Equation
Lieutenant General
Nope. They get turmoil, chaos, civil war, and THAN regime change!
Chinese Economics Thread
- Thread starter Norfolk
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Hendrik_2000
Lieutenant General
Poverty alleviation program in China. the application of modern UAV for insecticide spraying,safer and more economical
Truly admirable what China has done and is doing to elevate/solve the poverty level in the country. More challenges ahead for China and the world at large, including Asia as the impending Economic Slowdown would hit most countries badly.
Hendrik_2000
Lieutenant General
Exactly when China is strong there will be peace and prosperity all around. But when China is weak, war and deprivation reign. Compare to other part of the world. Asia now is at peace and prospered
Specially Phillipine that has historic and blood relation with China. There were huge Chinese settlement before Spanish come they are disappeared in the larger population. That large number of Phillipino has Chinese blood without them knowing it
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plawolf
Lieutenant General
The core problem with current commercial IP protection is that they are far far too greedy about the fees.
The music industry is actually a very good case study.
It wasn't that long ago that people were paying £10-15 per album on CDs. Which roughly equates to £1 per song, with the music industry swearing blind that to charge any less would lead to the collapse of the industry.
Fast forwards to today, and you have music streaming services that offer you all the songs you can ever listen to for £10 a month for Apple Music (which is actually a huge deal less than the £10 CD if you factor in inflation). Amazon music is free to prime users.
Yet far from being crippled by the lower prices, there seems to be an explosion of new talent and music available compared to the days of the CDs.
If you can make billions from 1 invention, then the rewards system is broken.
Not only is that a vast misapplication of resources, it is also a massive waste of talent. Because suddenly, your brilliant coders/engineers etc are no longer doing the thing that they excel at and made their mark from. No instead their time is now mostly or entirely taken up with the new and different challenges associated with running a billion dollar mega corp. Or they just cashed out and decided they would rather spend the rest of their lives partying rather than working.
Very rarely do someone truly excel in any one field enough to make a worthwhile new contribution. It is far rarer for someone to be able to excel so in two vastly different fields. Just because someone writes brilliant code, or invented a revolutionary new drug/treatment, does not mean they can also be the next Steve Jobs.
Rather than trying to extract unreasonable profits from inventions, I say the patent system need to focus more on promoting the widespread adaption of good new ideas and technologies, and encouraging people to build upon the foundation these new technologies laid, to move onto something better. Rather than the current sorry state of affairs where the big tech companies are all devoting vast resources and time, often to literally reinventing the wheel. Just so they can get the same result with a method different enough from the existing patent holder's to allow them to get a different patent.
If it only costs pennies to license a new idea/tech, there would be far less incentive to pirate it or develop your own alternative version.
The patent system should also give added weight to application over pure theory.
A good idea on a piece of paper does no one any good. That should kill off the patent trolls plaguing the industry.
Patents should also be of variable length, but cut drastically compared to today, based on the complicity of the innovation, and there should be a sliding scale for follow-on ideas and developments made based on an existing patent.
So for new software, I would say 5 years is more than long enough for a patent from market release. With a 3 year exclusivity period from filing date before then to allow the inventor to make a marketable product from his invention.
So if you bring a product to market 6 years after you first filed the patent, well tough luck, you only have 2 years left before everyone else can use it for free.
There should also be annual assessments by the patent office within the 3 year exclusivity period to assss your progress at bringing the product to market. If you can show real, considerable effort to bring a product to market, the patent office can grant extensions to the 3 year development period if there are genuine technical challenges. OTOH, if you cannot show any meaningful effort to bring a product to market, the patent office can instantly revoke your patent and make the tech freely available to all.
If within that 5 year patent period someone develops something new based on this patent, he can be granted a new patent, but would have to pay the original patent holder a percentage of his royalties based on the percentage his work is based on the existing patent.
Thus it is actually in the best interest of patent holders to have as many other people making innovations based on his patents as soon as possible, as that will maximise his revenue from this patent.
It will also stop people and companies sitting on their laurels thinking they can milk a single patent for years or decades without having to do anything else. Or buying patents expressly to stop others from using it even if they themselves have no intention of marking a marketable product with it.
While having an element of "most-application-to-market" is sensible none of what you said addresses the issue of systemic bias in a first-to-file IP protection system in favor of well resourced/large entities against not well resourced/small entities.
Anyone, an individual, a small company, a large company, all have the same right to make billions on one invention. It doesn't necessarily mean the reward system is broken, it depends on what the invention is, its value in application, and what the market is willing to pay for it.
plawolf
Lieutenant General
There is nothing wrong with first to file, although my suggestion also adds a feasibility check to ensure patents are actually going to be used to make something rather than just being 'banked'.
As for the 'bias' towards well-resourced entities over individuals, well you seem to be living in a fantasy if you think your garage start-up should be on equal footing to billion dollar corporations.
If on the one hand, you have a company willing to invest millions to bring a viable product to market; while on the other you have a one-man-band garage start up who has absolutely no chance of being able to make something of a good idea, I say it's far better for the corporation to have the patent so society and the economy and maybe even the world could all benefit from this new product/technology compared to to being wasted by some stubborn crack pot too greedy to share.
The ability to make money from ideas and innovation is not a 'right' anymore than talent is a right.
Patents are best described as opportunities. When you file for a patent, you are effectively asking for the government to give you the first opportunity to make something worthwhile with this new idea you have.
How well you can make use of this opportunity depends absolutely on the amount of resources and expertise you have at your disposal. In this regard, corporations have a massive advantage in the amount of resources and talent they can draw on compared to smaller companies, never mind individuals.
So if we stick with the opportunities example, think of patents as university places. What you are suggesting is effectively the same as arguing that someone who had one single good idea should have the same chance to have a place in the best university in the country compared to someone else immeasurably more talented and capable.
You are also mistaken in assuming that patents have anything to do with market value.
When a patent is filed and granted, it actually artificially disrupts the natural market equilibrium price for said produce by arbitrarily inflating its price by the patent royalties fee.
The market does not want to pay the asking price, but the government is threatening to impose big fines if you don't pay the asking price (which includes patent fees).
This difference between what people (aka the market) are willing and/or able to pay and what the seller is charging is why you have piracy.
You have people and companies willing to risk the big fines and other penalties to supply the goods/services at a price that a signification part of the market previously priced out can afford to pay at.
When there are plenty of knock-offs with the same or even better equality and performance than the genuine article, the difference in price isn't from materials or labour, it's primarily from taxes, fees and the big fat profit margin patents allow companies to charge their customers.
Patents are actually a form of market failure, but it is deemed desireable to incentives innovation and progress.
Never forget that that is the core reason for patents. Not to help corporations or individuals to line their pockets with super fat profits. But to enable to encourage innovation and progress.
As such, if you have the patent system stifling innovation and slowing progress by forcing others to reinvent the wheel to avoid paying absorbent fees or face crippling lawsuits. Or if you have instances were people are able to extract way more than what is efficient, fair and reasonable as profits from an invention of questionable utility purely because patent law, then those are all bad bad things!
A core reason why China has been able to catch up so rapidly compared to the west is precisely because western patent laws have got the balance all horribly wrong and is becoming a drag on progress, rather than the protector and enabler of progress and advancement as it is supposed to be.
China invests heavily in original new R&D, but does not neglect R&D for incremental improvements like the west generally does.
Although that is not saying China's current system is by any means perfect.
China still relies way too much on the government to fund their big, risky, original R&D work, while private companies tend to focus instead on improving existing R&D. That is not really sustainable in the long run. So China does need to try and get its companies to take on a bigger part of the nationals R&D burden, especially on new original new tech.
solarz
Brigadier
I would take this further, and say that in this day of globalization and information age, current IP protection paradigms are like trying to plug a leaky boat.
The information age means people from anywhere in the world can share information quickly, and disseminate information to a vast audience. Globalization means goods are manufactured all over the world.
With the two combined, how can you ever effectively enforce IP protection as it currently is? Emerging economies will always prioritize growth over patents and copyrights, no matter what those in the developed economies say. The end result, and we've been seeing this happen for a while now, is that those developed economies get bogged down by their own IP laws, while the emerging economies get flooded with new innovations, whether original or copied.
What we need is a new paradigm. Remember that the goal is to foster innovation, not to let patent holders make a lot of money. The latter is only one method of encouraging innovation.
Direct monetary gain is only one possible reward. Scientists don't receive royalties from technologies that make use of their discoveries, but we are still seeing many scientists pursuing their research. Science has its own reward system, and I think innovation needs something similar.
Funny you are the one oblivious to or ignoring the many flaws in IP protection you point out which well resourced entities/large corporations are the ones best positioned to abuse.
Individuals and small businesses are more driven to openly market inventions at a reasonable price exactly because they are not well resourced to afford to squat or "dwell on the laurels" of their inventions and demand exorbitant prices, while large corporations can afford to do exactly that not just with their own inventions but with others' as well.
Large corporations are also much more likely to have such significant vested interests in the status quo that they would deliberately squat on or block inventions to delay or negate their potential negative impact on existing business while individuals and small businesses are extremely unlikely to be so vested.
First-to-file raises the barrier to entry to innovation because the cost-to-file has essentially been added to the cost-to-innovate both directly in terms of monetary and legal resources and in the form of increased risk of loss of ownership which negatively impacts individuals and small businesses much more significantly than it does large corporations. This is because IP ownership is the main, often only, means for individuals and small businesses to monetize their innovations while large corporations can do so through direct utilization in mass application or indirect utilization for further R&D.
Therefore first-to-file is a double negative for innovation compared to first-to-invent. First that it directly disincentivizes individuals and small businesses from innovation when the primary purpose of an IP protection scheme is to incentivize innovation. Second that it indirectly worsens the negative impact of an IP protection scheme by increasing the proportion of innovation pursued or owned by large corporations who by nature is prone to abuse of IP protection.
Hendrik_2000
Lieutenant General
China go bigway in robotic