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It's about disclosure, stupid

By Lawrence B. Ebert, Esq.

Unlike certain mindless intellectual property professors, patentfools at least understood that disclosure is part of the patent system, in writing:

The Patent system has 2 reasons to exist: incentive to disclose inventions; and, dissemination of those ideas. In short, great ideas are brought forward and rewarded, and those who follow can build upon them. So, which of these principles does Intellectual Ventures completely undermine? Both. What is the incentive to come forward with a great idea when your only buyer is Intellectual Ventures? What is the possibility of building on those ideas when you?ve got to pay the bill for the other 20,000 (19,500 of which are likely worthless.) patent properties at the same time? The answers: Zero and zero.

As to the public, there is only one reason: obtaining public disclosure of inventions that meet the requirements of patent law. Giving a grant of exclusivity is a cost to the public, not a "reason to exist" for the patent system.

Of the rest of the patentfools text, one hopes that in a free market system, an inventor may deal with entities IN ADDITION TO Intellectual Ventures, so that "your only buyer is [not] Intellectual Ventures".

Full post as published by IPBiz on November 05, 2008 (boomark / email).