ON THE LIMITS OF IP (PATENTS, TRADEMARKS, COPYRIGHTS) PATENTS It must be product

ON THE LIMITS OF IP (PATENTS, TRADEMARKS, COPYRIGHTS)

PATENTS

It must be productive (fully informed, warrantied, voluntary).

Therefore:

a) IP must protect an investment (born cost), not squat an option: piss-on-a-fire-hydrant.

b) IP cannot be used to deny a product to market, only to recoup an investment at some non-arbitrary multiple from a market.

c) As a consequence it is hard to understand the grant of a monopoly rather than a commission. And it is hard to understand unquantified and long term IP.

d) It is almost impossible to argue in favor of aesthetic ‘design patterns'(interpretive). It is quite easy to argue in favor of scientific, engineering, and software patterns(operational).

e) it is human nature to retaliate against profiting from non-contribution (copying). This violates the test of productivity.

In addition to productivity, grasping this subject requires an understanding full accounting (in this case opportunity costs),

a) Polities form to decrease opportunity and transaction costs.

b) Competition is the battle to seize opportunities created by density and property, and competition cannot form if one can squat opportunities (seize unhomesteaded property). Squatting opportunities is just a form of theft. Ergo IP that squats opportunities rather than recoups a risky investment is just theft by rent seeking.

TRADEMARK

A trademark is just another form of weight and measure that prevents misrepresentation. it is easy to argue for ‘design patterns’ (interpretive) limits on the use of them in a market – although it appears that enforcement is ridiculously overzealous because the law has no empirical means of measurement. This means of measurement is now available by the 2-3 second discretion test. Meaning that If a random group of people can glance at a pair of trademarks and not be be confused between or inferred by one another then empirically there is no confusion. Trademarks are very difficult to argue with.

COPYRIGHTS

Copyrights are the most questionable, although the market has solved this with the various Creative Commons and MIT etc licenses, which require consent for commercial use, but not for personal use. This preserves the demand for productivity for market participation.

The central problem with copyrights is that they create opportunities for profitability in the ‘lower’ arts, producing low quality arts in volume and saturating the environment, the marketplace and the informational commons with low quality arts. The great works would not cease being produced by great artists if no money was available except by sponsorship. Conversely, the low arts would be impossible to fund. Revoking the total copyright on literary and artistic works, and defaulting to the creative commons instead, would collapse the hollywood market. Prohibiting dramatization of the lives of individuals would complete the suppression of their propagandism.

Curt Doolittle

The Propertarian Institute

Kiev, Ukraine