BTW, Myhrvold's the ex-CTO of Microsoft who, as incredible as it sounds, missed the whole Internet thing. Were it not for Bill Gates, Microsoft would have been screwed. Imagine that... you're the CTO of the biggest software company in the World and you miss the rise of Internet. Needless to say, his tenure was over after that.
Admittedly off-topic: I find Gladwell over-rated. He picks interesting questions to ask, all right, but he never gets around to answering them. Like: why does the tipping point work? He proposes no hypotheses.
Raising questions of that calibre is a job in itself. I am glad he is not coming up with half-baked hypotheses. This whole thing about 'Not asking questions till you can propose solutions' doesn't cut it for me.
For instance in Blink, he points out that a very successful golf player doesn't even seem to understand the reasons for his success. This has important implications. Do successful people really know why they are successful ? Do we take them a little too seriously ? After all self-improvement is big business.
this is exactly why patent reform needs to happen now. innovation-stifling patents make everyone nervous, and cause neverending hassle for tech research and development. patents were designed to keep someone from copying someone else's designs, not to get a stranglehold on a wide swath of tech landscape. as they've gotten more generalized over time, they've also gotten more abusive.
If the patent couldn't be transferred, wouldn't this mean that only the inventor, personally, was allowed to make the product?
Invent a new type of fuel pump, and you've gotta spend the next ten years on the factory floor putting together fuel pumps. Doesn't sound like much of an incentive.
I think you've misunderstood the point of the patent.
If the patent couldn't be transferred, wouldn't this mean that only the inventor, personally, was allowed to make the product?
In a word, yes: you, the inventor, have the right to build it. You can also say who else can build it. That was the point of the copyright/patent clause. Here, read it for yourself:
To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.
Nowhere does it say anything about Congress being allowed to make laws that enable the purchase of said patents or copyrights. That's unconstitutional -- and if you doubt this, take a gander at the letters that Jefferson and Madison wrote about the issue while they were debating it. Jefferson, for instance, writes:
I like the declaration of rights as far as it goes,
but I should have been for going further. For
instance, the following alterations and additons would
have pleased me... Article 9. Monopolies may be
allowed to persons for their own productions in literature,
and their own inventions in the arts, for a term not
exceeding ___ years, but for no longer term, and for no
other purpose.
Obviously they did not intend for "intellectual property" to develop. If you can't touch it, you can't own it.
More on the Jefferson/Madison correspondence here:
Millionaire Nathan Myhrvold, renowned in the computer industry as a Renaissance man, has a less lofty message for tech companies these days: Pay up.
Over the past few years, the former Microsoft Corp. executive has quietly amassed a trove of 20,000-plus patents and patent applications related to everything from lasers to computer chips. He now ranks among the world's largest patent-holders -- and is using that clout to press tech giants to sign some of the costliest patent-licensing deals ever negotiated.
In recent months Mr. Myhrvold's firm, Intellectual Ventures, has secured payments in the range of $200 million to $400 ...
Yes, this is precisely what the US founding fathers were imagining when they added the copyright/patent clause. By "artists and inventors", they obviously were referring to corporations whose sole purpose is to buy patents and then sue over them. Clearly they wanted patents to be bought and sold as if they were physical goods. That's why they started the clause with "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts".
BTW, Myhrvold's the ex-CTO of Microsoft who, as incredible as it sounds, missed the whole Internet thing. Were it not for Bill Gates, Microsoft would have been screwed. Imagine that... you're the CTO of the biggest software company in the World and you miss the rise of Internet. Needless to say, his tenure was over after that.
Edit: And if you're a fan of Gladwell, you will cringe as you read this: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/05/12/080512fa_fact_...