Analysis on balance: Standardisation and Patents

[Alex Hudson]

simo wrote:
> On Tue, 2008-12-02 at 17:19 +0000, Alex Hudson wrote:
>   
>>  You don't patent things because they are 
>> "valuable", you patent them to make them valuable. That's the whole 
>> point of IPR as far as I can see.
>>     
>
> I disagree.
> You patent things to make them exploitable when there is a need of an
> initial investment in research.
> Patents, in theory, should protect investments in realizing valuable
> ideas by granting a short term monopoly.
>   

Sure, but there is no guarantee research leads to a patentable product. 
The investment is effectively risk capital, and the patent balances 
that. The investment could be lost.

> Anything that does not require an important initial investment should
> not be granted a patent, because it does not deserve it.
>   

I think that's a different model. If you care about the value created, 
then you fund the research up-front (somehow) and remove the risk.

>> So they just don't do it ;) There are plenty of SMEs that are patent 
>> holders, and this is really just an argument to reduce the cost of 
>> obtaining a patent, which isn't really what we want.
>>     
>
> It would level a bit the field by allowing more SMEs to get patents, but
> certainly will not change any of the problems of the current system

Absolutely.

Cheers,

Alex.