[Wikipedia-l] Re: Patent idea

Fri Apr 2 09:17:56 UTC 2004

"Wesley Sheldahl" <wsheldahl at iglou.com> schrieb:
> 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.

Well, there is the technique of 'defensive patents'. The idea is to use
the patents as a protection against paying royalties on other people's
patents, by threatening to counter-claim when someone tries to do so.
Problem is that to make it work, one will have to have a portfolio of
very many patents, which is nothing that Wikipedia (or any .org, I think)
can hope to get.

Andre Engels