Mises Blog

Yes, I'm against protecting abstract ideas with no implementation.

Even when there is an implementation, it's not obvious to me that it should be especially protected by a government (especially a fallible government, which is all of them, as well-meaning as they might be).

I'm definitely not in favor of granting you protection on a "new form of scheduling". A program or calendar or whatever that implements it, sure.

See for example:

http://www.lessig.org/content/standard/0,1902,4296,00.html

"Patent No. 5,715,314, for example, gives the holder a monopoly over "network-based sales systems" - we call that e-commerce." (yes, Amazon among others is a licensee)

Other horrible examples:

http://w2.eff.org/patent/EFF_Patent_Busting_Project.pdf

See also for a broader view, the ideas of economist Friedrich Hayek:

http://blog.mises.org/9247/hayek-on-patents-and-copyrights/

or, a mainstream view on an industry without copyright, the fashion industry:

http://www.newsweek.com/2010/08/20/copycats-versus-copyrights.html

Another well-known case is of course Coca-Cola, which protects its core formula via trade secret rather than relying on the government.

(I am in favor of copyright, and protecting implementations as well - a reduced form of patents).

As I mentioned, if it's not obvious, and the big guy requires resources to copy it, they might be better off purchasing the small guy. If it was easy to copy, well, let's hope the small guy's execution was better than big guy's. (I…

That's a fascinating question, actually. There are a couple of well-regarded approaches to including radio spectrum in a principled political framework.

The most historically congruent approach is to apply the principles of homesteading and private property rights, and allow courts to develop a common law framework for resolving disputes. Courts were beginning to do this successfully in the 1920s until the FCC was foisted upon us, with the effect of nationalizing the radio spectrum.

In practice today, this approach would mean privatizing the entire spectrum and allowing market forces to work, just as they do with all other forms of private property.

You can read Declan McCullagh's informed analysis of the modern harms the FCC causes and his detailed rationale for a property-based market approach here:

http://www.news.com/2010-1028-5226979.html ('Why the FCC should die')

To better understand the importance of homesteading and property rights from a 'first-principles' analysis, I would recommend Murray Rothbard's _The Ethics of Liberty_, which you can freely read or download here:

http://mises.org/rothbard/Ethics/Ethics.asp

In Rothbard's _For a New Liberty_, he addresses specifically the origins of the FCC and how the market approach was thwarted and replaced with bureaucracy:

http://blog.mises.org/archives/002532.asp

http://www.mises.org/rothbard/newliberty.asp

http://mises.org/rothbard/foranewlb.pdf

An alternative approach is to treat the radio spectrum as a…

Many of these lunatic dictators were elected ( Mussolini, Hitler) and the others came to power from revolutions that promised a "people's democracy" ( the Bolsheviks, Mao, Pol Pot).

My take on the origins of World War I is quite different than yours. From my readings, the monarchs were much less willing to go to war than the politicians, and the politicians were less rabid than the mob. Britain, France, Germany, Austria, and Russia all had elected parliaments with universal manhood suffrage that voted for the war. The rise of universal suffrage in the late 1800's gave rise to a number of jingoistic newspapers and politicians. Imagine five powerful countries and all the sources of news were like Fox News - no NYTimes or NPR. That's the recipe for one of the worst wars in human history. Pre-democracy, the kings would fight a few battles and call it a day ( see the Franco-Prussian war of 1871). With a democracy, calling a truce was "giving in to the aggressor" and the war lasted four terrible years.

Some good books/articles on the subject: Liberty Or Equality ( http://blog.mises.org/archives/006326.asp ), The World of Yesterday by Stefan Zweig, Once an ArchDuke by Archduke Ferdinand, "Churchill on the Great War" - http://themonarchist.blogspot.com/2008/08/churchill-on-great-war.html, Churchill, Hitler, and "The Unnecessary War"

While that 2002 is probably Krugman's most blatant call for a housing "bubble". Mises.org just compiled a list of 7 other pre-2002 Krugman calls for lowering interest to stimulate home buying: http://blog.mises.org/archives/010153.asp

Like another commenter on this page states, Krugman didn't think a housing bubble was a good idea...but it was necessary to avoid a recession. Still, why not just deal with the consequences of the dot-com bubble then? Inflating another market just kicked the recession down the road and made it worse.

Unfortunately, Krugman and most politicians think we can fix the housing bubble by creating a currency bubble. Instead of focusing on a single market like housing, the current plan is to, yet again, kick the recession down the road. This time, however, we're promoting spending across all government-controlled and regulated markets with massive stimulus. Obviously, creates a bubble of dollars. When the dollar bubble deflates, there won't be anything left to blow up.

* More solar energy startups go bankrupt or shutdown: http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100125720/more-bad-news-for-the-anti-energy-green-greed-brigade/

* Bubble in American farmland continues growing: http://blog.mises.org/19970/farmland-is-bubbleland/

* More civil unrest in China as economic landing is closer to a crash: http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5iWObIptHU6RYQSwGSY49xn9IA_xg?docId=CNG.9fba8c14e4ed9e891c8b1c23225a7daf.921

* Ancestral/Paleo/Primal Lifestyle more popular, but still not mainstream.

* Gold at $2,500/oz.

* New season of Doctor Who is repetitive, derivative, but still just as popular and exciting.

* csomar builds a website to keep track of predictions, but his homepage will still say, "coming soon".

> Patents remain relevant and valuable in fields beyond software, where product development and basic R&D costs a hell of a lot more than it does in our little field.

There's evidence that innovation increases without patents.

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100421/1451179133.shtml
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/study_says_patents_hinder_innovation.php
http://blog.mises.org/10217/yet-another-study-finds-patents-do-not-encourage-innovation/

Patents are rent seeking agreements and have long since been outdated, if they ever made sense.

Basically, I think of patents in the same light as special interest groups. They promote the welfare of the few at the expense of the rest.