Worst Case Scenario Business Survival Guide on the Private Taxation of Computational Ideas

Last modified by Stefano Maffulli on 2023/02/17 01:53

Many professionals today consider the patent system to be seriously dysfunctional, especially as it intersects with computer programs. This has led to proposals for change to national legislation around the world, and to international agreements. 

Any negotiated legislative solution will take years to accomplish, even within a single juridiction. Unless and until the system is fixed, companies and individuals need something like an edition of the "Worst Case Scenario Survival Guide" that focuses on intellectual rights and restrictions. That thought led me to take a look inside: Borgenicht, D. and M. Joyner. 2010. "The Worst-Case Scenario Business Survival Guide.":http://ca.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-0470551410.html N.Y.: Wiley. p.150. The following passage is from page 151 on so-called 'intellectual property'

the-worst-case-scenario-business-survival-guide.jpg"The only way to protect your intellectual property is through speed."

"Yes, patents and copyrights are important, but here's what no one tells you: enforcing them often takes more time and energy than any financial reward merits. It's extremely challenging to obtain a legal judgement in such cases. And collecting on the judgement is even more difficult. So, attempting to fight such battles is really a losing proposition and should only be undertaken in the most egregious cases when the defendant will likely be compelled to make restitution. But 99.99 per cent of the time, forget about all that. Accept that your ideas, and often your work, will be ripped off. 
Beat them to it by coming to market harder and faster. If you must go the legal route, put it in the hands of the toughest lawyer you can find (who bills fairly) and let them loose. Then forget about it."

Twenty years ago an executive at the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) was asked how Indian firms protect themselves from the patent wars, considering that during those years North American companies and governments were loudly complaining that India and China were failing to protect so-called "intellectual property". He replied that the most effective strategy is usually to focus on out-innovating the competition by allocating funds and effort into R&D that would otherwise get diverted into patent registration and litigation. Copycats will emerge, but if all they do is copy your past innovations, they'll always be a step behind. Besides, registering a patent requires that each new innovation be precisely described and published, which only facilitates copying by others. And yet any successfully registered patent is useful only if the patent holder is prepared to defend it through litigation, which further implies a contingent commitment of scarce attention and money. On the other hand, not registering an innovation under a patent lets you direct all that scarce time and money into more innovation, and it puts you in the driver's seat in terms of how slowly or quickly you let competitors know about your innovations. For work you choose to not publish via patents, they will have to study and reverse-engineering them to catch up. In other cases, it will serve you interests to have your innovations adopted quickly, across the entire industry, unimpeded by all the factors that go with patents. This CII executive's perspective opens ones mind to a way of thinking about patents and other restrictions on know-how, and anticipates the central business strategy of participation in free/libre/open works.

Tags:
    

Submit feedback regarding this wiki to webmaster@opensource.org

This wiki is licensed under a Creative Commons 2.0 license
XWiki 14.10.13 - Documentation