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There's no evidence to support your conclusion | 545 comments | Create New Account
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There's no evidence to support your conclusion
Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, June 17 2013 @ 11:49 AM EDT

You state:

However, patentablility ALLOWED the development.
That suggests:
    Without patentability, no development of new battery technology would have been allowed
While I agree that, as applied to some people - they would have not allowed new battery technology in their labs - for others that's a false statement.

There are those who would find a way to develop that new technology on their own even though every business mind said "no, you can't do that in my lab on my dollar".

As a result, my opinion is: If patents did not exist - then the desire to produce a viable new product alone would have been sufficient to drive development of the new battery technology. In my case - simply a desire to explore new technologies is enough to drive R&D. Granted: it's on my own dime. But a potential patent on what I'm doing plays no role.

You seem to misunderstand part of the audience you're directing your arguments at:

    People like me, who do R&D out of pure enjoyment - for whom patents are problematic because they are used to entrap our own ideas - do exist!
I have no trouble grasping your perspective as applied to business minds who expect a ROI before signing off on any money. I can grasp that just fine.

Why can't you grasp there are those like myself who do not operate on even the mearest thought of a financial ROI?

In case you doubt the level to which some of us would continue, I point you to review the biography and history of Nikola Tesla. He did R&D on his own dime. That includes development into the prototypes of his technology. It was when he approached the investment people that he was shut down in some of his endeavours. One of those reasons to shutting him down was:

    His idea threatened to upset the industry as it currently existed - an industry where those same investment people were already reaping their ROI and they didn't want that to stop.
That raises an interesting question:
    Given the entrenchment of battery tech at the time - what did Lithium Ion tech have to fight through just to get to market?
Another interesting question:
    Are back-office agreements the cause why the standard battery sizes (AAA, AA, A, B, C, D) are not being produced with Lithium Ion tech?

RAS

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

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