patents in a free society (Re: Brother can you help a fiber?)

[Joshua Case]

I'm not an engineer, but unless your fiber can transmit a house in less
than one second, it may already be obsolete in light of this scientific
development:

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/y2009/0164397.html

And you called them "junk."

JC


On Fri, Nov 8, 2013 at 4:05 PM, Jim Bell <jamesdbell8 at yahoo.com> wrote:

>     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 <http:///>)   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 <http:///>  ).  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 at cypherspace.org>
> *To:* Cathal Garvey (Phone) <cathalgarvey at cathalgarvey.me>
> *Cc:* Jim Bell <jamesdbell8 at yahoo.com>; cypherpunks at cpunks.org; Adam Back
> <adam at 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.
>
>
>
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