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by dredmorbius
4994 days ago
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The structural effect of legally sanctioned DRM was to make large-scale for-profit audiovisual media replication (and services predicated in whole or part on this) impossible. It did rather less to save the old oligarchy (the entertainment-industrial cartel) though it may have slowed its decline somewhat, than it did quash the emergence of smaller-scale, decentralized upstarts. Instead, we've ended up with Apple iTunes Store, YouTube, and a handful of streaming services such as Pandora and Spotify. I see the Myhrvold patent as less a threat in itself than of a very strong indicator of how and what he's thinking of. And I don't care for what it suggests, though I don't know how bad the effects will be. A huge factor for 3-D printing will be that replication isn't merely a copyright issue anymore, but that we'll be staring straight into the abyss of wide-scale patent infringement. A patent incurs infringement on anyone who ... "without authority makes, uses, offers to sell, or sells any patented invention, within the United States or imports into the United States any patented invention during the term of the patent". Big ole' can o' worms there. And IV looks to be sitting right in the middle of it. |
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There are exceptions, e.g., for research and development.
Would printing a prototype of a product to be produced overseas (and never imported) be infringement?
When patent trolls start being linked to loss of jobs, i.e. linked to impeding the creation of new jobs, then IV is going to have a more serious PR problem.
pIt is the aggressive pursuit of the small inventor^1 that will signal the eventual demise of the trolling business, because at that point it will have become more than just tax collection on innovation from existing businesses. It will be an impediment to the formation of new businesses and the creation of new jobs.
1. Ironically it was the small inventor, with the help of an enterprising litigator like Niro, approaching the large company producing products, like Intel, that motivated to the term "patent troll". But truthfully, some small inventors do want to produce products. Some of them do start companies. All large companies were once small ones. If the trolling business is taken to its natural end, building an impenetrable thicket that can block any player in a given industry, are potential entrepreneurs going to pay a troll for a license just to _start_ a business? What do you think?