Interesting People mailing list archives
IP: "we wouldn't do that" (nationalize patents)
From: David Farber <dave () farber net>
Date: Fri, 19 Oct 2001 19:38:31 -0400
Date: Fri, 19 Oct 2001 19:10:54 -0400 (EDT) From: "Mike O'Dell" <mo () ccr org> To: dave () farber net Subject: "we wouldn't do that" (nationalize patents) uh, the US has done it, and several times at one point in history, it was impossible to (legally) build a steam locomotive in the US because it was impossible to obtain all the necessary patents. If you got a license from FOO, then BAR wouldn't license you theirs, and vice versa, except there were several more patent holders than two. the Congress finally got tired of the shouting matches and simply nationalized the patents, paid everyone a token fee, and then told them all to get busy building railroads instead of enriching laywers. a more recent example was the creation of RCA, the Radio Corporation of America. essentially like before, it was almost impossible to obtain all the patent licenses required to build state-of-the-art radios without spending a fortune in lawyers fees. when it became important to build radios for the war effort, Congress again stepped in, nationalized the patents, and the Radio Corporation of America was created to provide one-stop-shopping for the bundle of licenses at a cost that didn't interfere with production. yup - several people got very screwed in all this, but the US government decided having something widely available was more important than any one company getting rich. so people shouldn't be so quick to throw around "socialist" accusations. we've been there and done that, too. -mo
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- IP: "we wouldn't do that" (nationalize patents) David Farber (Oct 19)