Trade Secrets

I'm not certain what to make of this study which asserts that 90+% of truly useful innovations are not patented. I have my doubts because in the chemical arts--and pharmaceutical inventions in particular--the converse is more likely the case. The paper takes a minute to load so here's the abstract:

Abstract

It is well known that not all innovations are patented, but the exact volume of innovative activities undertaken outside the coverage of patent protection and, relatedly, the actual propensity to patent an innovation in different contexts remain, to a major degree, a matter of speculation. This paper presents an exploratory study comparing systematically patented and unpatented innovations over the period 1977-2004 across industrial sectors. The main data source is the ‘R&D 100 Awards’ competition organized by the journal Research and Development. Since 1963, the magazine has been awarding this prize to the 100 most technologically significant new products available for sale or licensing in the year preceding the judgments. We match the products winners of the R&D 100 awards competition with USPTO patents and we examine the variation of patent propensity across different contexts (industries, geographical areas and organizations). Finally we compare our findings with previous assessments of patent propensity based on several sources of data.

Trade secrecy is the default setting for intellectual property law. It's what the system reverts to when things get ugly, costly and when openness is abused. Trade secrecy is not what Thomas Jefferson wanted for us.

SCOTUS is like the New Testament

The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun. ~Ecclesiastes 1:9 (KJV)

The Supreme Court echoed Ecclesiastes' "new thing under the sun" language in a case concerning the patentabilty of oil-eating bacteria, i.e., a species of living things engineered by humans. The decision recited:

The Committee Reports accompanying the 1952 [Patent] Act inform us that Congress intended statutory subject matter to "include anything under the sun that is made by man."
~Diamond v. Chakrabarty, 447 U.S., 303 (1980)

Compare "there is no new thing under the sun" with "anything under the sun that is made by man."  Novelty was inherent in the Supreme Court's phrase because they were construing 35 U.S.C. § 101, which provides:

Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title.*

SCOTUS affirmed that micro-organisms constituted a composition of matter within the meaning of the statute.

Can we reconcile SCOTUS with the Old Testament?  Yes, if we consider Ecclesiastes to refer to matter per se and not to compositions of matter. New chemical compounds, even living organisms, are just old atoms put together in new ways.

On the other hand, SCOTUS was also saying that there was such a thing as something new under the sun, so long as it was made by man.
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*Emphasis added. The language came from Jefferson, but he originally used the term "art" for "process."

Pedaling Uphill

US Patent No. 6,293,874

I'm staying away from here days [lol] and elsewhere next week, putting in several hours a day studying for an exam I plan on taking in January or February.  I'll be back for the solstice and for the end of the world according to the Mayan calendar.

Expired Terms

Sixty Grit raised an interesting point back here about substituting everyday chemical substances for commercial products.  This is a very DIY approach and reminds me of a thriving barter economy.

It also reminds me of a Jeffersonian Ideal.  In his view, patents were a sort compromise: monopoly rights granted for a fixed term in exchange for a full disclosure into public domain.  The latter is never emphasized, and yet the Patent Office essentially publishes an online "how-to" manual for many many useful inventions. They all come with expiration dates, the one date which is rarely emphasized.  Why do you suppose that is?

The Parable Of The Doorkeeper*

link to original

Franz Kafka (1915):

Before the law sits a gatekeeper. To this gatekeeper comes a man from the country who asks to gain entry into the law. But the gatekeeper says that he cannot grant him entry at the moment. The man thinks about it and then asks if he will be allowed to come in sometime later on. “It is possible,” says the gatekeeper, “but not now.” The gate to the law stands open, as always, and the gatekeeper walks to the side, so the man bends over in order to see through the gate into the inside. When the gatekeeper notices that, he laughs and says: “If it tempts you so much, try going inside in spite of my prohibition. But take note. I am powerful. And I am only the gatekeeper. But from room to room stand gatekeepers, each more powerful than the other. I cannot endure even one glimpse of the third.” The man from the country has not expected such difficulties: the law should always be accessible for everyone, he thinks, but as he now looks more closely at the gatekeeper in his fur coat, at his large pointed nose and his long, thin, black Tartar’s beard, he decides that it would be better to wait until he gets permission to go inside. The gatekeeper gives him a stool and allows him to sit down at the side in front of the gate. There he sits for days and years. He makes many attempts to be let in, and he wears the gatekeeper out with his requests. The gatekeeper often interrogates him briefly, questioning him about his homeland and many other things, but they are indifferent questions, the kind great men put, and at the end he always tells him once more that he cannot let him inside yet. The man, who has equipped himself with many things for his journey, spends everything, no matter how valuable, to win over the gatekeeper. The latter takes it all but, as he does so, says, “I am taking this only so that you do not think you have failed to do anything.” During the many years the man observes the gatekeeper almost continuously. He forgets the other gatekeepers, and this first one seems to him the only obstacle for entry into the law. He curses the unlucky circumstance, in the first years thoughtlessly and out loud; later, as he grows old, he only mumbles to himself. He becomes childish and, since in the long years studying the gatekeeper he has also come to know the fleas in his fur collar, he even asks the fleas to help him persuade the gatekeeper. Finally his eyesight grows weak, and he does not know whether things are really darker around him or whether his eyes are merely deceiving him. But he recognizes now in the darkness an illumination which breaks inextinguishably out of the gateway to the law. Now he no longer has much time to live. Before his death he gathers in his head all his experiences of the entire time up into one question which he has not yet put to the gatekeeper. He waves to him, since he can no longer lift up his stiffening body. The gatekeeper has to bend way down to him, for the great difference has changed things considerably to the disadvantage of the man. “What do you still want to know now?” asks the gatekeeper. “You are insatiable.” “Everyone strives after the law,” says the man, “so how is it that in these many years no one except me has requested entry?” The gatekeeper sees that the man is already dying and, in order to reach his diminishing sense of hearing, he shouts at him, “Here no one else can gain entry, since this entrance was assigned only to you. I’m going now to close it."

The original:

Vor Dem Gesetz

Vor dem Gesetz steht ein Türhüter. Zu diesem Türhüter kommt ein Mann vom Lande und bittet um Eintritt in das Gesetz. Aber der Türhüter sagt, daß er ihm jetzt den Eintritt nicht gewähren könne. Der Mann überlegt und fragt dann, ob er also später werde eintreten dürfen. »Es ist möglich«, sagt der Türhüter, »jetzt aber nicht.« Da das Tor zum Gesetz offensteht wie immer und der Türhüter beiseite tritt, bückt sich der Mann, um durch das Tor in das Innere zu sehn. Als der Türhüter das merkt, lacht er und sagt: »Wenn es dich so lockt, versuche es doch, trotz meines Verbotes hineinzugehn. Merke aber: Ich bin mächtig. Und ich bin nur der unterste Türhüter. Von Saal zu Saal stehn aber Türhüter, einer mächtiger als der andere. Schon den Anblick des dritten kann nicht einmal ich mehr ertragen.« Solche Schwierigkeiten hat der Mann vom Lande nicht erwartet; das Gesetz soll doch jedem und immer zugänglich sein, denkt er, aber als er jetzt den Türhüter in seinem Pelzmantel genauer ansieht, seine große Spitznase, den langen, dünnen, schwarzen tatarischen Bart, entschließt er sich, doch lieber zu warten, bis er die Erlaubnis zum Eintritt bekommt. Der Türhüter gibt ihm einen Schemel und läßt ihn seitwärts von der Tür sich niedersetzen. Dort sitzt er Tage und Jahre. Er macht viele Versuche, eingelassen zu werden, und ermüdet den Türhüter durch seine Bitten. Der Türhüter stellt öfters kleine Verhöre mit ihm an, fragt ihn über seine Heimat aus und nach vielem andern, es sind aber teilnahmslose Fragen, wie sie große Herren stellen, und zum Schlusse sagt er ihm immer wieder, daß er ihn noch nicht einlassen könne. Der Mann, der sich für seine Reise mit vielem ausgerüstet hat, verwendet alles, und sei es noch so wertvoll, um den Türhüter zu bestechen. Dieser nimmt zwar alles an, aber sagt dabei: »Ich nehme es nur an, damit du nicht glaubst, etwas versäumt zu haben.« Während der vielen Jahre beobachtet der Mann den Türhüter fast ununterbrochen. Er vergißt die andern Türhüter, und dieser erste scheint ihm das einzige Hindernis für den Eintritt in das Gesetz. Er verflucht den unglücklichen Zufall, in den ersten Jahren rücksichtslos und laut, später, als er alt wird, brummt er nur noch vor sich hin. Er wird kindisch, und, da er in dem jahrelangen Studium des Türhüters auch die Flöhe in seinem Pelzkragen erkannt hat, bittet er auch die Flöhe, ihm zu helfen und den Türhüter umzustimmen. Schließlich wird sein Augenlicht schwach, und er weiß nicht, ob es um ihn wirklich dunkler wird, oder ob ihn nur seine Augen täuschen. Wohl aber erkennt er jetzt im Dunkel einen Glanz, der unverlöschlich aus der Türe des Gesetzes bricht. Nun lebt er nicht mehr lange. Vor seinem Tode sammeln sich in seinem Kopfe alle Erfahrungen der ganzen Zeit zu einer Frage, die er bisher an den Türhüter noch nicht gestellt hat. Er winkt ihm zu, da er seinen erstartenden Körper nicht mehr aufrichten kann Der Türhüter muß sich tief zu ihm hinunterneigen, denn der Größenunterschied hat sich sehr zuungunsten des Mannes verändert. »Was willst du denn jetzt noch wissen?« fragt der Türhüter, »du bist unersättlich.« »Alle streben doch nach dem Gesetz«, sagt der Mann, »wieso kommt es, daß in den vielen Jahren niemand außer mir Einlaß verlangt hat?« Der Türhüter erkennt, daß der Mann schon an seinem Ende ist, und, um sein vergehendes Gehör noch zu erreichen, brüllt er ihn an: »Hier konnte niemand sonst Einlaß erhalten, denn dieser Eingang war nur für dich bestimmt. Ich gehe jetzt und schließe ihn.«

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*Doorkeeper or gatekeeper?  The original German is Türhüter, a compound word meaning door + guard.** German has two words Tür and Tor which mean door and gate, respectively. Both stem from the same root and are obviously cognate with "door." Kafka would have used doorkeeper instead of gatekeeper, but the metaphorical gatekeeper is more entrenched in English.

**hüter is cognate with the English word/concept "to heed."

'Umble Pie

[I changed the title from "Humbler Pie" to 'Umble Pie because it reminded me of the Artful Dodger]

I guess Steve Marriott is an acquired taste. I'll never forget him as the leader of Humble Pie, the very first rock concert I saw. But he was more than that. He was a defining face (albeit a small one) of the 1960's rock and roll scene in Britain. I did a brief homage to him a year ago: link. But I forgot to mention that he was an uncredited inventor of Led Zeppelin's Whole Lotta Love (well, he along with Willie Dixon).  Listen to this 1966 version of "You Need Loving" and tell me it didn't influence Robert Plant three years later:

Of course both Led Zeppelin and the Small Faces were copying Muddy Waters' 1962 version of Willy Dixon's "You Need Love."  Dixon sued Led Zeppelin in 1985 over copyright infringement and prevailed. He never sued Marriott. In the words of Plant:

well, you only get caught when you're successful. That's the game.

The whole story reminds me of Bob Dylan recording Dave Van Ronk's version of "The House Of The Rising Sun" in 1962 and then being one-upped by The Animal's version a year or so later as told in Martin Scorsese's "No Direction Home."

"He who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me"

Original

From a letter written by Thomas Jefferson to Isaac McPherson:

Monticello, August 13, 1813

...It has been pretended by some, (and in England especially,) that inventors have a natural and exclusive right to their inventions, and not merely for their own lives, but inheritable to their heirs. But while it is a moot question whether the origin of any kind of property is derived from nature at all, it would be singular to admit a natural and even an hereditary right to inventors. It is agreed by those who have seriously considered the subject, that no individual has, of natural right, a separate property in an acre of land, for instance. By an universal law, indeed, whatever, whether fixed or movable, belongs to all men equally and in common, is the property for the moment of him who occupies it, but when he relinquishes the occupation, the property goes with it. Stable ownership is the gift of social law, and is given late in the progress of society. It would be curious then, if an idea, the fugitive fermentation of an individual brain, could, of natural right, be claimed in exclusive and stable property. If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density in any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation. Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property. Society may give an exclusive right to the profits arising from them, as an encouragement to men to pursue ideas which may produce utility, but this may or may not be done, according to the will and convenience of the society, without claim or complaint from anybody. Accordingly, it is a fact, as far as I am informed, that England was, until we copied her, the only country on earth which ever, by a general law, gave a legal right to the exclusive use of an idea. In some other countries it is sometimes done, in a great case, and by a special and personal act, but, generally speaking, other nations have thought that these monopolies produce more embarrassment than advantage to society; and it may be observed that the nations which refuse monopolies of invention, are as fruitful as England in new and useful devices.

The Life and Selected Writings of Thomas Jefferson; Koch, A., Peden, W., Eds.; Random House, Inc.: Toronto, 1944

A New Idea Is Born

Suppose we consider a new life to be like a new invention, which under our patent laws must be both new and useful.* The novelty of a new life (identical twins aside) is self-evident in its genetic code. Inventions occur (again under our law) following conception and reduction to practice.  The two events may be connascent or sequential. Conception is the fixed and permanent idea of the invention, while reduction to practice is the embodiment of the idea. Like parenting, only an inventor can contribute to conception.

New life indeed does begin at conception, but it's not fully embodied until some indefinite point in time.
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*As for the usefulness of a newly conceived life or idea -- that requires time. The following anecdote may apply.  Sometime in the 19th century, a delegation of government dignitaries visited Michael Faraday to view his electric motors and other inventions. One said "This is all very interesting, but of what possible use are these toys?" Faraday responded: "I cannot say what use they may be, but I can confidently predict that one day you will be able to tax them."