By: mpx (mpx.delete@this.nomail.pl), March 15, 2010 11:41 pm
Room: Moderated Discussions
There is a failure of law to protect large, complex things from "property" related to smaller things that get in a way of these large complex things in context of technology. The fact that a patent on a tiny, unimportant component of the whole product can block entire product from being either sold or manufactured is stupid, unusual and without precedent in other areas.
In other cases law actually is on a side of large, complex things. For example in case of roads if any property is in a way of a planned road then it will be expropriated. Same for dams on rivers or in many countries even large manufacturing plants. Of course those expropriated are given fair compensation, but nothing unusual or spectacular like in many of those patent cases.
There is an interesting side effect to this: it is a huge risk to manufacture technology products in any country that has paranoid patent system (USA, Germany etc.): your products can be confiscated, plants shut down. The best way to avoid such catastrophe is to locate maufacturing in a contry with lax patent system or enforcement (like China). Then, even if you loose patent suits in paranoid countries you can still manufacture your products and sell then to weak-patent countries like Russia, Brasil etc.
In other cases law actually is on a side of large, complex things. For example in case of roads if any property is in a way of a planned road then it will be expropriated. Same for dams on rivers or in many countries even large manufacturing plants. Of course those expropriated are given fair compensation, but nothing unusual or spectacular like in many of those patent cases.
There is an interesting side effect to this: it is a huge risk to manufacture technology products in any country that has paranoid patent system (USA, Germany etc.): your products can be confiscated, plants shut down. The best way to avoid such catastrophe is to locate maufacturing in a contry with lax patent system or enforcement (like China). Then, even if you loose patent suits in paranoid countries you can still manufacture your products and sell then to weak-patent countries like Russia, Brasil etc.