@John Zern I cover healthcare here as well as open source. Healthcare patents are usually straightforward. You can see the device and make one better, then get a new patent. You patent a particular chemical formulation, it's unitary.
Not true with tech. That's the problem. Someone patented the idea of auctions! You can't really patent math. And the courts have held that it's the expression of the math, the work it does, that renders it patentable, not the math itself.
But what does that mean? The courts won't tell us. Until they do we have people writing overly-broad patent applications and the patent office granting patents to nonsense.
This is what I criticize the Roberts court for, refusing to do their job and clarify the meaning of the law in terms of the Constitution.
My own view is you go back to the document. Article I, Section 8 gives Congress the right to offer these rights for limited times for the purpose of encouraging new stuff.
In the end, all "intellectual property" becomes public property. It's not meant to be an eternal grant. And the purpose of copyright and patents is to encourage the creation of more stuff.
How does it encourage the creation of more stuff to patent basic concepts, or to have copyright for Laurel & Hardy, both of whom have been dead for 50 years? When the beneficiaries become estates and corporations, you're not encouraging the creation of more stuff, IMHO.
eor (end of rant)
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