On Apr 2, 2004, at 10:43 PM, Michael Snow wrote:
Ray Saintonge wrote:
Wesley Sheldahl wrote:
True. However, the historical stated purpose of
patents is to allow
an inventor to profit from his or her invention for a period of time
before everyone else starts profiting from the invention, and
thereby provide incentive for further innovation. What other
benefit would there be to patenting something? There needs to be
some benefit to justify the expense involved.
For some the bragging rights are the only benefit that they need. :-)
And then, there are even people out there who would consider patenting
something, just to deprive the rest of the world the use of it.
Remember, a patent is the right to prevent use by others; the
patentholder is not obligated to make the patented thing available to
the public.
The same can be said about copyright, and yet we retain copyright on
all (or
most) of our contributions. Why is that?
Peter
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