When I began lecturing, after ten years of working for others, I was always perplexed when people would express their fear of starting for either the risk of IPR violation or the onerous cost of getting rights. Since I had never encountered anyone in those ten years who cared a whit for IPR, yet they were all successful, I wondered why anyone would worry about this.
Over the years I realized there was a tremendous industry in fear built up, and the benefits to a very small group. To review, of the nearly seven million patents issued since 1789, almost nothing patented has ever turned into a product. All patent attorneys know this, almost none will tell you. Kinsella and Patry will.
William Patry does an excellent job of taking apart forensically the nonsense statistics supporting Intellectual Property Rights. The NSF and USPTO have done studies as well. And guess what we learn: if the system works for you, it is wonderful!
And if you do not have a dog in the fight, you simply state the facts.
The USPTO study tells us
Now the National Science Foundation did it;s own study, from another angle... and this is what they found:
One step toward economic recovery will be the complete elimination of all intellectual property law in USA: patents, copyrights and trademarks. They are simply unnecessary yet do tremendous harm. But if a system works for you, you love it.
Feel free to forward this by email to three of your friends.
Over the years I realized there was a tremendous industry in fear built up, and the benefits to a very small group. To review, of the nearly seven million patents issued since 1789, almost nothing patented has ever turned into a product. All patent attorneys know this, almost none will tell you. Kinsella and Patry will.
And if you do not have a dog in the fight, you simply state the facts.
The USPTO study tells us
This report played up the importance of IP, claiming “the entire U.S. economy relies on some form of IP,” and estimated that “IP-intensive industries” accounted for 40 million American jobs and 35% of the U.S. GDP in 2010.Are you thinking high tech? You'd be wrong.... the USPTO had to include grocery stores to reach that number.
Now the National Science Foundation did it;s own study, from another angle... and this is what they found:
In 2010, 87.2% of businesses reported that trademarks were “not important” to them.
90.1% of businesses reported that copyrights were “not important” to them.
96.2% of businesses reported that patents were “not important” to them.So why do we still have them? Because there is an army of government workers, called officers of the court (lawyers), who can keep the system alive by pretending to be self-employed as they burden industry with their rent-seeking.
One step toward economic recovery will be the complete elimination of all intellectual property law in USA: patents, copyrights and trademarks. They are simply unnecessary yet do tremendous harm. But if a system works for you, you love it.
Feel free to forward this by email to three of your friends.
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