[Discuss] your key message about patent and innovation to deliver to a public session at mozfest london

[Matt Maier]

Hi Antoine, thanks for reaching out.

I would emphasize that patents are a way to get inventors to share their
discoveries. Without the legal protection of patents, most people would
keep their inventions closely guarded secrets.

What we're doing in OSHW is exploring and nurturing an alternative
mechanism for getting inventors to share. OSHW speeds up the development
cycle by including thousands more people in it.

Patents made more sense back when technology moved relatively slowly and
everyone thought the way to speed it up was to give individual geniuses
anything they needed. Today we have ample evidence that technology is
accelerating and part of the reason is that we're connecting ordinary
people in vastly greater and richer ways.

In OSHW it doesn't really make sense to even bother thinking about patents
because sharing produces immediate, tangible rewards which the inventor
exploits and moves on from in the same time it would take a patent
application to go through. So patents are mostly ignored.

Additionally, in theory the OSHW inventions should be unpatentable after
they're publicized.

If I could change one thing about patents it would be that they are only
enforceable if the patent holder is actively using the patent (like
trademarks). It sickens me to see inventions put on a dark shelf just so
they don't interfere with existing products. That's just me though.

On Oct 13, 2016 00:08, "Antoine C." <
smallwindturbineproj.contactor at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hello everybody,
>
> I'm supposed to participate to a session at mozfest 2016: patent and
> innovation, for manufactured things made with atoms, in an openness way.
>
> So, as I wish to port messages coming from FLOS-Hardware people, instead
> of giving my own point of view, may I ask you this question: What would
> be your very top most important key short message each of you would like
> me to deliver to "Mozilians" about this question of "patent and
> innovation" for hardware ?
>
> Love and Peace,
>
> Freely
>
> Antoine C.
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> discuss mailing list
> discuss at lists.oshwa.org
> http://lists.oshwa.org/listinfo/discuss
>
>
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