JeanPaul

I have been patenting my inventions/improvements for the past 15 years, and have been able to either sell them or get exclusive or non-exclusive royalties from two thirds of them. So, I cannot say that my inventions have not reached the market. As for patenting something that has already been invented, this is really not something patent filers are looking to do. Proving that something was already public known at the time someone filed for a patent is not complicated. I am very familiar with patents, you know. I never thought of manufacturing anything myself, especially tyres. But some people said here that what I was doing was profoundly immoral, so I told people out there, let's make our own tyres without using patents, and we will see how it goes. If no one is interested, then, I will have no other option than going back to patenting my work, because I do not think that I can ask drivers at the red lights for donations.

May I point out, Josh, that once you have invented something and have implemented it, no one else can patent it. Other than this technical point, thank you for your advice.

Assuming that a slave is pretty innocent lacks empirical evidence. Defending someone else is self-contradictory. Defending these slaves would imply that one considers that we have now ownership of them, which is a property right violation, which is immoral. Since we do not own these slaves, we should not defend them. The only thing we can do since we must respect the NAP is to advise the slave owner to do a therapy.

Good point. I will try to manufacture tyres keeping the formulation secret, as I said. There are already some people on this board who have manifested their interest in this venture. We will call them the NAP tires. "If you are tired of IUF tires, choose NAP tires!"

If your neighbor is mistreating his slaves or whatever, you should not hurt him because you should not use initiation of the use force. Period. If you do so, you are in the same boat as him because moral is not analogical. Through peaceful parenting, there will be no more slavery.

So, it is ideas versus bushitting basically? Would it be any better without patents then? You must understand that we are not all as smart as you. I had read "should" in Josh's post, but I might not have understood correctly what he meant. You are correct, raping a baby isn't more immoral than stealing an apple, both are immoral. Taking steroids for track and field events isn't immoral because it does not rely on immoral use of initiation of the use of force. I disagree with one thing: I am not trying to tell myself that the immoral use of initiation of the use of force is fine, on the contrary. The problem is that I am reading conflicting opinions. Some say, I should keep patenting, while others are saying that I should not participate in immoral use of initiation of the use of force. I am looking for concrete answers, not abstract answers that I cannot understand because of my limited philosophical knowledge.

You too, Dsayers, think that I should keep patenting things, like Josh suggests? Josh, is the patent system as immoral as the mafia system?

I of course agree with all you wrote, in particular exchanging value for value. You have provided here a strong, moral in nature, argument against plain copying what others do. As I said, I could not allow myself to analyze a manufacturer’s tyre using gas chromatography and electronic microscopy in order to replicate what they did. My reluctance is actually backed up by your principle. What am I exchanging with the manufacturer? Nothing. My second point is that that, if you have now convinced me that protecting one's inventions or creations through patenting and copyrighting is bad, you still have to convince another 7 billion people minus the one on this board. I do not care about my tyres. I can personally easily make a living without patenting things. But how will you convince people that they should pay or donate to watch the latest 250 million dollars budget movie? It seems to me that we will see much less innovation without patents and copyright. This will be the price to pay. I also think that there will be a lot of copying and counterfeiting, and people shamefully selling stuff that other people made, such as selling copied DVDs and books. I know you are going to make a moral judgment of what I am going to say, but after I switch from independent inventor, living off his own patents to likely paid consultant receiving money in exchange of services, I will work much less, maybe 50 hours a week or less, down from 100 hours a week. I am sorry, but I will not have the same incentive. It is this whole research, inventions, patents under my own name and 7-8 digits financial rewards that got me so passionate about the work. You cannot tell me that I am an immoral person if I decide to work considerably less. Or if you do, I do not care. I also know that my decision will not benefit the consumers (I presented detailed figures), but I agree that this is not as important as renouncing immoral initiation of the use of force.

I give up. My case is desperate. Yes, I admit I was wrong, not only about something but about everything. I promise I won't patent anyhting in the future. I will try to find partners, maybe on this board, and we will manufacture tyres. If someone is interested in manufacturing high-end tyres, please let me know. I cannot do more than this. For example, I will not reverse engineer things myself and I will not copy what others just invented. Sorry, I still cannot. You have not yet convinced me that this is moral.

You cannot compare what you call "reverse engineering the human body", which is actually understanding how the body works, with some people trying to plain copy something that someone else spent 10 years to come up with. Letting someone do all the work and then copying what he did does not seem to be a very moral thing. And please do not always refer to my own activity. We are not talking about what I do, it should just serve as an example. Everyone can do what I do. They just need to get a lab, develop a computerized microscopic physical model. I only encourage people to do the same. The more the merrier. I am not shifting to copyright while still thinking about inventions. I was asking myself how there could still be movies in the absence of copyright. Movies would immediately be distributed for free, or sold by anyone for one dollar as a DVD or through download, as soon as they have hit the market.

Quantifying rubber is even hella more complex This guild thing is the first really interesting idea in this thread I think. But then how would we know if such and such really invented something or just copied something they found and tried to sell their stolen ideas to some companies from the guild? We would need here too examiners who could check some invention registry to see if the ideas are new or not. Also, the guild would work only if most companies belong to it. It seems to me that finding a better and workable alternative to patents is even more complex than improving tyres. By the way, suppose a company infringes a patent knowingly, why can't the patent holder tell the infringing company: you are infringing, please stop doing so until 2020? This is actually already what is often done.

I do not understand your argument. I am not talking about patents here. I am just saying why I find reverse engineering pitiful. For example, I would never do such a thing, jut in order to copy. Also, could you please tell me if copyright would also not exist in a stateless/libertarian society?

I completely agree with you, thus my presence here and my thread. But I find just as immoral to reverse engineer the work of others, especially if the idea is just to copy. When someone has spent years to perfect something, I find people ready to do whatever it takes to find out how to reproduce it, whether by reverse engineering, analyzing or plain spying, a sad thing and the privilege of people that are not imaginative enough to find new things themselves. It seems to me that without patents, things would be much worse. By the way, no one told me if in a stateless/libertarian society, copyright should also not exist. I explained what I do more precisely throughout the thread. You would be surprised at how close to working on a recipe it is. My approach is actually more methodical, though modelization, thus my work as an independent consultant. The chemicals that I add to the mix in rigorous proportions, for given tyre formulations, are certainly not household chemicals. The idea behind my work is to make the tyre somehow thyrotrophic. This sounds like a very weird idea, but this is exactly what happens, even though you would not be able to perceive it. At high speed, or when breaking, the tyre material, on a molecular level becomes harder. This prolongs the life of the tyre. At the same time, some proprieties of the soft rubber are maintained throughout the tensile force spectrum. I am the first one to have developed this concept of thyrotrophic like properties on such materials. I modelized the tensile force within the material. Tensile forces are the physical representation of various tyre behaviors, such as high speed, gyration, breaking. Not only can I improve the rubber, bit also optimize interliner shapes. Finding chemical candidates is done though 3D modeling scanning of tens of thousands of molecules and macromolecules. So you see, it is a bit more complex that making scones. Note that all this improves the tyre and tyre rubber behavior very slightly, but slightly enough to be considered of interest for the tyre manufacturer to use my patents. What they then do exactly to their tyres in relation to my patents is their secret. I know actually know a manufacturer I sold a patent to a while ago that never incorporated my technology to his tyres, for I have put through the spectro samples of all his high-end tyres. This was for the anecdote. But what I precisely do, and whether you believe it or not, is of little interest to the discussion, I hope.

Designing a website or making an app is clearly not an invention. I am of course talking about inventions that are patentable in nature. Considering that an invention is a priori useless if it cannot lead to a prototype is a strnage idea. My inventions are for example consider highly useful to the persons who pay me royalties. Yet, they are do not lead to prototypes. Thye are not contraptions to put is simply. A system that encourages competitors to reverse engineer things, instead of encouraging them to innovate and invent new things is not me very sad. I would personally never spend my time and effort to reverse engineer something. I find this activity pitiful and in addition immoral.

What if the invention cannot lead to a prototype? Thinking that all inventions can lead to a prototype is limiting. Inventions nowadays are no longer limited to contraptions.

One last question. I understood that there would be no patents in this stateless/libertarian/utopian society. But then, why should there be copyright?

This too advanced philosophy for me. I had, or thought I had, a real interest in libertarianism and philosophy, now I am done with both. It is not for me. I do not have the intellectual foundation. I do not think I will ever be an empiricist and a rationalist. I will stick to my tyres and try hard to make driving better, safer and more economical (I provided figures and scenarios even). This is neither empirical, nor rational, but this is my only a goal. I won't care if it is a bad goal on an empirical and rational level. My ideas are so twisted now. Since trying hard to make driving better, safer and more economical in my case leads to use of immoral use of initiation of the use of force, I came to the conclusion that trying hard to make driving worse, more dangerous and less economical in my case might lead to moral use of no initiation of the use of force. Thank you for your time. I wish you all all the best and happy driving to everyone!

I used the word criticism is its basic menaing. Forgive me, English is neither my native language, nor my adopted language. What I meant is that I have heard opinions and insults rather than arguments, or very weak arguments. You do not see any problem in "telling a guy who invented a new steering wheel that he should sell cars"? This makes sense to you? "It is not enough to invent a better mouse trap. It is important to figure out if people want it, to figure out how to get your message out so people know they want it, to make them at a cost that allows you a reasonable profit, and to be able to deliver enough of them to meet demand." Is this some kind of business and marketing forum? Besides, it is not enough to invent a better mouse. This is a vague opinion only. It is as saying it is not enough to be tall, one needs to be muscular too. I invent things. If some people are interested, good for me, if they are not too bad for me. I am sorry, I am not as talented as you all here, I can only do a few things. What is the interest in talking about big companies all the time? Is there someone here who will create a huge corporation one day? I won't. I have learned one thing here: a libertarian society is impossible. When I see the amount of negativity and hate here, I think that libertarianism thing is just another utopia, like communism. If I may express and feeling, the atmosphere here reminds me something between the Jehovah’s witness and the hard core communists I have talked too. I wish you all all the best nonetheless.

I understand all this but why do people have to be so aggressive and mean here? Also, you say libertarians do this and that. Where? In a utopian world? People here I bet live very normally. I heard Stefan saying that making a living by selling stuff to the state is fine, etc. I do not think that there has been much philosophy discussed in my two (and last) threads, I have only seen opinions, criticisms and insults. Do you find very philosophical to say to someone that he is manipulative, immoral, that you support violence, are a savvy investor, that you want to receive money for nothing, that you have no humor and that you packpedal, etc.? "There is a lot of respect here for experiences, because those are empirical. There is a lot of respect here for logic, because logical arguments are true whether or not people believe in them or not." What are you talking about? It is exactly the opposite. Do you find telling a guy who invented a new steering wheel that he should start selling car logical?

Great thinking. If someone invents a new steering wheel, will you tell him to sell cars? Whereas being mean helps yours? If he had patented his telescope improvement (he did not invent telescopes), then, he would have had a monopoly on his improvement between 1609 and 1629. It would have also been in his interest that other people benefit from his invention during that period because he made money selling telescopes.

I am being told that you are manipulative, immoral, that you support violence, are a savvy investor, that you want to receive money for nothing, that you have no humor and that you packpedal, etc. and I should not take it personally? If this is what is philosophy, this is not for me. I came here to find answers on how to do without patents in a stateless society, I have gotten utopian answers only and tons of criticisms. Before coming here, I thought I was a good person, working very hard to improve things and driving, trying to raise my four kids the best I can. Now, I ma some kind of monster, something in between a serial killer and a psychopath. Was this the Socratic method? As I said, I am done with philosophy, this is too painful.

Why should you respect the property of someone? Suppose a guy leaves his house empty for six months, why shouldn't you take it? Personally, even in the absence of patents, if someone invents a new revolutionary solar panel and I manufacture solar panels, I would not feel too good to steal his idea, and particularly right away. I find it sad to learn that great inventors like Tesla or a more modest inventor like the one who invented the sewing machine died broke. But I guess this is because I am manipulative, immoral, I support the violence, I am a savvy investor, I want to receive money for nothing, and I do not understand philosophy.

You are all very intelligent and knowledgeable, but I find the climate very tense here. After couple posts, I learn that I am manipulative, immoral, that support the violence, that I am a savvy investor, that I want to receive money for nothing, that I have no humor and that I packpedal, that I should look for a job in a big company, that I did not try hard to convince by neighbors not to yell at the children, etc. I guess philosophy is not for me.

Patents last 20 years, but since it takes 5 years to get them, it is more like 15 years. In the US they give you a couple extra years when the examiners were slow, but this is the only place. So you want patents to be gone, period. Suppose a guy invents a solar panel that has a 90% efficiency, it does not bother you that all the manufacturers immediately copy it?

Sorry, Dsayers, but I think that everybody understood that I was joking. I am not intelligent enough to think that we should start by killing half of the people in order to create a beautiful society. I am not a communist. Some posters here might be though. Maybe more like for a stateless communist society variant. In this Utopia, people would have had been raised with love, people would be non-violent, people would not want to get rich, would want to help each other, ideas would be shared freely, people would work for big corporations (self-governed), individualists, who can only be trouble makers, would no longer exist.