Freee market useless on its own

[Seth]

rainbow wrote:

And the majority, who have more weapons and more means to enforce your compliance reserve the right to make you do what they want.

Over his dead body!

Or theirs....

[Seth]

The patent office is merely a registry, it has no enforcement powers whatsoever, which is as it should be. If I file a patent and you infringe on it, I sue you directly. The patent office merely keeps the public records of who is issued patents. A private registry would operate exactly the same way, all that is needed is legal authorization, just like ICANN and other privately-funded organizations that coordinate national and international matters. The government's only required role is to make the laws which govern the particular activity.

The office you describe is like the old Japanese office. You merely posted your claims there and then fought in court. The US Patent office involves science and engineering. The patent examiner, who you can try to bribe (but is well paid, same as their industrial counterpart) determines whether your claim is new and patentable. He will not band your cold fusion claim as he has no lab of that sort. The examiner will base his decision on reading the science.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patent_examiner

Actually he will issue a patent if it's a novel invention, regardless of whether it works or not. There are a very few exceptions, including "perpetual motion" machines.

The patent office, by law, is only charged with making sure that the invention has not already been patented. It has no authority whatsoever to rule on the operability or functionality of the device, much less its commercial usefulness. What he reads is "prior art" not "the science."

[rainbow]

Learn to take defeat with grace.

And therein lies the lesson: Authoritarianism and collectivism don't give a damn about anything other than what the majority wants and they both are willing to take what the majority wants, using whatever force is required, including jackbooted thugs with machine guns, to get it.

Adapt or die.

My job is not to die for my country, it's to make as many of the other sons-of-bitchs die for theirs as I possibly can. I'm very adaptable, you see. Which of course says nothing about your non-answer. Authoritarians always resort to "obey or die" in the end because they are incapable of rationally supporting their ideology, as we see here.

Learn to read.
I said adapt, not obey.

You have every right to disobey, as they have every right to lock you up for breaking the law.

...it's just how it is.

No point in whingeing.

[Tero]

The patent office is merely a registry, it has no enforcement powers whatsoever, which is as it should be. If I file a patent and you infringe on it, I sue you directly. The patent office merely keeps the public records of who is issued patents. A private registry would operate exactly the same way, all that is needed is legal authorization, just like ICANN and other privately-funded organizations that coordinate national and international matters. The government's only required role is to make the laws which govern the particular activity.

The office you describe is like the old Japanese office. You merely posted your claims there and then fought in court. The US Patent office involves science and engineering. The patent examiner, who you can try to bribe (but is well paid, same as their industrial counterpart) determines whether your claim is new and patentable. He will not band your cold fusion claim as he has no lab of that sort. The examiner will base his decision on reading the science.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patent_examiner

Actually he will issue a patent if it's a novel invention, regardless of whether it works or not. There are a very few exceptions, including "perpetual motion" machines.

The patent office, by law, is only charged with making sure that the invention has not already been patented. It has no authority whatsoever to rule on the operability or functionality of the device, much less its commercial usefulness. What he reads is "prior art" not "the science."

The Japanese patent office did not check even for novelty, that was my point. Two patents may have some overlap and they let it go so the "new" parts would get a quick posting, It was up to Japanese courts then to say what parts of each patent were valid. The US examiner will strike out parts that are not novel and send it back to the inventor's lawyer to rewrite. Actual science is involved since you cannot approve a patent without some understanding. The more theory you have, the better, though a mechanism is not required. A drug for Alzheimer's can be approved whether you know the mechanism of its action. The patent agent or a team has to be able to read the animal data. Some patents are rejected when the animal data is weak. Say it's only 3 animals.

[mistermack]

The description of the invention has to be clear enough, that someone with relevant skills and experience can make a working example of the invention.
I doubt if a cold-fusion system would come into that bracket.
Also, they do a search to see if something has been patented before. But even if it hasn't, if the invention has been known in the public domain, prior to your application, it can't legally carry an enforceable patent. You might get the patent, but it wouldn't stand up in court.