Is that really reality though? I'm not convinced that reality would play out this way. The inventor has the advantage of being first to market, this gives a significant advantage and allows them to establish a market for their brand. Brand etc all has value, and being first to marked and establishing a brand continues to give the inventor an advantage over the competition. This also encourages the inventor to continue to innovate to remain ahead of their competitors - which is a natural motivator for innovation.

People will invent and will innovate regardless of if a patent system is in place or not - I think that the concept of "recoup your costs" is probably better described as "making an absolute disproportionate shit load", and this is half the problem with our world right now - organisations don't want to recoup costs, they want it all, every dollar, every person has and the patent system is just one more tool that is being wielded to achieve that goal.

Sure there will be cases where this doesn't fit well, but there are also many cases where the current patent system doesn't fit well. It's not simple choosing which way is best.

This is a fair question, and perhaps I would think differently in this position. I'm not in this position so my view is not tainted by my greed.

So my view is based on what I see as the better situation for the greater good of all, and I'm giving little to no consideration to any individual (be it a person or other entity).

I could also counter with the converse argument - consider I had an idea that could yield me a couple of thousand dollars a month but I can't due to a patent issue then ....

Not disagreeing with you except, we already live in an oligarchy, our governments have very little resemblance of a democracy.

Agreed - as the situation is right now it seems that everyone except lawyers would gain from abolishing patents. The large patent holders just seem to be passing (and passing through lawyers) penalties to each other. There seem to be no net gain for the parties on either side. Abolish patents and it's almost business as usual except for the lawyers.

I know this is an exaggerated assessment but from an outside observer, it's not that far from the reality I see.

As an Android user (and I dislike Apple for various reasons that have been covered to death here) I must give Apple credit here - they do seem to have done it correctly from the start.

It does seem Android included encryption in 2.3.4 but I was unaware of this: http://www.howtogeek.com/14195...

It seems android does have full device encryption (not enabled by default). It also has an option 'Clear storage' which "Clears credential storage of all contents resets its password"

I'm glad that Android is no longer lacking here.

I was retaliating to his poor behaviour, probably not the best form but not quite the same as his unprovoked insults.

No, I just didn't like his pompous righteous attitude and unnecessary insults.

There's more than one way to point out that someone overlooked a detail (or failed at reading comprehension) without being an arse about it.

Seriously - you're a tosser and a coward.

But thanks for pointing out what I missed.

Tosser.

Seems Apple have done it right, thanks for the heads up.

Obviously I'm rather ignorant regarding storage on iOS devices - I didn't realise that all data was encrypted by default (does that include images etc?).

That's a good start, but I doubt it over writes any data - this *seems* like a soft delete and I'd expect one could still get the original data (??)

It'd also be nice if Android had such a feature built in.

Yes true, there is that disincentive there.

As stated above this really should be an inbuilt OS feature - "Reset for resale"

It shouldn't take an understanding or knowledge of the intricacies of how the device works or how to properly erase data. It should be automatically done by the OS since most phone users do not know how to do it properly.

This may only be true in some warped utopian view of the world, but I expect the issue is not the automation or job losses, it's the disproportionate distribution of the spoils of automation.

If we're all fed and don't need to work then I don't see an issue with being unemployed - we can instead pursue personal pursuits for the sake of enjoyment etc.

If we're not all fed then their will be opportunity for employment in creating food for us to eat, etc.

I'm probably wrong, but it seems reasonable.

Absolutely - it's call redistribution of labour.

The labour that is now tied up making widgets (of questionable real value) are freed to use their labour for some other task.

This "it will create unemployment" argument seems to occur all the time and I'm yet to witness any significant long term real world unemployment event due to automation. I doubt we ever will.

Actually isn't it that around 25% of a device cost goes to royalties/patent costs?

http://www.itnews.com.au/News/...
http://www.digitaltrends.com/m...