Inventing the Telephone, Independently 203
An anonymous reader writes "There is a nice article about the history of the telephone at AmericanHeritage.com. Most of us know that Alexander Bell beat Elisha Gray to the patent office by mere hours to claim credit for the invention of the telephone, but did you know that two other inventors can also claim the invention, including Thomas Edison? Similar disputes about independent invention and patent ownership can be found regarding the television, the airplane, and the automobile. Maybe it really is true: the economic benefit of encouraging patents is like that of encouraging window breaking."
Thomas Jefferson was agaist patents? (Score:5, Interesting)
Doesn't follow (Score:5, Interesting)
Maybe it really is true: the economic benefit of encouraging patents is like that of encouraging window breaking.
That doesn't follow from the fact that inventions are often independently reinvented. Inventions are so often independently reinvented because new inventions depend at least as much on having all of the supporting technologies and ideas in place as they do on the cleverness of the inventor. Once the prerequisites are in place, it's not surprising that several bright people will simultaneously hit on the way to put them together. However, it's still possible that without the knowledge that patents will allow them to protect the results of their success, inventors might not be *motivated* to create their inventions.
It's equally possible that the existence of patents doesn't provide any incentive to potential inventors. I think the truth is somewhere in between, but the main point is that the frequency of multiple independent invention doesn't really say anything one way or the other about the efficacy of patents as motivators for creating and publishing new ideas.
Elisha Gray (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Interesting... (Score:5, Interesting)
By taking a situation where there exists "plenty" and using legal fictions to create scarcity, they are clearly destroying wealth.
Re:Doesn't follow (Score:3, Interesting)
What it does say is that most inventions do not take unique capabilities or unique ideas, and that the temporary economic monopoly in quite a few cases gets assigned to the random inventor who happens to be at the patent office first, and not by definition to the one who put in the most efford, made the best variation on the invention, made the best documentation or anything like that.
What is more, if you look at the RCA vs Farnsworth battle about TV, patents can in fact delay the introduction of an invention by decades easily.
Re:To elaborate slightly (Score:3, Interesting)
Not at all. I asked for showing cause and effect.
The factual record is that there was more economic growth in 100 years than there was in the previous 1000. Patents were a key component of that. You can hypothesize that it would have happened without the modern patent system, but the fact is that it didn't.
See this post [slashdot.org]
Patent = monopoly (Score:4, Interesting)
Newsflash: Patents = monopolies
A patent is a monopoly on a technology. The patent office is a government institution that hands out several thousand monopolies each year. Most of these monopolies are awarded to foreign corporations.
Why would someone who believes in market economy and free competition support the government handing out monopolies?
How can handing out monopolies to corporations increase competition in the market place?
Why is Microsoft, a convicted monopolist, applying for, and getting a large number of legal monopolies? Why does the government sue MS for abusing their monopoly, and then give them thousands of legally enforcable monopolies?
Re:The parable of the broken window (Score:3, Interesting)
Also, people who "hoard" money also help the economy (well, today they do, since basically no one keeps it in a box buried in the backyard). They'll invest it in stocks, or bonds, or just put it in the bank, who'll then invest it. And investement is good for the economy.
In short, yes, all economists agree about the broken window fallacy.
I wouldn't say that (Score:3, Interesting)
Maybe I'm chasing an impossible dream, but I have to wonder if there's a better way to provide a strong incentive to create ideas and other information other than by placing artificial restrictions on the availability and use of that information. I've got no ideas here.
Re:and like Calculus (Score:5, Interesting)
One obvious effect would be that you could license it from whichever inventor with whome you could come to the best agreement.
I certainly can't see any logical reason why anyone who invented something independently of another should be deprived of the fruits of their own effort.
Still badly broken. (Score:3, Interesting)
I wonder what it would be like if everyone who invented the same device could receive their own patents as long as their applications were filed before any were published.
But this still cuts out all those who legitimately develop something obvious after it has been patented. What is obvious to one person may not be obvious to a patent examiner. Just because it was not obvious to a patent examiner does not mean it would not have been obvious to any number of others who are at the top of their fields and should have the right to do research without the landmines laid everywhere for them by the government-granted monopolies or even oligopolies you propose. It would still be badly broken. It denies others the right to independently develop without paying taxes to the one who hired the lawyers first.
Re:Who Did invent the TV? (Score:1, Interesting)
Except that, and how appropriate, Richard Pearse flew before the Wrights.
http://chrisbrady.itgo.com/pearse/pearse.htm [itgo.com]