Intellectual Property vs. Private Property Rights

[Grames]

There was an 8-page thread where I defended patent practices based on the requirements of objective law.

Objectivity and logic. It is not logically consistent to use the prior art standard to prove an invention is not novel, and then ignore the prior art standard for a second-to-invent case.

And also:

The evidentiary problem is so severe that in the case of patents the independent inventor's only defense is to prove his technology predates the patent by a year, and in copyrights prior publication. Also, as I said before the same standards have to be applied to all patent and copyright issues. If you have to be novel or original to get a patent or copyright, by definition anyone who comes along later is not novel or original. Permitting special pleading in the form of "but I didn't know about that other patent/song!" would apply a different and subjective standard than was applied to the original work. That would be just plain nonobjective and unjust.

That still stands.

Edited December 15, 2009 by Grames

[TuringAI]

There was an 8-page thread where I defended patent practices based on the requirements of objective law.

And also:

That still stands.

Except for the fact that those of us who are truly against patents would never use the requirement for novelty as a basis for a patent in the first place, because we don't believe in patents. Arguing about how a patent should be and that they shouldn't exist is a contradiction, in the very same way that arguing against god but arguing his qualities is a contradiction.

Also, "I've never heard that song before" typically is supposed to work, since if it were true it proves that your song is not a copy. What intellectual property should protect is works generated by means of copying. Copying is as much a physical act as an intellectual act, as it involves duplication of information, something that can be judged much easier than the opponents of this POV would like to think.

[Grames]

Also, "I've never heard that song before" typically is supposed to work,

That is impossible to prove, and so can prove nothing.

[TuringAI]

That is impossible to prove, and so can prove nothing.

That's a situation that exists sometimes, and thus is not impossible to prove. Anything that exists on this Earth is provable. Otherwise you're contradicting Objectivism.

[Jake_Ellison]

That's a situation that exists sometimes, and thus is not impossible to prove. Anything that exists on this Earth is provable. Otherwise you're contradicting Objectivism.

Objectivism holds that everything is provable? Let's start by proving that one then.