Geek Speak — HabitableZone

Geek Speak » in reply to Property rights.

"true" property rights.
Robert — (archived)

I think we start out in agreement, that the most tangible property rights are the most defensible and the most widely understood. Nobody misunderstands "hey, get outta here, this is my house!".

My argument is that as the concept of property rights has become more and more abstract, and as the property in question becomes intangible, there's room both for abuse of the system as well as for mistakes and bad decisions by bureaucrats and politicians. At the risk of sounding downright Conservative, "activism" at the PTO can be as damaging as (the Right believes) is "judicial activism". The PTO's been expanding the concept of property by expanding what's patentable and issuing patents for abstractions like "business processes".

The latter concept is scarily vague, and it's the basis for silly yet damaging patents for things like clicking the link in hypertext document and practically every aspect of eCommerce. Does a different technological platform really make the traditional practice of commerce suddenly new and novel? The expansion of the definition of property in combination with a government willing to grant a patent for almost anything is a situation ripe for abuse. The system designed to protect property ends up being used for restraint of trade and creation of false monopolies. That doesn't sound too healthy to me. And yet, to turn around an argument you've used on me before, it's only possible because the government's willing to expand its "regulation" of property.

That's just the situation with patents. In the area of copyrights we have abominations like the DMCA, and that's a thread in it's own right.

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