So here we see two arguments against intellectual property on discoveries. The first is that they are not created by a discoverer. This is true. But what about the knowledge about these discoveries? Isn’t it created by a discoverer?
A person’s knowledge is actually an attribute of a person. And every man owns himself, so you definitely don’t own my knowledge.
Isn’t it created by a discoverer? Isn’t it a product of the work of his mind? And can’t he demand protection of his property rights on this knowledge? If not – why? It doesn’t follow from miss Rand’s premise.
No, no, no, because knowlege belongs to the person doing the “knowing”.
If, for instance, you discovered some secret, and posted it on this forum, I would learn it, and that knowledge would be mine. Asking me to un-learn it would be silly. But you are free to guard your secret, you don’t have to tell me, so you do have the right to your discovery, you just don’t have the right to force me to ignore it once I find out about it.
Miss Rand’s premise is that IP can be implemented through patents and copyright. If the person who comes across a discovery uses it to actually make something useful, be it a product or a process that can be replicated, then that person can patent that something and sell it. Or, one can write a book about the discovery itself, and sell it and it is copyrighted. (or one can make a youtube video and give it away for free) What one cannot do is tell other people to ignore what they read, after they bought that book (or saw in the vid), instead of learning about the discovery and using it to create useful things the discoverer chose not to or was unable to create.
The second argument doesn’t follow from her premise too. She states that the discoverer can’t “demand that men continue to pursue or practice falsehoods”. But why can’t he? He surely can demand that men use less efficient methods of production without his permission even if they have objective knowledge about more efficient methods. How is that less absurd?
An owner of a patent has control over his property, which is a specific product or process. If it is a product he can demand that no one else produce and sell it, because he invented it. If it is a process, he can demand that no one use it, because again, it’s his invention. Why are you saying that he could demand that no one can use some other, more efficient process, that he didn’t invent, to achieve the same goal? (let’s say X invents a way to purify water, who say that Y isn’t free to purify water in another way? you can’t patent water purification, you can only patent a specific way to do it)
And here we come to the question: isn’t the strict division between inventions and discoveries arbitrary? Can’t we represent any invention as some combination of laws of nature? Can’t we describe any invention in a manner which what contain nothing but statements about objective properties of some physical body or parts of it and about how their manifestations under certain conditions? So is there any objective difference between a discovery and an invention?
If there isn’t than we should protect discoveries by patents and that will result in an utter chaos.
We’re in luck then, since there is. Is there something specifically about which you don’t know whether it’s a discovery or an invention?
The second one is the time limit on the intellectual property rights. As far as I remember miss Rand puts forward only one argument for such time limit: intellectual property doesn’t depreciate. But so, what? Land plots don’t depreciate too, but we protect property rights on them for eternity. The product of my mind will forever remain the product of my mind. Doesn’t it mean that my property rights on it should be protected, too, forever?
The purpose of patents is to give credit where it is due, but they shouldn’t be used to hold up other people’s prorgess. For instance, you can’t “reserve” Internet addresses just for the purpose of selling them to celebrities with that name, precisely for that reason. The time limit is another way to ensure that the purpose of a patent is to allow the owner to profit from his invention, not to instead patent something to control other people’s actions. If patents were allowed to be forever, then even after the time it usually takes an invention to run its course, the patent holder will still use it just for that second purpose. (Maybe someone can come up with a concrete example, to better explain it, I’m not that familiar with the subject.)
But aren’t you arguing in favor of patents wthout time limit, rather than against patents, anyway, here? Why would you do that?
But nevertheless let’s take all these arbitrary limitations for granted and than explore the ultimate example, which, to my mind, absolutely destroys the idea of intellectual property at its root. Let’s suppose that I invented a new chess opening. Do I have the right to forbid all other chess players to use it? I don’t see why not – this is clearly the product of my mind. But then we should say goodbye to chess and to the most of other competitive games as well.
You have the right to invent (and patent) a new game, and forbid anyone from playing it, if you wish. (I think there are plenty of games which are patented)
My explanation would work best if chess had an owner, because then it would be quite easy to just say that since you volunteered to work on someone else’s property (the game of chess, in which every possible move is layed out already, by its inventors), your contributions belong to that person, not to you. But it’s not private property, it’s “open source”.
It is unclear how it lost its owner, but it did. That doesn’t mean that you can patent it yourself. What you can do is ammend it, as in modify its rules, or add to them, and come up with your own flavor of chess. (a clearer example would be Linux, which is an open source OS that can be freely modified, and the modifications can be patented and sold, but Linux itself cannot be claimed.)
Another example this would apply to is NFL rules American Football. The NFL took the game of football, which was a “free sport”, and created a league, and all sorts of new rules for it.
If you come up with a play that works great in the NFL (an application of their rules), and tell them about it, they will thank you for your help, and send you on your way. However, if you come up with a new set of rules, and patent them as Gavagai football, you can make your own league and the NFL can’t steal your ideas. There needs to be an objective process, in which you present some proof that you will indeed use the set of rules you invented, before you can patent them. ( otherwise, everyone would patent all sorts of nonsense just hoping to stumble on something they can use to shake down the NFL)
As we have seen miss Rand’s central premise leads us to laughable absurdities.
You can play Devil’s advocate just as usefully, without going quite that far.
if he cares to make his discovery public, claiming it to be true, he cannot demand that men continue to pursue or practice falsehoods except by his permission”