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| Authored by: cricketjeff on Thursday, May 17 2012 @ 05:11 AM EDT |
Boulton and Watt were notorious for patent litigation and they held back steam
engines for at least 25 years, even after the patents had expired they tried to
refight litigation. HOWEVER there is a big difference, a Boulton Watt engine
when installed was probably good for forty or fifty years work, a machine
designed in 1805 could still be useful 100 years later. Smartphones are out of
date in 12 months, the patent period to make things equal would have to reduce
to 6 months, 6 month software patents would still be wrong but we could live
with them.
A further observation, the US was as notorious as Boulton and Watt in IP areas
after independence, copyright of overseas artists was not only ignored but US
writers were able to obtain copyright on overseas works and sue the original
writers if they tried to use their efforts in the states. US patent prior art
did not include any non US publications, which did wonders for many American
companies whose research consisted of posting patent specs over from Europe ...
What is still common between the 19th and 21st centuries is that a bureaucracy
that failed to do its appointed task properly still wants to be allowed to
prosper and grow ...
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There is nothing in life that doesn't look better after a good cup of tea.[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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