Patent Bending
James Surowiecki,
The New Yorker,
Jul 08, 2003
This brief article gets at what's wrong with the current patent environment in a few sentences. Imagine a world in which you had to pay royalties if you sold advertising in newspapers, fast food, delivered packages overnight, or threw a forkball. Patents hinder the competition from copying your invention, which by most accounts is fine. But today's regime crushes entire industries. "One inventive soul won a patent for a system of using pictures to train janitors. Another got one for describing a way to cut hair with both hands.... Selling auctioned items at a fixed price. What gall."
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