Comment by pbhjpbhj
6 years ago
Hmm, being aware that you're infringing a patent, and continuing to do it anyway, is of course bad legally speaking.
But inventors not using parent literature is catastrophically bad. So many applications are repeated, in some fields the same thing is "invented" over and over because people don't even makea cursory attempt to understand the technology in the field vs the products available.
Being unaware of infringement, but not by willful negligence, is actually a defence against an award of damages in the UK. Precisely to protect this fundamental tier of the patent system.
If people can't use the disclosures then the system serves virtually no purpose.
> If people can't use the disclosures then the system serves virtually no purpose.
That's not quite true - although disclosure is an often argued benefit of the patent system, there are very few inventions that cannot be copied once a working item is in someone's hands, so a formal disclosure is not necessarily required to be able to build upon and extend existing work.
But even without disclosure, when appropriate patents are granted, they can "[secure] for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries" even if the patent library is not useful for research.
Yes, I was a little terse there: what I meant was the system serves little purpose for the demos who maintain it. The deal is that the inventors get their monopoly in return for the disclosure. So, without any benefit on the side of the public then their would be no purpose in maintaining the system.
Of course it also serves the public to encourage inventors by giving them a limited exclusive use. But primarily when instigated the purpose is a mutual benefit that is best embodied by education of the public arena as to the mechanisms and working of an invention.
> Of course it also serves the public to encourage inventors by giving them a limited exclusive use.
Yes.
> But primarily when instigated the purpose is a mutual benefit that is best embodied by education of the public arena as to the mechanisms and working of an invention.
This is the debate - how significant is the "education" aspect in promoting progress and public benefit? Is incentivizing new creation sufficient to promote progress without the (lacking) education aspect?
Then the whole question of whether the limited monopolies really create those incentives or just magnify profits that would already exist and open the door for abuse.