An anonymous reader writes "This week's Economist has a number of stories in its survey of the state of IP (link to lead article), written from a balanced, business-oriented perspective. If you do not have a web subscription it is worth picking up a newsstand edition, if only to read a defense of open source from being seen as a 'flaky, radical, pinko strategy not related to the competitive marketplace'." From the article: "In recent years intellectual property has received a lot more attention because ideas and innovations have become the most important resource, replacing land, energy and raw materials. As much as three-quarters of the value of publicly traded companies in America comes from intangible assets, up from around 40% in the early 1980s." A Survey of the State of IP Log in/Create an Account | Top | 100 comments | Search Discussion Display Options Threshold: -1: 100 comments 0: 96 comments 1: 77 comments 2: 52 comments 3: 19 comments 4: 13 comments 5: 7 comments Flat Nested No Comments Threaded Oldest First Newest First Highest Scores First Oldest First (Ignore Threads) Newest First (Ignore Threads) The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way. No more "news for nerds" (Score:5, Funny) by ResidntGeek (772730) on Sunday October 23, @05:51PM (#13859869) Slashdot, I'm afraid you've lost the right to call yourself "News for Nerds". When "Internet Protocol" becomes anyone's SECOND definition of IP, they're no longer a nerd. [ Reply to ThisRe:No more "news for nerds" by daspriest (Score:1) Sunday October 23, @05:57PMRe:No more "news for nerds" by cnettel (Score:3) Sunday October 23, @06:32PMRe:No more "news for nerds" by drewxhawaii (Score:1) Sunday October 23, @06:32PMRe:No more "news for nerds" by dshaw858 (Score:3) Sunday October 23, @06:42PM"Internet Protocol" is MY 2nd definition by iced_773 (Score:1) Sunday October 23, @06:48PMhuristics, please. by twitter (Score:1) Sunday October 23, @07:27PM1 reply beneath your current threshold.2 replies beneath your current threshold. This says it all (Score:4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 23, @05:52PM (#13859873) "There is a broad recognition in the US that the patent system, if not reformed, will...begin to impede American competitiveness around the world," says Bruce Sewell, general counsel of Intel, the world's biggest chipmaker.so while USA is busy in court the rest of the world will be busy innovating and actually moving forwardof course i think this has much to do with the "culture of greed" that permeates the US and will ultimately be its downfall, or to put in in biblical terms (as that seems to be a more popular line of reasoning in 14th i mean 21st century America)the moneylenders will kick themselves out of the temple [ Reply to ThisRe:This says it all by JoeBorn (Score:1) Sunday October 23, @06:07PMHard Part by Mark_MF-WN (Score:2) Sunday October 23, @06:35PMRe:Hard Part by Master of Transhuman (Score:2) Sunday October 23, @09:20PMRe:Hard Part by daft_one (Score:1) Sunday October 23, @10:15PMRe:This says it all by supabeast! (Score:2) Sunday October 23, @07:18PMRe:This says it all by JoeBorn (Score:1) Sunday October 23, @08:02PMRe:This says it all by LnxAddct (Score:1) Sunday October 23, @10:19PM1 reply beneath your current threshold. Ring-fencing, the blindingly obvious, etcetera (Score:5, Insightful) by fuzzy12345 (745891) on Sunday October 23, @05:56PM (#13859896) I'm for IP legal protections, but there's some big problems I see with the current regime: Ring-fencing: This is the creation of a ring of patents around the primary thing you're trying to protect, so that even when the original patent expires, competitors won't be able to reproduce the invention without violating your other patents. Often used to protect chemical processes used to manufacture drugs. The blindingly obvious: RIM's Blackberry troubles stem from patents on the wireless transmission of email. If you're an EE or a CS guy, you'd think "information is information, a channel is a channel, and every combination of information x channel isn't a novel idea waiting to be thought of, it's the obvious thing" but alas, the patent office doesn't see it that way.And the worst thing is, large companies with large stables of IP become very resistant to change (or, if they want change, it's for more protections for the patent-holders and less quid-pro-quo for everyone else) and, with cash-fueled American politics, things only get worse. Witness the effectively perpetual copyrights that the Mouse buys. [ Reply to ThisRe:Ring-fencing, the blindingly obvious, etcetera by oliverthered (Score:2) Sunday October 23, @07:21PMRe:Ring-fencing, the blindingly obvious, etcetera by bug1 (Score:2) Sunday October 23, @07:35PMRe:Ring-fencing, the blindingly obvious, etcetera by oliverthered (Score:1) Sunday October 23, @08:03PM IP - the anti-christ of free markets (Score:3, Insightful) by argoff (142580) on Sunday October 23, @05:57PM (#13859903) Patents and copyrights are really the anti-christ of free markets. They have nothing to do with freedom, and especially nothing to do with respect of property rights. From the outside, it simply amazes me to see time and time again how people treat them as if they were real property rights. It is almost as if I was living in an 1850's throwback, trying to prove that slavery was anti free market - "what's amater don't you believe in property rights? Don't you believe in the wealth and prosperity of American commerce? They have no incentive without it!" Those are the kind of arguments I get. [ Reply to This Re:IP - the anti-christ of free markets (Score:5, Insightful) by smose (877816) on Sunday October 23, @06:18PM (#13859998) Patents and copyrights are really the anti-christ of free markets. Not necessarily. Imagine that you and a competitor manufacture widgets. You create a process that radically improves the efficiency of manufacturing widgets. Free market: you can keep it for yourself and reap the rewards of your efficiency relative to your opponent. As long as they don't figure it out, you win. Alternatively, you can patent the improvement. It exposes the idea to your opponent, and if the cost savings for implementing your patented process is greater than the cost of paying you for it, your opponent implements it, and you still make more money. Perhaps your opponent improves it further, and reduces the cost of making widgets yet again. In the end, all the widgets get made more efficiently, and competition can bring the price down. Perhaps you meant that modern patenting practices are anti-free-market. On that I could agree; the point isn't to profit from your idea into eternity; it's to set good ideas into permanent practice so that better ideas can come from it. [ Reply to This | ParentRe:IP - the anti-christ of free markets by argoff (Score:2) Sunday October 23, @06:37PMRe:IP - the anti-christ of free markets by nelsonal (Score:2) Sunday October 23, @07:51PMRe:IP - the anti-christ of free markets by Master of Transhuman (Score:2) Sunday October 23, @09:25PMRe:IP - the anti-christ of free markets by JoeBorn (Score:1) Sunday October 23, @06:39PMRe:IP - the anti-christ of free markets by argoff (Score:3) Sunday October 23, @07:16PM Re:IP - the anti-christ of free markets (Score:5, Insightful) by xoboots (683791) on Sunday October 23, @07:06PM (#13860214) (Last Journal: Monday June 23, @06:04AM) The US/Western/Modern system has severely confused the related notions of "free markets" with "competetive markets". First, there are no free markets: they are all heavily regulated. On top of regulation, there is usury (interest), rents and taxes at multiple levels. For the most part, exchanges are not made between equal players (eg: householders vs. corporations).Unfortunately, the entire debate of "intellectual property" is framed within the lexicon "free markets" and "property". In fact, instruments such as patent and copyright are tools that restrict use and beget monopolies rather than competitive markets. This is especially true of the modern incantations of these systems which fly-in-the-face of their original intention. Originally, these tools were meant as temporary and necessary "evils" as a means to stimulate an increase in artistic and technical know-how, artifacts and techniques for the general public's USE -- both private and public (not merely via consumption). Of course, it turns out that modern society has MANY OTHER means of establishing these goods (eg: public research, universities, community based good will, etc) but we are stuck with a system that AROSE IN AN OLDER AND LESS FREE ERA.So, in a competitive market without patent/copyright restrictions we face the threat of the "secret guild" monopoly regime; however, we also face that under current patent/copyright law since the length of the restrictions fairly much gaurantee monopolies for the lifetime of a product/technique. Worse, in an era of scientific progress conducted in large by universities, grants and other forms of public research, this is tantamount to stealing public resources. Even worse, in technologically reliant societies, inter-relation of technology is paramount. It is in everyone's interest to share ideas. In other words, the threat of "secret guilds" is not worth protecting against at this point in our evolution.In game-theory we can see this as a form of the prisoners dillema: everyone is better off if all co-operate, but if only one player "cheats" by not co-operating (secrecy or patent/copyright), they will do much better than everyone else. If no one co-operates, then no-one does as well as if they would all co-operate (due to interconnection of ideas and implausibility of any single entity developing all ideas on their own).So it comes down to this: as a society, how much longer do we wish to reward (reward!!) those who do not want to naturally co-operate? [ Reply to This | ParentRe:IP - the anti-christ of free markets by Elektroschock (Score:2) Sunday October 23, @08:58PMRe:IP - the anti-christ of free markets by Master of Transhuman (Score:2) Sunday October 23, @09:37PMRe:IP - the anti-christ of free markets by xoboots (Score:2) Sunday October 23, @08:58PM1 reply beneath your current threshold.Re:IP - the anti-christ of free markets by Anonymous Coward (Score:1) Sunday October 23, @07:57PMRe:IP - the anti-christ of free markets by zotz (Score:2) Sunday October 23, @10:33PMRe:IP - the anti-christ of free markets by enjahova (Score:1) Sunday October 23, @06:42PMRe:IP - the anti-christ of free markets by argoff (Score:2) Sunday October 23, @07:51PMRe:IP - the anti-christ of free markets by enjahova (Score:1) Sunday October 23, @09:16PMIt isn't that simple by abulafia (Score:2) Sunday October 23, @06:52PMRe:It isn't that simple by argoff (Score:2) Sunday October 23, @07:07PMRe:It isn't that simple by abulafia (Score:2) Sunday October 23, @07:40PM1 reply beneath your current threshold.Copyrights are really the anti-christ?? by Totally_Lost (Score:1) Sunday October 23, @10:18PMGPL history (not an expert account) by argoff (Score:2) Sunday October 23, @10:56PM nice (Score:3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 23, @06:03PM (#13859926) from the article:"Already, businesses are having to negotiate with other firms in order to do basic things such as reading files from different proprietary formats; and the design of new technology products now involves lawyers as well as engineers. The proliferation of patents might prove a serious encumbrance to businesses, just as travellers along the Rhine in medieval Europe were slowed down by having to pay a toll at every castle.James Boyle, a legal scholar at Duke Law School in North Carolina, claims that the current increase in intellectual-property rights represents nothing less than a second "enclosure movement". In the first enclosures, in 18th- and 19th-century Britain, the commons--open fields used by many, belonging to all, owned by none--were fenced in, and nearly all land became private property. By analogy, the granting of property rights on ideas, to the extent it is happening today, is plundering the intellectual commons of our public domain. "amen [ Reply to This Surpised at the Economist.. (Score:4, Interesting) by xtal (49134) on Sunday October 23, @06:03PM (#13859934) (http://www.nyx.net/~smanley) They're usually more on par with energy problems and it's relation to the global economy. No cheap energy, no economic growth - that's not economic theory, that's PHYSICS."In recent years intellectual property has received a lot more attention because ideas and innovations have become the most important resource, replacing land, energy and raw materials"I bet my entire life savings against that statement last year. Go look at a energy fund index and tell me I was wrong. Everything - land, raw materials, and IP is about energy. The cheap energy is running out, and the people who have it are doing very, very well at the moment.If IP is the future.. well, I guess I have a couple years to go back and get a law degree. Here's another tip for the economist: Lawyers don't produce capital. They are a legislated tax on a free market. [ Reply to ThisRe:Surpised at the Economist.. by argoff (Score:1) Sunday October 23, @06:13PMRe:Surpised at the Economist.. by plasmacutter (Score:1) Sunday October 23, @06:36PMRe:Surpised at the Economist.. by sabre86 (Score:1) Sunday October 23, @06:39PM Wrong (Score:4, Interesting) by bluGill (862) on Sunday October 23, @06:50PM (#13860124) Everything is about Food, shelter, clothing, and entertainment. More or less in that order. (though you can argue about the order of shelter and clothing)Energy is a factor in several of them, but not in itself a basic need. You need energy for anything more than subsistence farming. You need energy for heating your shelter. You need energy to create clothing by modern process. (I'm not counting human input as a part of energy for this - though clearly that is a form of energy).If there is too much rain, crops will die of overwatering, no matter how much energy you have. However if there were crops that could stand this over watering, and you bet your life savings them, you would have the same effect, even though energy was not a significant factor.Despite your wish to think otherwise, energy is a much smaller part of the economy than previously. Now it was one of the (if not the) fastest growing parts last year, but will that continue? IP is growing too, and could replace energy. All it takes is a breakthrough in ethanol/biodiesel producting and energy will go down, while IP goes up farther (fueled by the breakthrough.Personally I'm betting on such a breakthrough coming along fast. Though not with all my assets. Ethanol is already energy positive by .34, and shows promise of getting over 1 (that is for every energy input we get 2 out). Biodiesel can reach 3 in the lab. If I'm right, energy will have a short blossom, and then fade again like it has been for years. I've been wrong before though. [ Reply to This | ParentRe:Wrong by oliverthered (Score:1) Sunday October 23, @07:26PMRe:Wrong by bluGill (Score:2) Sunday October 23, @09:47PMRe:Wrong by oliverthered (Score:1) Sunday October 23, @10:26PMEnergy versus brainwork by Beryllium Sphere(tm) (Score:3) Sunday October 23, @07:54PMRe:Energy versus brainwork by Sique (Score:2) Sunday October 23, @09:14PM Perspective of a Company Developing IP (Score:5, Interesting) by SkiifGeek (702936) on Sunday October 23, @06:04PM (#13859936) (http://www.skiifwrald.com/sunnet/free.html) When establishing my companies, I made sure to separate the IP R&D from the commercialisation processes. Although a lot of the research that is coming out of the R&D company is patentable, the decision whether to patent has been a long and well thought out process.Ultimately, a lot of the research will be protected under trade secret and standard copyright law. The process of patenting requires disclosure of methods and techniques (even with legalese), and places a small company in a bind when larger companies can infringe at will (when the cost of compliance is less than the profit they will make from infringement). By definition, the patent allows one skilled in the art to recreate the invention, so it puts on public record the specifics to allow a competitor to recreate the result that has come from our significant effort and expenditure.While we hold nothing against software patents (when issued properly), we do have major concerns about the patent process, and the ability to patent processes instead of inventions. When the next global superpower, and some of the largest companies in the industry, have a history of subverting IP restrictions to suit their own ends, the presence of a patent only stops the honest from ripping off the work we have carried out (and they are getting fewer and fewer in number).Even in discussion with the patent office, and the Government body established to promote and assist the patent process, they readily admit that the model is broken, but it is the best we have at the moment - so we need to keep supporting it (which is a cop out if I have ever heard one).Without a warchest of millions to fight legal battles, or huge patent holdings, the little guys are running on hope that no one picks their patent for willful infringement.Probably the best advice for people involved in IP development - get yourself good legal counsel (even at the start of the research process), and remember that there is more than one way to achieve the same outcome (so if you get sued for an implementation - change it to something else). [ Reply to This IPv4 (Score:1, Redundant) by coolnicks (865625) on Sunday October 23, @06:24PM (#13860022) From the title i thought this was the state of IPv4 ... oh how i was disappointed [ Reply to This1 reply beneath your current threshold. statistics don't lie in this case.. (Score:2, Interesting) by plasmacutter (901737) on Sunday October 23, @06:32PM (#13860057) ideas and innovations have become the most important resource, replacing land, energy and raw materials. As much as three-quarters of the value of publicly traded companies in America comes from intangible assetsmaybe this has less to do with the fact that IP has become more numerous or "important", and more to do with the fact that recent extensions to both the breadth and lenght of copyright has produced an inordinate amount which actually surpresses the production of more tangible goods.Let me explain: if you're afraid of being litigated into the ground due to patent issues, you won't produce. If a system of mining is patented that makes extraction of current natural resources more expensive, and might result in the premature shutdown of a mine which may yet have productive capacity. I'm sure someone more educated than myself on the raw material marketplace could produce more examples, and there are plenty of examples of IP getting in the way of innovations which very well may be physical.I think rolling back IP or perhaps a universal worldwide backlash against more extreme forms of IP may restore some balance. Personally i don't like the idea of the economy being based on "intangible goods". Besides being tantamount to "faith based", it would also mean my nation of origin is surely on the decline, since her educational institutions are among the world's worst, and both R&D workers and spending are diminishing. [ Reply to ThisRe:statistics don't lie in this case.. by argoff (Score:2) Sunday October 23, @06:50PMRe:statistics don't lie in this case.. by plasmacutter (Score:1) Sunday October 23, @07:28PM Thats enough, no more IP! (Score:5, Interesting) by burnin1965 (535071) on Sunday October 23, @06:41PM (#13860088) (http://www.aros.net/~burnin) "In recent years intellectual property has received a lot more attention because ideas and innovations have become the most important resource, replacing land, energy and raw materials. As much as three-quarters of the value of publicly traded companies in America comes from intangible assets, up from around 40% in the early 1980s." Wrong, the reason intellectual property has been recieving a lot more attention is because its the easiest way to milk capital from a technology dependant society without having to actually produce anything. Don't get me wrong, there are some valid legal complaints in the courts but, as most people here have noted over and over again, many of the companies submitting these complaints don't actually produce anything, they simply lay claim to some idea, label it as Intellectual Property, and make plans to profit from the work of others. This whole Intellectual Property scam has got to go. So keep these concepts in mind in your day to day workings: Copyrights are not Intellectual Property. Somebody did some significant work to express a story, a concept, an solution, whatever, in a written document, a film, a painting, a song, etc., and once the expression was completed the duplication of that expression is easy and inexpensive due to the technology we have for duplication and distribution. The copyright provides protection to those who expressed the work, however, the expression is NOT INTELLECTUAL! Its a peice of paper, a plastic disk, magnetic media inside a harddrive, its no longer intellectual. Since it is so easy to duplicate the work that has been done a copyright is a nice protection to those who did the work so that they may have some say over the duplication and distribution. If however, somebody comes up with a similar idea or is even influenced by someone elses expression and they go through and do the work over again then they have not infringed on anyones copyright or intellectual property. Trademarks are not intellectual property. If you concieve a name, an image, whatever, and you express that conception onto paper, in writing, in any way, and you register it as your trademark then you can use the registration to ensure that others do not use your trademark in ways that would confuse others as you or your product. However, again, this physical thing which is an expression is no longer intellectual. The final product, the trademark is not some intangible asset, if it was intangible it would be useless. Patents are not intellectual property. You come up with an idea and build a prototype or write down a conceptual design and present this for registration at the patent office so you will have the opportunity to profit from the idea by producing an end product. And once again none of the end results are intellectual, they are hard cold physical results. Even software code is physical, the CPU doesn't read your mind to run the code and the RAM and harddrive on which it is stored is not some magical ethereal thing, its a tangible chunk of hardware you use when you do the work of turning the ideas into something. I think this entire intellectual property circus is just a scam to confuse the masses and make them believe that any thought in their head belongs to some corporation somewhere for whom they should be working. And nobody should be attempting to do any work outside of what they do for the corporation as that would in some way be stealing some "intangible asset" from the company. Well forget it, its just one big smoke and mirrors freak show designed to rape the masses for every penny they have and any penny they may ever have. I mean really, can you believe this crap, "As much as three-quarters of the value of publicly traded companies in America comes from intangible assets". Does anybody really believe that everyone is paying all this cash to companies in America because some marketing guy, the salesman, and the chair slinging CEO said "I have this great idea, and if you pay me I'll tell you whRead the rest of this comment... [ Reply to ThisRe:Thats enough, no more IP! by Anonymous Coward (Score:1) Sunday October 23, @07:02PMRe:Thats enough, no more IP! by burnin1965 (Score:2) Sunday October 23, @07:47PMRe:Thats enough, no more IP! by Master of Transhuman (Score:2) Sunday October 23, @09:56PM1 reply beneath your current threshold. Evidence of Importance or evidence of lunacy (Score:4, Insightful) by denissmith (31123) * on Sunday October 23, @06:43PM (#13860100) As much as three-quarters of the value of publicly traded companies in America comes from intangible assets, up from around 40% in the early 1980s.Of course the argument that IP is important because intangible assets are so important to business valuations could be seen as a misunderstanding. Maybe the company valuations are 50% too high, and IP is a rationalization of an untenable market? [ Reply to This balanced, business-oriented perspective? (Score:2, Insightful) by twitter (104583) on Sunday October 23, @07:22PM (#13860297) (Last Journal: Thursday January 27, @09:41PM) I liked them better in 1851, when they thought patents were a bad idea.If you believe in "Intellectual property" and debate policies about IP, you are chasing something that does not exist. [gnu.org] Patents, copyright and trademarks are radically different concepts and should never be lumped together. The term IP is designed to confuse the real issues and muddy the publics' concept of what should and should not have state protection. Blather about software cross-licensing is equally foolish and anchored in disproved development models of the early 1980s. Only the largest of incumbent businesses benefit from this kind of confusion. They use it to drive everyone else out of the market and pass the cost of complexity back to you and me.A balanced business perspective would be closer to the informed opinion found in the vast majority of technical employers. Most people do not work for big dumb companies and have much to lose when patents cover business methods, copyright laws are used to prevent reverse engineering for compatibility, and trade mark laws are used to prevent advertising of compatibility or exchangeability. The median informed opinion is vastly different from the propaganda put out by giants like Microsoft. To present the two views together as equals is more an averaging of noise than it is a balance.It scares me that so much of the US net worth is wrapped up in excluding others from doing things. I have little faith in the value of such things and see a rude awakening on the horizon when the rest of the world decides to give us the finger. [ Reply to This1 reply beneath your current threshold. The Patent Problem: A Question of Centralization (Score:5, Interesting) by naasking (94116) <smagi.naasking@homeip@net> on Sunday October 23, @08:04PM (#13860489) (http://naasking.homeip.net/) The whole patent problem can be reduced to a single point: the patent system, as currently implemented, does not scale, both in registration (filing for patents), and in resolution (resolving disputes). This is the natural result of trying manage a decentralized process (R&D) with a centralized system (patents); we are feeling these effects the most now, because of the drastic increase in the importance of information.There have been a number of solutions to this problem proposed, including eliminating patents altogether [homeip.net], or significant patent reform of some kind. Both could resolve the situation.However, one thing is clear: the problem is one of scaling a centralized system. Each patent that comes in requires decoding from legalese, and comparison with every other patent in the system that was ever recorded for prior art. For you programmers out there, that's an O(n) algorithm. 'n' is very large nowadays. 'n' will continue getting larger. Without managing this complexity in some sort of structured fashion, it will inevitably become unmangeable, just like any poorly chosen algorithm. If this is the best we can hope to do, then we have to scale our efforts at O(n) to keep up with the growth (funding, man power, etc.).I think they could do better. Heck, hire Google properly index some the patents and come up with an appropriate process for the examiners. Personally, I prefer as little intervention as possible; in other words, a decentralized system, which can scale with decentralized development, or no patent system at all; the patent system imposes significant hidden costs to the economy via litigation and lost time. But a centralized solution can work, as long as it is designed to scale properly.Now all you smart computer scientists, programmers, hackers, and mathematicians, let's hear some decentralized and/or scalable solutions; that's what we really need if we want to keep patents around. :-) [ Reply to ThisRe:The Patent Problem: A Question of Centralizatio by naasking (Score:2) Sunday October 23, @08:10PMRe:The Patent Problem: A Question of Centralizatio by Elektroschock (Score:2) Sunday October 23, @09:01PM Anyone besides me think this is a bad thing? (Score:4, Insightful) by HangingChad (677530) on Sunday October 23, @08:21PM (#13860569) As much as three-quarters of the value of publicly traded companies in America comes from intangible assets, up from around 40% in the early 1980s.We've farmed our manufacturing capacity out to countries that do not necessarily share our best interests. Our business economy is no longer based on things we make, but on brain share products.I'm not an economist but from a common sense perspective that just seems like a really shaky foundation for an economy. Why would the countries that make everything we buy give a rat's fanny about respecting our brain share assets? What are going to do if China starts pirating Disney movies? Or if they get tired of monkey boy and decide to field a chinese version of Windows? Threaten them with economic retaliation? Good luck with that, they own us. We take our money and buy things they produce, many time with machines we shipped over there so they could do it cheaper. Then they take our money and buy tangible things like property, oil, and natural resources.The feeling I get is their economy is based on things with some intrinsic value while ours is fundamentally based on things with very little intrinsic value. [ Reply to ThisRe:Anyone besides me think this is a bad thing? by Proudrooster (Score:2) Sunday October 23, @08:44PMRe:Anyone besides me think this is a bad thing? by Master of Transhuman (Score:2) Sunday October 23, @10:09PM1 reply beneath your current threshold. Clueless As Usual (Score:2) by Master of Transhuman (597628) on Sunday October 23, @09:15PM (#13860788) "firms increasingly rely on innovation to remain competitive. Yet the return on investment in R&D is short-lived because more people innovate at a far faster pace than before. That means margins have shrivelled, explains Ragu Gurumurthy of Adventis, an IT and telecoms consultancy. "How to recoup the cost of innovation? By licensing the technology," he says."In other words, we don't know how to compete by innovating and marketing, so we're going to stop innovating and use the state to make our money for us.Typical corporate thinking. [ Reply to This Poor research and self-contradictory statements (Score:2) by FlorianMueller (801981) <florian.mueller@nosoftwarepatents.com> on Monday October 24, @12:13AM (#13861485) (http://www.openbc.com/hp/Florian_Mueller2/) The vaunted Economist must be careful about its reputation. Last year, they had a long story on patents in which they expressly said: "The patent systems of the world aren't working." Now they come up with this pseudo-objective praise of software patents. That's schizophrenia, not pluralism.The competence of the author(s) with respect to the software industry must be seriously called into question, as the article says that companies selling open-source company are pro-patent, and then a Novell person is quoted. Novell only derives about 4% of its revenues from open source (the SuSE acquisition is a near-total failure). In contrast, Red Hat, MySQL AB, Mandriva, JBoss and other (real) open-source companies have publicly spoken out against software patents. It wouldn't have taken much research effort, even if only performed by a person with an extremely limited understanding of the software industry, to track down those statements. They're all over the Web, and in case of Red Hat and MySQL AB, they're on the corporate websites (plus those two companies co-sponsored my NoSoftwarePatents.com campaign, which is also easy to find out).I'm also wondering why a publication that calls itself "The Economist" can't give serious consideration to economic studies (such as Bessen/Hunt) that take a much more critical perspective on the implications of today's patent regime. It seems that the Economist was under strong PR influence from Microsoft in this case because there are some typical MSFT points in it, such as this claim that software patents are needed in order to be adequately protected when publicizing information (which MSFT says in reference to governmental demands to disclose source code).The Economist article is fundamentally flawed, but this has to be attributed to the fact that the pro-patent forces like Microsoft make an incessant effort, day in day out, to pitch journalists with their story of patents and how they serve innovation. From time to time, they find an impressionable or credulous author who serves their purposes (or a journalist whose goodwill is easy to get by just inviting him somewhere for a week or whatever). In contrast, those companies and organizations which are critical of software patents have been relatively inactive since the European Parliament's decision on 6 July. As long as we were making an aggressive and professional PR effort ourselves, we also got better results. Nothing comes from nothing, it's as simple as that.At least there is one activity going on these days: We're very likely to win the Internet poll for the "EV50 Europeans of the Year" [nosoftwarepatents.com], the EU's premier political award. By pushing our candidates through (I'm also running in two categories myself) and preventing pro-patent politicians from winning anything, we can get another publicity opportunity for our cause and demonstrate to politicians that our movement is still to be reckoned with. The "EV" in "EV50" means "European Voice", an EU-focused publication that belongs to the Economist publishing group, and one of the three main sponsors is Microsoft :-)Richard Stallman, Tim O'Reilly, Alan Cox (Linux kernel maintainer), Rasmus Lerdorf (PHP) and Monty Widenius (MySQL) have made a public statement in which they call on the FOSS community worldwide to participate in that Internet poll:ag-IP-news: Luminaries Call on Worldwide Community to Vote Against Software Patents [ag-ip-news.com]They have specifically endorsed our voting recommendations [nosoftwarepatents.com]. Please read those voting recommendations and give serious consideration to supporting our cause that way. [ Reply to This Re:You lost me . . . (Score:4, Insightful) by ScentCone (795499) on Sunday October 23, @05:49PM (#13859863) Look, if the don't-care-about-business-use-of-Linux(et al) people don't care, well... then they don't care! But the people that wish more users would adopt Linux have to care what businesses and business people think. You can't have it both ways. [ Reply to This | ParentRe:You lost me . . . by Anonymous Coward (Score:1) Sunday October 23, @06:05PMRe:You lost me . . . by ScentCone (Score:1) Sunday October 23, @06:45PMRe:You lost me . . . by Seumas (Score:1) Sunday October 23, @06:59PM Re:In defence of the Economist (Score:2) by iluvcapra (782887) on Sunday October 23, @09:43PM (#13860900) (http://www.soundepartment.com/) Sir,If one reads TFA, one will immediately discover that the writer of the 'flaky, radical, pinko strategy' line was not expressing his opinion or that of the Economist, but was attributing the line to the enemies of open source -- Bill Gates is cited specifically as holding the view, for example. The writer of the survey, it is worth mentioning, clearly sees the opinion as wrong, and brings significant evidence to bear to justify himself. [ Reply to This | Parent Re:Copyright is Great .... couldn't exist without (Score:2) by Master of Transhuman (597628) on Sunday October 23, @10:14PM (#13861005) You're right. As I've said many times about Lawrence Lessig, he's fighting his battles with both hands tied behind him because he believes in IP as a legitimate basic concept - and it's not.Given that the situation is NOT going to change, however, I suppose he's doing the best he can. IP is a side issue - the real (political) problem is how the rich and the state conspire to keep everybody else poor and oppressed.And the real problem underlying all of that is how stupid and fearful the average human monkey is.And that's not a solvable proposition until you replace humans with Transhumans. Which fortunately IS going to happen within the next fifty years or so.In other words, my usual bottom line: They're all going to die. We Transhumans won't. Have a nice day. [ Reply to This | Parent Re:intangible assets == inefficiency (Score:2) by selfdiscipline (317559) on Monday October 24, @01:00AM (#13861651) (http://slashdot.org/) other than the last two steps, what you have written is a thing of beauty [ Reply to This | Parent10 replies beneath your current threshold.