You hear about it pretty much every week, some large corporation is suing another for using an image, name or piece of hardware that the other has with held a copy right/patent for. While i understand that the purpose of IP laws are meant to prevent people from completely ripping off another persons ideas, the way that their mandated and enforced is leaving huge loop holes that are actually hurting industries that are based on thoughts and ideas.

the most recent and gross example i can give is in the following article: http://www.teleread.com/ebooks/games-workshop-self-publishing-author-battle-over-space-marines/

The short story is that the lawyers for who ever owns the Warhammer IP has pressed a suit against a self published science fiction writer for using the term "Space Marine" and from the looks of it the self published writer has already lost even before the legal proceedings are finished since most of the online book sellers have dropped his book as a result of large corporate lobbying. I find this to be absolutely ludicrous, that some one's creative efforts can be reduced to plagiarism based of the use of two words less than seven letters long. This is being done in the name of Intellectual Properties.

At the same time i know we can't just remove all notions of copy right and IP laws, but clearly based from events in the past decade, as they are now they do not protect inventors and independant developers as they were meant to. (don't bring up the "they are there so that those corporations don't loose money" to some one who uses an idea, asceticism or hardware that is similar to theirs. That's not theft, that's competition, and corporations have been using IP laws to kill competition in order to drive prices sky high)

so personally i was thinking today that notion of plagiarism or IP theft should be based on three things; wording, aesthetics and hardware. And in order for something to be theft of an intellectual property it most copy 2 out of 3 of the mentioned qualities.

For example. Apple would not be allowed to sue a fruit store for having a similar logo based on that the store was "copying" only one out of the three qualities of Apple's product line (the aesthetic), however would still be able to protect themselves from those stores in china which use the apple name (wording) and logo (ascetic).

Like wise the self published author could not be sued for IP theft only for the premise that he used the wording "Space Marine".

its not a perfect idea, but its a whole hell of alot better than letting the man with the most money win.

ascetic

1. a person who dedicates his or her life to a pursuit of contemplative ideals and practices extreme self-denial or self-mortification for religious reasons.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/ascetic

my life is a lie!!! i was trying to spell the word for visual style, but im terrible with spelling so i just used the right click spell check and thats what it gave me

i'll just use astetic however thats not how its spelled

Is the word you are looking for aesthetic?

Oh Aesthetic!

Yes, thank you.

I believe the word you are going for here is "aesthetic".

I agree, copyright and patent laws have gotten out of hand.

The thing about the IP laws is that the laws themselves are aimed to be fair and transparent. But there's so much guessing involved with so many variables that there's still a lot of room for legal teams to build an attack with a relatively flimsy case. They usually get worked out realistically, but the whole process of the dispute would be likely to put a lot of people off to start with.

Your system would make trademarks and a lot of copyrights impossible, as well as most patents.

IMO, the problem with your idea is you are trying to fix the current system. The current system doesn't need to be fixed -- it needs to be completely rewritten.

- All the operating money ofthe USPTO comes from granting trademarks and patents. It therefore has an invested interest in granting them instead of denying.

- There exists no system of searching for preexisting patent claims. Thus, it's impossible to know if you've violated one until you are sued.

- The only way for a patent to be invalidated is in the court of law or via the USPTO re-checking the patent of their own decision (cannot be requested), as such it is often cheaper for individuals and companies to simply fold or license rather than fight the patent. Patent violation lawsuits therefore don't resolve the issue, but just enforce the status quo

- USPTO officers are not knowledgeable in the areas that they grant patents, yet still have to approve patents on the grounds that it is non-obvious and novel. That's not possible to do if you aren't familiar with the subject of the patent

- non-physical designs can be patented.

All those need to be fixed for the patent system to work IMO.

I am of the opinion that it should be very hard to completely own a thought.

In addition, i don't like paying hundreds of dollars for something i know the materials/labor of which cost less than five dollars. i would expand on this thought but its too political.

I won't argue with your opinion, but rather point out why you would want trademarks, copyrights and patents:

Without trademarks (which are nearly completely impossible under your system), every company that makes computers will be "Apple Inc". Every Website will be "Google", and every store will be "Amazon". Customers will be confused. If you're thirsty you can either drink Coca-Cola, or, if you want, drink Coca-Cola.

Without copyrights as well (also nearly completely impossible under your system), they're all also start releasing the same looking thing confusing customers even further.

Without patents (more of these would be allowed than the above two, but still a good many perfectly valid patents would fail under your system), companies that do actually innovate and release their innovations will fail by not being able to recoup their losses from R&D, because everyone will just copy their works. The companies then fail and can no longer innovate.

Those are the actual concepts behind granting trademarks, patents, and copyrights. They are valid: they do actually help customers and protect innovators. The problem isn't the idea, it's the implementation.

I think this is the most pro-patent/copyright thing I've ever posted

i see your point about fly by night companies using large brand logos and such, but they wouldn't have the starting capitol or ability to produce a large stream of knock off products or services. a site pretending to be google would quickly become overloaded, or be so poorly one dimensional that only idiots will be deceived (and as things are now they're being tricked out of their money now any ways via seen on TV products).

regarding products looking all the same, yeah i imagine that would be exactly what would happen. at first. however in response any company that created an innovative design the broke away from the norm would stand out and out sell the products that all look the same, thus the companies would have to compete with unique designs of their own, this is how it used to be. Right now most products look the same now any ways, the only thing that stands out with stuff like tablets and phones with which company mascot is pasted on the back.

Patent law arguements are going to be going on for years, congress can't even keep the postal system working let alone handle patents.

I think patents just slow down progress, humans tend to find ways to make things better and the current system tends to stall that. Will be interesting to follow this topic in different places over the next couple years.

the postal system is one of the only successful goverment agencies, in regards of funding. considering it actually makes the government money rather than just costing it.

If only it were true that there was a decent amount of starting capitol needed. You need to spend more time using Ebay without looking at user ratings and using 360buy if you think there's an actual capital cost of any decent amount.

My point was about brand image and brand associations anyway. Now you may not pay attention to brands, but a lot of people do (especially those born between 1960-1980). It's not about another search engine competing with Google with their hardware, but another site leeching off of Google's brand name to inflate themselves without merit.

Also, there are far more svckers and stupid people than there aren't. And many of the ones that aren't have no problems being a conman.

Innovation is hard and expensive, especially when as soon as you do it you get 20 knock-offs. Hence, innovation wouldn't happen. There would be no unique designs because making a unique design first would guarantee you going out of business.

Your problem here is thinking a company can break away with a unique design: in a world without patents, trademarks, and copyrights that is impossible. Maybe a century ago, it would be possible to do so, but modern technology makes it so replicating a new item is trivially easy from a design perspective.

I have some friends who created a local band, and I have done some technical work for them. So far, they have released two self published CDs and sell mp3's of their original work online. These guys have worked hundreds of hours on these songs, and endured setback after setback, all sorts of personal drama, verbal violence from their overly harassed tech consultant (at least i get free CDs), and more grief than most folks would care to put up with from more people most folks wouldn't put up with at all.

And people steal their music, post it all over the place, and make arguments like: " It's not stealing because how much does it cost to make an mp3", or "It's not like I was going to buy it anyway".

thats a little different than what im talking about, but yeah their the sort of people IP laws should be protecting. off topic a little but personally i think independent labeling is what will save the music industry (the artists i mean). I don't buy music because its way to [censored] expensive, so i just listen to songs on youtube. but really each record sold about 5 cents goes to the artists while the rest of the $14 goes to the record companies. ditch the record companies and go digitally independent and sell albums for half the cost and there you go.

although piracy isn't the problem with lack of sales, sorry but it isn't. before there was digital distribution the same type of people just burned cd's, and before you could burn cd's on your computer people just stole them from cars.

Yes, that is sort of my point. The postal service is successful but they still are going to have to shut down on saturdays. Congress can't even manage something that is successful.

still, "Amazon Knock Off site X" won't be able to provide its "services" to as many people as Amazon can they would hit the limit of what their actually productivity can afford rather than the facade of their brand leeching would advertise. What would happen would be that they would get overloaded and have people demanding refunds. Sure their reputation would not be hurt, Amazon's would.


Regarding replication, it tends to be cheap and low quality. So if a companies uniquely designed product can be so easily reproduced and cheaply then they're standard for quality was less than it should be. Infact i would say thats the main reason why products like iPhones and gucci bags can be so easily faked for cheaper prices is because the price for "genuine" products are much more exorbitant than the actual quality of the product is worth.

So the money they are making now is not justified. In a world where every thing looks like every thing else, and is constantly being copied by hustlers looking to get a quick buck from some one else's idea the one thing that will stand out the most will be the actual quality of the product.

There's both a fear and some evidence that the current fetish for IP lawsuits is damaging and will further damage consumers' choices. In the UK the government held a summit with many major IP holders and knocked some heads together. Judges in the UK also made it clear that they have no time for frivolous claims. That seems to have put the breaks on a bit, but it is ridiculously out of control and the system for patents is a joke anyway and needs major reform.

I think this shows a bit of a naiive view of how manufacturing and commerce works in reality, as well as notions of R&D, server needs, and importance of brand recognition.

My experience is that none of the things you've said here hold up in reality.

from my experience as a sales person in a hardware store, i know that most people prefer quality over brand recognition. Provided that you can demonstrate the quality. The people who still go for the cheap stuff only do so because they don't have the money to begin with, although some of those quality products are still over priced. but not as many since what im talking about from experience is ladders, lumber and bolts.

This sort of thing scares me as an aspiring author. Sometimes it's obvious when a copyright is violated, and other times you just don't know (this case to me is sort of obvious, I mean it's right in the title). I gave up researching every single name I came up with because every single one has been used elsewhere after I've looked; in one example a name I came up with out of the blue was the title of an entire novel. I never read the book, I didn't even know it existed, but somehow the both of us came up with the same name and the other author used it as his title.

Can this author simply change the title of her book and remove all references to "space marine" within? That doesn't mean someone else won't complain that something she wrote resembles something they wrote, but if Games Workshop's problem is with the title and she's self-published I would think changing the title would suffice, assuming she can absorb the cost of reprinting (or however self-publishing works now).

One of the points I've been trying to make is that there will be no quality because the chances of recouperating the losses needed to innovate and manufacture a quality product are dramatically lower when you cannot associate that quality with your company. If you go into a store and you have 4 drill sets that all look the same, seem to be manufacturered by the same company, but all are made to different quality levels, how are you to know which one is made to one sigma and which one is made to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_Sigma? You can't.

Differentiation on any grounds is impossible when it's a free-for-all. If you think otherwise you need to look at more KIRF packagings, ebay auctions, 360buy sells, and bootleg packaging strategies.

There already is a whole industry thriving successfully on people's stupidity and superificial mimicry and shoddy quality assurance. What you are suggesting would remove the only remaining safeguard for most consumers.

i had independently come up with an idea once for a science fiction concept, which turned out to be this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyson_sphere, at that point i realized that any plot or theme i came up with was already going to have been done before i was even born. So really its learning how to make every thing old new again.


However that is assuming any one looking to counterfeit a product would have the ability to open a factory, manufacture, then reach out to major retailers nationally/internationally. It also assumes that retailers would be willing and knowingly pit low quality products against products that they know is a quality product.

sure, some retailers would be willing to knowingly sell counterfeit products at a quality level price in order to expand their profit margin. however these same sort of retailers business models frequently involve employing poor customer service and bad PR. They are out there, and im sure we could name several. However the reason why their able to stay ahead in the retail economy is another unbalance in economic regulation.