Who's flying the true conservative colors on patent reform and who is a pirate?
Of the Kinsella/Dinh pro-patent reform positions, IPBiz uses a metric that it is less likely that Nancy Pelosi will advocate a "conservative" position than Dinh will advocate a "liberal" position. Thus, IPBiz concludes that neither Stephan Kinsella nor Viet Dinh are flying the truly conservative colors on patent reform.
One of the other blogs missed the important point in detailing how different Viet Dinh was from the Democrats on "homeland security" and such. The key point here is that Dinh and Pelosi are almost on the same page on patent reform, and that tells you all you need to know about Dinh as a "conservative", neo or otherwise.
It's separately true that none of Pelosi, Berman, Kinsella, or Dinh want to talk about substantive issues, like why "post-grant review" (opposition), a product inspection step, is not going to solve the perceived problem of bad patents, a production step.
**Of points in Kinsella's later comment
Mr. Ebert: do you deny that most patent lawyers are in favor of the patent system? That most patent lawyers are opposed to *radical* weakening of patent right? That is my point. The details of the current legal changes are really "insipid", to me. They distract from fundamental issues.
Mr. Kinsella's initial post was about "patent reform", not about the patent system. As to "who is where" on patent reform, the AIPLA and the IPO seem to be mostly in FAVOR of the proposed reforms. Hmmm, does that mean they are NOT in favor of the PRESENT patent system?
"In "Who You Gonna Call?" (Intellectual Property Today, March 2007, page 8), patent attorney Charles Gholz basically assumed post-grant opposition was a done-deal and was pointing out how interference attorneys would be the best (only?) attorneys to handle post-grant review. Gholz was NOT terming post-grant review or first-to-file as radical."
Why would he? This is merely tinkering with the system. It's just a minor detail. It won't affect patent attorneys very much.
IPBiz thinks the whole "reason" for Mr. Gholz's writing the March 2007 is that Mr. Gholz thinks that post-grant review is going to affect attorneys in the position of Mr. Gholz a whole lot. That means "very much."
See also:
http://ipbiz.blogspot.com/2007/12/what-is-conservative-position-on-patent.html
http://ipbiz.blogspot.com/2007/12/kinsella-way-off-on-patent-reform.html
http://ipbiz.blogspot.com/2007/12/kinsellas-post-on-patent-reform-insipid.html
One of the other blogs missed the important point in detailing how different Viet Dinh was from the Democrats on "homeland security" and such. The key point here is that Dinh and Pelosi are almost on the same page on patent reform, and that tells you all you need to know about Dinh as a "conservative", neo or otherwise.
It's separately true that none of Pelosi, Berman, Kinsella, or Dinh want to talk about substantive issues, like why "post-grant review" (opposition), a product inspection step, is not going to solve the perceived problem of bad patents, a production step.
**Of points in Kinsella's later comment
Mr. Ebert: do you deny that most patent lawyers are in favor of the patent system? That most patent lawyers are opposed to *radical* weakening of patent right? That is my point. The details of the current legal changes are really "insipid", to me. They distract from fundamental issues.
Mr. Kinsella's initial post was about "patent reform", not about the patent system. As to "who is where" on patent reform, the AIPLA and the IPO seem to be mostly in FAVOR of the proposed reforms. Hmmm, does that mean they are NOT in favor of the PRESENT patent system?
"In "Who You Gonna Call?" (Intellectual Property Today, March 2007, page 8), patent attorney Charles Gholz basically assumed post-grant opposition was a done-deal and was pointing out how interference attorneys would be the best (only?) attorneys to handle post-grant review. Gholz was NOT terming post-grant review or first-to-file as radical."
Why would he? This is merely tinkering with the system. It's just a minor detail. It won't affect patent attorneys very much.
IPBiz thinks the whole "reason" for Mr. Gholz's writing the March 2007 is that Mr. Gholz thinks that post-grant review is going to affect attorneys in the position of Mr. Gholz a whole lot. That means "very much."
See also:
http://ipbiz.blogspot.com/2007/12/what-is-conservative-position-on-patent.html
http://ipbiz.blogspot.com/2007/12/kinsella-way-off-on-patent-reform.html
http://ipbiz.blogspot.com/2007/12/kinsellas-post-on-patent-reform-insipid.html
posted by Lawrence B. Ebert at 4:52 PM
1 Comments:
Mr. Ebert:
A few comments. Re your theme and title: "Who's flying the true conservative colors on patent reform and who is a pirate?"
I never claimed to be "conservative". I happen to be pro-individual rights, pro-property rights, pro-free market, unlike conservatives. I.e., a libertarian. Moreover, your bizarre contrast implies that the IP spectrum ranges from "conservative" to "pirate". This is fallacious in several ways. First, it begs the question by assuming that "piracy" (i.e., "no IP") is "bad", i.e. you are just assuming that IP is good. Second, you are assuming that "conservative" is a coherent doctrine; it is not coherent, much less "good" or the "right" position (more question begging?).
"Of the Kinsella/Dinh pro-patent reform positions, IPBiz uses a metric that it is less likely that Nancy Pelosi will advocate a "conservative" position than Dinh will advocate a "liberal" position. Thus, IPBiz concludes that neither Stephan Kinsella nor Viet Dinh are flying the truly conservative colors on patent reform."
Thank God. "Conservative", to the extent it has meaning, merely means aping the leftists about 20 years later, sort of like soft rock FM stations play stuff now that was edgy a generation ago.
I have painstakingly argued why the fundamental assumptions that underlie patent and copyright are unjustified--from a pro-property rights point of view. You are free to try to refute them.
"It's separately true that none of Pelosi, Berman, Kinsella, or Dinh want to talk about substantive issues, like why "post-grant review" (opposition), a product inspection step, is not going to solve the perceived problem of bad patents, a production step."
I find this accusation simply bizarre. I have a fundamental and principled case against patents as such. According to this view, patents are unjust and harmful. The stronger patent rightgs, the worse. The weaker, the better. The limit is abolition of IP. So long as there are patents of whatever strength, to that extent they infringe on property rights. Therefore my position is that any reform that weakens patent rights is by and large good. The details, from such a perspective, are irrelevant. Just as someone who opposes government taxes does not waste a lot of time on whether a flat tax or sales tax or income tax or this or that tweak is better--just as an abolitionist who opposed chattel slavery opposed it root and branch, and would not concern himself with trivial changes to the regulations in a system of slavery.
"**Of points in Kinsella's later comment
'Mr. Ebert: do you deny that most patent lawyers are in favor of the patent system? That most patent lawyers are opposed to *radical* weakening of patent right? That is my point. The details of the current legal changes are really "insipid", to me. They distract from fundamental issues.'
"Mr. Kinsella's initial post was about "patent reform", not about the patent system."
This is a truly odd way of arguing. Utterly sidestepping every substantive point at issue, meanwhile having the chutzpah to falsely accuse me of not having a substantive position.
"As to "who is where" on patent reform, the AIPLA and the IPO seem to be mostly in FAVOR of the proposed reforms. Hmmm, does that mean they are NOT in favor of the PRESENT patent system?"
The entire organized patent bar is manifestly in favor of a federal-government mandated patent monopoly system, more or less along the lines we've had for decades now. The details are important only to people who swim and live in the system and who cannnot--will not--conceive of the system's illegitimacy as such.
""In "Who You Gonna Call?" (Intellectual Property Today, March 2007, page 8), patent attorney Charles Gholz basically assumed post-grant opposition was a done-deal and was pointing out how interference attorneys would be the best (only?) attorneys to handle post-grant review. Gholz was NOT terming post-grant review or first-to-file as radical."
"'Why would he? This is merely tinkering with the system. It's just a minor detail. It won't affect patent attorneys very much.'
"IPBiz thinks the whole "reason" for Mr. Gholz's writing the March 2007 is that Mr. Gholz thinks that post-grant review is going to affect attorneys in the position of Mr. Gholz a whole lot. That means "very much.""
I have no idea what is the relevance of such trivial remarks. The question is: is the patent system justified? Are current reform proposals radical, or merely minor? Do they move in the right direction, or not?
These are the questions. Quite obviously, central-state granted monopolies are an abomination and unjustified--and anti-property and anti free market. Current reform proposals do nothing radical at all; they only change a few details of a largely intact, unjust system. The changes largely, but not unambiguously, weaken patents slightly, so they are marginally good, though nothing to write home about--as I noted earlier, the recent and proposed changes are analogous to reducing income tax rates from 49 to 48.7%.
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