I certainly don't disagree with your assertion that "the technical world is filled with literally millions of junk patents". As early as the early 1970's, I made a comment to my father (a few years later, he applied for and received unrelated patent: http://www.freepatentsonline.com/4156706.html) about news of a patented invention that didn't seem to qualify, probably for the "unobvious to those skilled in the art" qualification. He commented that the Soviets had done a study of patents and declared that 4 out of 5 were 'patent noise': They weren't actually worthy of patenting. I didn't, and don't, disagree: I agree that the large majority of patents aren't worthy of being granted. And thus, they have all the negatives you cited.
But that doesn't mean that no patents meet the commonly-accepted criteria of being "new, useful, and unobvious to those skilled in the art". Further, perhaps I dare point out that one major plot element in Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged" book was "Rearden Metal" (identified as being an alloy of copper) and its patent, and how the US government extorted those patent rights from Rearden. I don't want to be accused to "appealing to authority", a well-known flaw in argumentation, although Ayn Rand is a major authority. And, I don't want to suggest that I am a Randian (a "Randroid"): I learned in 1975 that I'd always been a libertarian, and I only first heard of the existence of Ayn Rand in 1976. But I think it is by no means universally agreed (by libertarians) that some sort of patent system shouldn't exist. Sure, it's a problem if that patent system is enforced solely by 'government', and someday this problem ought to be fixed.
I fully agree that it would be better if there was some sort of voluntary-ist 'patent system'. For example, a mark on a product (like circle-C for copyright, and "UL" for Underwriters Labs, etc) which identifies that the manufacturer complies with some voluntary patent system. Companies (such as Telcos, Internet Co's, Costco, Walmart, etc) might announce and agree that they would only buy and sell goods and services which meet the voluntary-patent-system standards. Under that situation, it might be rather difficult for non-patent-compliant items to be marketed. We'd have the same system, but simply not government-enforced.
You said: " My threshold is if any strongly competent engineer can dream this idea up in a week when asked the same questions, its clearly a junk patent designed to sabotage and leach off other peoples productivity." I certainly agree. If all such improperly-granted patents weren't granted, that would solve 99% of the problem with the patent system.
Regarding my invention: On my release from prison December 19, 2009, I promptly used an online service (freepatentsonline.com) and discovered that there had been three patents granted on isotopically-modified optical-fibers. Two granted to Corning in about 2004, (6810197 6870999) and one to Deutsche Telekom in about 2002 ( http://www.freepatentsonline.com/6490399.html ). For 30 minutes, I was afraid that they had scooped me, only to find that their inventions hadn't made the same isotopic changes that I had invented.
Keep in mind that I, having made my invention, am essentially obligated to employ the existing patent systems, until another one appears. Otherwise, I lose whatever rights I might have in the future.
Jim Bell
From: Adam Back <adam@cypherspace.org>
To: Cathal Garvey (Phone) <cathalgarvey@cathalgarvey.me>
Cc: Jim Bell <jamesdbell8@yahoo.com>; cypherpunks@cpunks.org; Adam Back <adam@cypherspace.org>
Sent:
Subject: patents in a free society (Re: Brother can you help a fiber?)
In my opinion patents and copyright are incompatible with a free society and
crypto-anarchy: ie with the right to privately contract, and right to
cryptograhically enforced privacy (encryption), and freedom of association
(pseudonymous/anonymous networks).
You'd think Jim would get that given is previous explorations of the darker
side of Tim May's cyphernomicon catalog of ideas...
Patents are also stupidly destructive as the technical world is filled with
literally millions of junk patents, with redudant overlap, so you cant do
anything without tripping over 100s of junk patents. Even the USG finally
started to try to belatedly reform the idiocy.
(Without any aspersions of the junk or non junk status of Jim's patent as I
am not a hardware guy). My threshold is if any strongly competent engineer
can dream this idea up in a week when asked the same questions, its clearly
a junk patent designed to sabotage and leach off other peoples productivity.
Adam
On Fri, Nov 08, 2013 at 09:12:53AM +0000, Cathal Garvey (Phone) wrote:
> I look forward to a world without patents, so I'm afraid all that
> waffle about obtaining a worldwide government-enforced-monopoly merely
> made me sigh a bit.