowed to produce and compete side by side against sharks that are perhaps 100 more capitalized and setup to take advantage of it? Is the simple fact that he can now afford to buy his own concept turned product from a store shelve cheaper than he might have otherwise produced it to be his only satisfaction?

I can certainly understand the idea behind not allowing IP on every single trivial improvement — such as in the Eolas v. Microsoft case as stated above or a new ear ring design. I simply wonder what your thoughts are on IP when “major” life changes and improvements to men’s are involved.

What troubles me most here is that from my understanding so far, it sounds like the individual is practically meaningless in the equation, it appears the only men who truly stand to benefit, in any real or substantive sense, from any new ideas, are the ones who are already the most capitalized and efficient, and the consumer in general.

And if that is the case then I could almost certainly foresee that many good and beneficial ideas, that might greatly improve men’s lives, would never be introduced in such a seemingly cheap, callous, and myopic society.

Thank you all for your responses, I apologize that I do not have the time to answer you all individually.

As for the professor lectures, actually, if you want to claim IP, one really should not teach at all. I mean, a student might teach someone else, and that would be theft. Actually one should not speak or appear in public either (someone might copy your hairstyle or many of walking, thereby robbing you). The only way to protect your IP is actually to live in complete isolation and live off food slid under the door.

But society does reward the publication of valuable ideas, so your whole train of thought is erroneous.
To use your own example, if everyone uses shovels to replace their older way of digging, roads, canals, aqueducts, foundations for houses, mining, agriculture, everything gets done much more efficiently. Your shovel inventor benefits from a lower price on tomatoes, on his house, on pretty much verything he buys.
The one guy with the shovel idea could not possibly have done as much by himself.

Alternately, he can hold out until he gets his monetary reward like you want, but some other guy will come up with the same idea and society will move forward and leave him behind. (and good riddance)

And my assertion is simply this; if society is not going to find and offer some form of “meaningful” protection or reward for truly beneficial, valuable and quality ideas then society can expect such ideas to simply dry up. I would not expect that any individual would have bothered to share his idea for the shovel if he only expected that his ingrate brothers would take it as theirs and callously leave him to starve in the drainage ditch they dug with it.

As such, I could care less about whether the latest pop artist can protect his or her new CD or not but, in such a hostile IP environment, I would not be at all surprised if the cure for cancer or a practical solution to energy and food problems might not be delayed for decades or even totally abandoned. Why would any sane researcher share something if he knew he could only expect to be crapped on by society… and why would any rational corporation spend years, and billions in research and development if all that XYZ inc. down the street has to do is sit on their hands, wait for the product, copy it and then undermine the market?

IP may be a bureaucratic government mess and it is certainly cluttered with frivolous IP design and art claims that should have never seen the light of day IMO, but the anti-IP crowd in many ways comes across sounding like a bunch of second hand bandits looking for an excuse to take advantage of others blood, sweat and tears too. At best, it appears that they are attempting to put the moral cart in front of the horse, and even from a simple utilitarian standpoint it seems very penny wise and pound foolish to me.

No one benefits from valuable idea’s that do not and will not come into existence and/or be shared in a Wild West bandit infested environment.

And you have to ask the question who is more greedy a businessman selling products that help people in their lives or educators attempting to make money off of their captive audience of students? Totalitarianism take many forms.

Also, most universities already claim a copyright to students work; the majority of papers I turned in in my undergrad were put through a program called turnitin. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turnitin. The parent company has been sued several times for copyright violations.

Company that won $585M from Microsoft sues Apple, Google

Eolas, the company that won a patent case against Microsoft in 2003, has filed another patent infringement lawsuit, apparently targeting as many high-tech companies it could find. Citing infringement on the very same patent as the one that resulted in a $585 judgment against Microsoft, Eolas is now suing 23 companies, including Apple, Google, Adobe, Amazon, eBay, Playboy, Yahoo, and YouTube for implementing browser plug-ins in one form or another, plus another patent that addresses the use of asynchronous JavaScript and XML (AJAX).

Is Eolas simply looking to get the fruits of its labors?