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General Asylum General audio topics that don't fit into specific categories. |
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In Reply to: Good point posted by Dynobot on August 8, 2012 at 14:28:52:
Henry Ford kept getting sued by an organization called the Association of Licensed Automobile Manufacturers (ALAM) who possessed the "Selden patent" (1898) on the automobile.
They were simply trying to limit the field of competitors with the typical public spirited nonsense about protecting the public from the upstarts. Why does this seem to work so often?
They were an organization ahead of their time. Innovation in the US has given way to patent battles in front of juries who have little idea what is being discussed.
If you have any desire to read about the details of this I googled and found this article in a magazine I have never heard of but reading through it it seems to be as I remember the story. http://www.thefreemanonline.org/features/how-henry-ford-zapped-a-licensing-monopoly/
The patent office has been much too lax with patents to the detriment of the "customers". Allowing devices that look much like things you have seen all of your life, but with a little twist, become intellectual property which is then used as a weapon against smaller firms making stuff that looks similar; even if they have enhanced the "twist" into something much better than the patented thing, but they are then sued for their transgression with the hope that the bullying will be effective.
Exactly as you said the money spent on lawsuits would be much better spent on innovation. But the key is there are more lawyers than engineers in the US and these folks must find something to do.
This problem extends throughout every discipline. Especially obnoxious in the drug world ...
Stealing? Some would call it an evolutionary process that draconian legal decrees would strangle.
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Follow Ups
- Patents are much too broad these days - rickmcinnis@dogwoodfabrics.com 19:01:41 08/08/12 (0)
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