[PLUG-TALK] IEEE P1817 "Consumer Ownable Digital Personal Property"

[Keith Lofstrom]

> On Wed, Mar 16, 2011 at 1:13 AM, Keith Lofstrom <keithl at kl-ic.com> wrote:
> > Patents perform the same function that shotguns perform in
> > liquor stores.
> >
> > Keith

On Wed, Mar 16, 2011 at 06:50:32PM -0700, Denis Heidtmann wrote:
> In your view, is the shotgun aimed at the bottles or the thieves?

One shotgun is aimed by the thief/inventor at the proprietor,
inducing him to share the revenues illegitimately misappropriated
from the alcoholic community.  The other shotgun is aimed by
the proprietor/corporation at the thief, to prevent the thief
from getting any of the revenue, allowing the proprietor to
lower the cost of the bottles.  The rest of society is like
the innocent bystanders in the liquor store, likely to get
hit by the crossfire, because shotguns are notoriously
imprecise in their deliveries.  

Perhaps the patent courts should occasionally and randomly
assign shotguns instead of lawyers, just often enough to scare
sane people away from patent litigation.  Maybe not, as an
inventor I observe that most of us are kinda insane, anyway.

Keith

-- 
Keith Lofstrom          keithl at keithl.com         Voice (503)-520-1993
KLIC --- Keith Lofstrom Integrated Circuits --- "Your Ideas in Silicon"
Design Contracting in Bipolar and CMOS - Analog, Digital, and Scan ICs