Robert Romero

It hasn't been established in this debate that ideas are property, so comparing them to a house is begging the question. Also, with a house, I spend virtually no energy establishing that it's my property (no burglar would try to claim that he's justified in breaking in because the house doesn't belong to the owner), With patents, there are lengthy lobbying efforts to establish the monopoly, lengthy and costly efforts to establish who thought up what first (is it really just to deny someone the right to make a product simply because he didn't file for the monopoly first?), how close an idea has to be to be considered "stolen", etc.

It’s not a utilitarian argument. Is the competitor acting for the “good of all”? Obviously not. He’s acting in his rational self interest. The same goes for the people buying his superior engine. It would be irrational and against their self interest not to buy the superior engine (based on their rational analysis of what’s superior, not someone else’s). As for the creator, the rent seeking behavior caused by a patent is also against his self interest. Instead of using energy and resources to make and sell a product, he’s diverting them to maintaining his monopoly. This causes inefficiency. Further, as I showed in the case of James Watt, the presence of patents actually inhibits the ability of creators to be innovative, which is hardly in their self interest. So no, the case against IP is not utilitarian. Nor, for that matter, is it deontological. It’s very much in line with Objectivist ethics.

We're debating whether ideas, inventions, etc. should be considered property, not the moral justification for property. I believe I've made a strong case that IP is not moral. It makes everyone worse off. What was unique about Watt's behavior that would have justified losing his patent? What was "invalid" about his actions according to patent law and the principle of IP?

Of course there's such a thing as better. If the "creator's" competitor improves on the design by making a more efficient, less expensive, more powerful, etc. engine, NO rational person is going to say it's not better. It uses less fuel, does more work, and saves people money. People are hardly going to think the guy demanding that they buy the original engine because it maintains the "integrity" of the idea is making any sense. His only rational recourse is to make still further improvements. As for the "moral" justification for IP, I've cited research showing that everyone is better off without patents. Again, that's more moral by any rational standard. As for everyone not doing what Watt did, what's the point of a patent if no one bothers to enforce it? So of course the person who demanded a patent will enforce it, even though it's ultimately counterproductive.

It makes no sense to say an "owner" of an idea is the sole determiner of what is "better". If someone patents an engine, and one of his competitors improves on the design (by obviously objective standards such as improved efficiency, lower cost, etc.), then the opinion of the "owner" is irrelevant. People are going to prefer his competitor's engine. How can that improvement be wrong by any rational standard? Watt did what all owners of a patent monopoly do--he expended a great deal of resources trying to enforce it (instead of working hard to make better engines). So if he didn't "deserve" a patent, no one does, because as I've demonstrated, patents do NOT promote innovation. They inhibit it.

That fails to address the point. Watt increased orders and maintained prices after the expiration of the patent. IOW, he benefited by not having it around. So did everyone else. Why was it a good thing to have to wait 32 years for this to happen?

What do you mean by "intellectual integrity"? Suppose someone takes the idea and improves on it, as one of Watt's competitors tried to do. How is that harming the "intellectual integrity" of the product? It seems rather obvious that it's to everyone's benefit for that improvement to occur.

https://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/jep.27.1.3

You’re conflating scarce things with nonscarce things. Ideas aren’t scarce. They can be copied without limit, and still remain in the mind they’re copied from. That’s completely different from, say, a piece of land. Empirical evidence does not support such a claim. I previously cited what happened with the steam engine. After the expiration of the Watt patent, innovation increased. Watt made more money. I also cited a research paper which found this: And this: This shows that not only does the absence of patents not inhibit innovation, patents actually hinder innovators and favor old and stagnant industries.

That seems a bit like saying a Ford is a 1908 Model T, and that any other subsequent models aren't. Why should "Rearden metal" be a static concept? Why can't anyone, including Rearden, improve on it?

I don’t know what “delegating to government” means in this context. Private contracts are voluntary. Wouldn’t government action be involuntary by its nature? I was looking at an excerpt of the book talking about patents, and it said that even if someone independently invents something and fails to get to the patent office before someone else, the granting of the government monopoly is ok because the process is “competitive”. That sounds ridiculous. That’s like saying that as long as there is competition for a cable monopoly, granting one is ok.

I don't see why not. A contract is a contract. OTOH, suppose the buyer then sells or gives a sample of Rearden metal to a third party. That person is under no contract not to analyze it. The fact is that the knowledge of how to make Rearden metal is going to spread, just as it became common knowledge how to make steel, bronze etc. I don’t view this as a bad thing. The process of innovation builds on previous knowledge. It would be ridiculous to have to “reinvent the wheel” while making anything, all the while hoping that someone didn’t patent the wheel. Perhaps someone improves on Rearden metal. Perhaps Rearden then uses the improvement to further improve it. We want these improvements to happen, not be inhibited by IP.

I don't know enough about metallurgy to say that's wrong, or that the idea in general of making something too difficult technically to copy is wrong. I will say that if someone was smart enough to begin with the ingredients of Rearden metal, and, using his own intellect and metallurgical knowledge, was able to duplicate it, then I would not say he has stolen anything.

You’re asking me to get into the heads of fictional characters? I could give a very plausible motivation within the context of the novel. Rearden is a “man of the mind”, as Rand put it. She would not characterize the men of the State Science Institute as such (“State Science Institute” has no more to do with science than “People’s Republic” has to do with democracy). She would view them as mystics and men of force. It’s doubtful that she thought they would have had the intellectual capacity to analyze the metal and duplicate it, so they needed it spoonfed to them. Furthermore, it would never occur to them to behave as entrepreneurs and think in terms of improving the formula, making it more available, and making a buck. Their entire outlook is against the spread of knowledge, in favor of established interests and against innovators, and against technical innovation. IOW, much like today’s implementation of patents. So it makes perfect sense for them to acquire (as part and parcel of the notion of ideas as property) it to make sure no one else has knowledge of it and can use it. It simply becomes the property of the State.

If it results in more people using Reardon metal, gives greater opportunity for improvements on it (including by Reardon himself), and doesn't necessarily result in Reardon making less money, why not? This is exactly what happened with James Watt's steam engine.

If the use of it by someone else doesn’t deprive the inventor of his use of it, how is he deprived of a need? The point is not that anyone who uses something owns it. The point is that the inventor can still use his invention, so there is no basis for saying anything has been taken from him. The point regarding air is that no one’s use of it deprives anyone else of the use of it. The same thing applies to the use of an idea. Commercializing an idea does not mean someone has a property right in the value of the idea. You cannot say “no one can do anything that affects the value of my property”. If lots of people sell the same model car that you’re selling, and you can’t sell your car for as much as you wanted as a result, that’s your tough luck. If someone copies an invention, he’s no more entitled to prevent a third person from using the invention than the first person is.

Agreed, but that doesn’t address the point. How does copying an idea or invention keep someone from thriving according to his own individual ends? He still has the product of his thinking, and can do anything he wants with it. Nothing has been nullified. If people see someone else inventing a spear, and decide to copy that invention, how does doing so deprive the inventor of the spear of anything? He obviously still has his spear and is able to use it to serve his life. Nothing has been taken. The advocate of IP is saying ONLY the inventor can make spears, and indeed is justified in using violence to prevent anyone else from making one. That would mean far fewer spears are made, meaning much less improvement in everyone’s life, including the inventor’s. That severely limit’s man’s ability to survive, which is antithetical to your original point.

BTW, in response to the objection that the steam engine is “just one example", I found these quotes from a research paper on patents: So we see that patents are not associated with new, innovative firms, but old stagnant ones, and that they favor the old stagnant ones over both the innovative firms and consumers. No advocate of capitalism should favor this kind of cronyism. This kind of empirical data is an effective counter to the claim that patents are "needed to encourage innovation". It also effectively counters the claim that patents encourage innovation. In fact, the paper shows this: Sounds like all that's being protected here is work for lawyers, not ideas. More proof of the cronyist nature of patents. This is an example of the perversion of capitalism. What we have is corporate state capitalism, not free market capitalism. And who gets hurt by it? You, me, and the true innovators.

Or you could have a boilerplate law that isn't as bloated and simply refer to it. Would take all of one sentence, perhaps with a web link. Not that difficult.

Your counter example of comparing a more socialist economy to a more capitalist economy is flawed. Citing this or that economic statistic as “proof” that everyone in the socialist economy is better off makes no sense. Socialism by its very nature means that some people have their property taken from them by force. There have to be losers. It’s always a win-lose situation (is everyone better off under Obama because the stock market has risen under him?). The bad consequences (for many, many people) far outweigh any “good” consequences. Every proponent of capitalism knows this. Every proponent of capitalism also knows that all transactions in the market are voluntary, so it always has to be a win win situation. In my example, everybody was better off without a patent. It was win win for everybody. Not only that, the win win was the logical consequence of the absence of a patent. People, including Watt, were free to innovate without the hammer of patent law being brought down on them. More people could make steam engines. Why was that bad, and why wasn’t it logically attributable to the absence of a patent? Give me time on your other question.

Why would a declaration of copyright at the beginning of the book have to cite a bloated document written by a committee of politicians? Why would it have to have that particular form?

After the expiration of the steam engine patent, Watt made more money, engines got better, and more people had them. How did that not make everyone better off?

200 pages seems like a gross exaggeration.

It wouldn't make sense to issue a patent and then not bother to enforce it. That's the same as having no patent at all. Watt and everyone else was better off without a patent.

Agreed. It’s not irrelevant. If something is nonscarce, then how can anyone be deprived of it? Everyone lives, everyone thrives. What’s the issue? Air illustrates why the nonscarcity of something makes it meaningless to worry about who “owns” it, or any issue of living and thriving. No one says, “I can’t live and thrive because you’re breathing ‘my’ air”. You’re not addressing my point. If you have a bagel on your plate and I take it from you, of course that’s wrong. But if, by my having knowledge of it, I can make a copy of it, it’s meaningless to say I’ve taken it from you. It’s still there in front of you. You can still do whatever you want with it. That doesn’t address my point either. I’m talking about the situation where someone is the first guy to invent a log cabin and proceeds to build one. The proponent of IP is saying that the first guy is justified in saying to everyone around him “I’ll club any of you who copies my invention and builds his own log cabin on his own land with his own materials and labor, even though doing so doesn’t keep me from living and thriving in my log cabin”. There would be a whole lot less thriving with such an attitude. As I pointed out in my previous post, everyone (including the inventor) was better off in the absence of a patent (the legal implementation of IP) for the steam engine. I think a morality that makes people better off is superior to one that makes them worse off.