Re: [Patents] pooling patents, version 2

[Nick Hill <t0@nickhill.co.uk>]

On Fri,  3 Jan 2003 13:33:19 +0100 (CET)
<xdrudis@tinet.org> wrote:

> Maybe I'm already confused by the social engineering hack. 
> 
> I think what you "own" (by a legal artifact) is some privilege 
> on an idea or a expression, not the idea.

Instances of specific material objects have a natural monopoly. This
natural monopoly is typically exchanged for money. Those with more money
tend to have more individual objects to have a monopoly over. An object can
only have a finite scope in the known universe. For example, a web server
can only serve a finite number of web pages in a given time, a fork can
only serve one mouth at one time.

A fork or a web server is, therefore, a rivalrous resource. 

Before the printing press, written works were a particularly rivalrous
resource. A lot of resources needed to be spent to make a book. A reader
was therefore in the position of privilege to be reading the book. Despite
the lack of specific monopoly, books were painstakingly written, despite
there being no state sanctioned monopoly for the printer or author.

The advent of the printing press made mass-produced written works, once the
printing press was set up for the particular book, less of a rivalrous
resource. Contrary to what might seem sensible, books were made more of a
rivalrous resource by a form of state monopoly.

In the information age, written works are made almost non-rivalrous. The
effort to make one into many instances of the work is trivial. Yet again,
we are seeing the wheels of legislature make what technology has made less
of a rivalrous resource into a more rivalrous resource. 

The key is money. Non-rivalrous resources cannot be sold in exchange for
money. Legislatures have typically turned things which can be a
non-rivalrous resource into a rivalrous resource which can be exchanged for
money. 

---ideas---
Ideas, by their nature are non-rivalrous. The transfer of an idea is and
has always been trivial. It has not always been the case that an economy
has been able to support the notion of exchanging ideas for money. The
industrial revolution changed that. We had the economic infrastructure to
support the existance of a system to trade ideas for money. Because we had
an economy which could support such a trading system, the government
brought us laws which established such a system in the form of a government
sponsored monopoly. 

My proposition is that governments have tended to support systems of money
exchange/ trade over what might be considered the best for the population
as a whole. Governments have traditionally been gripped by a dogma that
something which increases trade and the churn of money is necessarily a
good thing. The way we hear ministers speak, the articles on the news all
point to economic indicators of money churn. In the UK, these have
traditionally been considered above the importance of establishing a system
which actually produces useful things, with minimum use of resource. I
believe this is why we have a failing public sector. 
I propose we need to approach politicians from two directions
simaultaneously. We need to propose why not having software patents will
increase the economic turnover (and therefore the excellent news indicated
by the core economic indicators) as well as appealing to their more
sensible side - what will provide most value for society with least effort.