P3D Re: Idddeas and Patents

[michaelk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Michael Kersenbrock)]

> I guess we're lucky (again) that they didn't patent the steering
> wheel, because then we would have to learn to use a multitude of
> different steering devices!

Note that patents expire, and the first use of steering
wheels would probably have been long long before automobiles 
were invented.  Probably before the patent office opened, so
it would have been "prior art" when patents started.  :-)

In any case, just because someone has a patent it doesn't
mean that everybody won't be able to use it.  It often, if
not usually, means that the patent owner gets royaltees
for it -- and that may have been the whole point of it.  Not
to keep people from using the patent, but to get money for
letting others do so.

Also note that when the invention of the steering wheel
(or equivalent) occured and was patented, it was *new*
and *not* thought of by anybody else ahead of them.  Also,
it theoretically wasn't something "obvious to someone
skilled in that field".   Shouldn't someone who came
up with the revolutionary invention of a steering wheel
get payment for coming up with the idea and publishing
details about it, rather than everybody else just 
copying the idea and making money for themselves with 
the inventor's idea?

Or should ripping off of other people's ideas be the
norm and the best public policy?   Startup companies
would be unheard of -- large companies would just
copy the ideas and wipe them out instantly to the point
that there'd be no point of even starting a new company.

Anyway, this is getting a bit far afield even though
it started with a related patent.

Mike K.


> 
> Gabriel 
> 
> 



------------------------------