This was originally a comment in response to the blog http://mistgalaxie.blogspot.com/2006/09/gnu-gnu-gpl.html, but after posting several times I still couldn’t get it through; it kept prompting, “We’re sorry, but we were unable to complete your request. ” I don’t know why. Since I’ve already written so much, and it would be a waste not to post it, let me put it here for now:
An appropriate system of patents and copyrights makes sense both from the standpoint of justice and from the standpoint of practicality. If a new technology developed by an institution through countless hours and immense effort were given no protection at all, and immediately turned into a public resource, that would be unfair to the inventor. One should not expect this interest to be obtained entirely through government rewards; that is unrealistic. When one does philosophy or writes books, one doesn’t need much investment, but modern scientific and technological research requires ever greater investment. A project may easily cost hundreds of millions or even more, yet the benefits its results may generate are hard to assess fairly before those results have been put into practice. Even if the benefits of each technological achievement could be properly evaluated, governments often cannot afford to pay rewards sufficient to offset the R&D investment. In such circumstances, the market can both fairly test the benefits and provide proper compensation to the researchers, and if research results are to be compensated in the market, a system of patents and copyrights is essential. A proper patent system can stimulate enthusiasm for scientific research; many famous Western “laboratories” rely on patents and on the market to ensure the source of research funding and to sustain the continued development of scientific and technological research. By contrast, the long-standing neglect of the diversity of scientific research, the neglect of patent protection, and the failure to use the market to stimulate scientific and technological innovation (it is not enough to rely only on patriotic self-sacrifice to inspire enthusiasm for innovation) are in fact a major historical reason why China’s science and technology lag behind, and why even now technological development still trails economic development. The key issue is not whether patent and copyright protection should exist, but how patent and copyright should be protected. Patents and copyrights cannot be protected indefinitely. The purpose of protecting patents is to ensure that the huge investment in research can receive fair compensation, but one should not encourage technological “monopoly.” At present, a better approach is to protect patents for a limited period, leaving several years in which the researchers can enjoy the “priority right” to enter the market; that is to say, the researchers can enjoy the “first pot of gold” in the market benefits brought by their achievements. Afterwards, at the appropriate time, the knowledge should be disclosed within a certain scope and exchanges should be carried out. In addition, patent protection is not universally applicable. What I have mentioned above refers mainly to those “technologies” that can be put into practical production relatively quickly—for example, engineering, machinery, biology, medicine, software, electronics, and so on—whereas “basic science” such as mathematics and theoretical physics cannot be confused with practical technology. The “patent”ing of mathematical discoveries is laughable; the achievements of basic science must be treated in a way different from technical patents. Patent and copyright protection is a very practical matter. Merely saying “advocate patent protection” or “oppose patent protection” has little meaning; one must take into account the complex realities. The patent or copyright issues in basic science, engineering, biomedicine, computer software, book publishing, and other fields are all different.
Latest Comments
- mist
2006-09-08 00:12:40
The framework I envision is to abolish the market and have the government allocate everything uniformly; then the “first pot of gold” you mention would be equivalent to government rewards. But I am too idealistic. For the present, no government would do this, although perhaps they have the ability to do so—just as you said, “it is not enough to rely only on patriotic self-sacrifice to inspire enthusiasm for innovation,” but people do in fact have the ability to do just that; it’s just that fewer and fewer are willing, which means that interests are needed to drive things forward.
ps: blogger has launched a beta version, which you can view at beta.blogger.com. I have already joined the test, and that may be why you could not reply. - mist
2006-09-08 00:32:08
I’ve set it so that anonymous users can reply, but I don’t know whether you still can’t leave a comment.
- Gu
2006-09-08 09:06:02
Eliminating the market is no small matter; I’m afraid that would only be possible in the legendary communist society. Otherwise, entrusting such enormous power to the government would probably be a very dangerous thing: companies would indeed be hard-pressed to form monopolies, but then it would become government arbitrariness instead. Still, many insightful people have long proposed replacing market returns with government rewards to encourage scientific and technological innovation—for example, the mathematician Wiener, and others. They were aiming precisely at the field of basic scientific research, holding that basic-science innovation cannot be governed by the same policies as technological innovation, and that reward mechanisms should be the main approach, with patent protection abolished within a certain scope.
Translated from the Chinese original with AI assistance. The original text is authoritative.
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