[Patents] monopoly/publicity contradiction?

[Ram'on Garc'ia Fern'andez ramon@jl1.quim.ucm.es]

On Wed, Dec 20, 2000 at 10:07:43AM -0500, Gregory Aharonian wrote:
> Yes, but I ask Ramon, my monopoly is worthless if I cannot commercially
> exploit my invention.  And commercially exploiting my invention often
> can be very expensive (setting up a company, advertising, marketing,
> technical support).  So I think it is only fair to extend your rule to
> include "... if the marketing of the invention is expensive".

I do not agree. If the invention is not expensive, and the exploiting
of the invention is expensive, the law should protect the most
expensive part. For programming, this is debugging and testing, and
this is what the copyright for programs protect. If the invention 
is not expensive, anyone who has to solve the same problem (for example,
when developing a new product) will find the solution.

> Otherwise, if I inexpensively came up with an invention socially useful
> but of little realizable profit to me, I would not bother to disclose it
> publicly, but rather turn my inventive energies to something else.

If the invention is not expensive, then anyone who has to solve the
same problem will find the solution. Thus the patent is not benefitting
the society.
 
> There is a grandmother artist here in America, who over a few years as
> part of her artistic studies, and at little cost, developed a potential
> safe substitute for asbestos, a health hazard building material.  Are
> you saying that all because she didn't spend much money researching her
> invention, she doesn't deserve a patent?

Expensive does not only mean expensive in materials. Expensive does
not only mean that you had to buy an expensive spectroscopy
apparatus. Time is expensive as well, since a company usually has to
pay for it. My criterion is: Would anyone, with enough skills, faced
against the same problem, find the invention? In this case probably
no. It is likely that your grandmother had to do a lot of trial and
error until she found the material that works. So this patent should
be probably be granted.

> That aside, expensive research as a test restricts the patent system to
> rich people and companies.  I can't believe you mean that.

I think that small companies are much more benefitted from knowing
that they are not accidentally infringing some random patent whenever
they program anything. But most important, granting a monopoly for
something that we would have anyway is useless. It is like paying for
salad water in the middle of the ocean.

Ramon