To patent or not to patent

Stuart Chignell

forgive me for sp I have a log of wood in my index finger

A pm from our resisdent local crazy inventor inspired me to write this and then I saw Web4Deb post onhis bell siphon improvement.

People often have a backwards view on patents that they are for makng money for big MNationals and that they are generally an evil thing but the intent of the patent system was to encourage invention by ensuring the inentors were able to get rewarded for their ingenuity and hardwork.

Now I would be the first to admti that the system has gone a little awry and that it does not srze the little guy as much as it should but I'm not such a tree hugging hippy as to rail against the whole idea of patents or the system we have right now.

The invention that was sent to me was done so via a link to a blog:

which I'm not sure I have permission to repost so I wont.

but lets say that it contained a marvelous invention that could mean much cheaper energy (not free but cheaper). Since it needs massive amounts of work to solve some theoretical and engineergin problems to get it to work is going to take some massive investment. The problem is that now it has been published in a blog it is impossible to patent. Since it is impossible to patent any investors that would be needed to fund the solving of all the problems involved with getting a prototype up and running would not have any security because they could not own the IP. Now in the process of solving the problems they will probably come up with a whole stack of solutions that would be the basis of their own patents but an investor would much rather have two patents for their investment than one and since the patent on the overall idea is impossible other people could come along with their own solutions and that would mean a lesser return for the investors so they would be more inclined to take their money somewhere else in the first place.

So tree hugging hippy crazy inventor (sorry mr. crazy inventor) thinks that by publishing his idea he is helping to solve the worlds energy problems but what he has actually done is make that idea less attractive to investors which means that even if it is a really good idea (who knows) then the chance of getting investors has been drastically reduced and therefore the chance of it ever happening is basically gone. Unless you can convince someone who doesn't care about money to give it to you which means a crazy tree hugging investor or a government

Wed4Deb's invention would have patentable but now that it has been published it can't. It is so simple that the development costs would have been 0 and if it could have been patented how would you enforce such a simple patent? No idea, but lets say that you could. Lets say Web4Deb invests $25k to get a patent and then manages to sell his patent to some instrument manufacturer (Burkert, Endress and Hauser, etc.) for lots of money. Web4Deb thinks that was cool I wonder if I could do that again and goes on to invent more cool stuff and with the ongoing license fees funds other inventions that go on to make the world a better place. Instead Web4Deb gets nothing but accolades and looses an opportunity to make a big difference in the world.

Now I'm in pain as I write this so I'm not at my most eloquent but do you get the idea. The patent system while flawed can and does promote inovation because it helps people to get rewarded for the genius and hard work. All you tree hugging commi hippies may actually be stopping the world from being a better place with your self righteous I don't care about money attitude.

Sorry, sorry that's the pain talking. I love you guys. I'll go and find some panadene now.

KudaPucat

Wow.
Not that I disagree with the principal,
but wow.
Go pop some pills mate.

Stuart Chignell

Feeling better now. Two sorts of pain killers but they were not able to get log out of finger. Due to confounding factors, no day surgery on weekend, Eadweard going into hospital on Monday for the week and Sarah due to go into labour I will have to suffer with more courage than before.

Dont get me wrong I do love the spirit of sharing that we have on this forum I've certainly taken advantage of it and tried to reciprocate but it just struck me that it might not be just a matter of personal choice and that publishing a good invention might actually be counter productive to the betterment of the world.

scotty435

Seems to me that if someone could come up with their own solution now by reverse engineering it, you couldn't have stopped them patenting their own version anyway. Isn't this what the software companies do?

earthbound

I kind of get what you mean, but I think each invention needs to be judged on it's merits. I don't know that you can compare cheap energy machines with things like putting an end cap under a siphon breather hose. There are many things that have been invented in the quest for a better aquaponics system with people tinkering in their backyards, and without the free sharing of those improvements then aquaponics may not have moved forward as it has.

If Afnan hadn't shared his siphon developments, if he had kept them quite and patented the idea then people would be struggling a whole lot more with older siphon designs that were more difficult to work.

Different people have different motivations, Web4deb might be more motivated by the fact that he's been able to help the aquaponics community and use it as a method of business promotion. This might be what gives him the motivation to invent more and share even more.

I watched a very interesting talk on TED about the new wave of open collaborative projects like Linux and wikipedia becoming new open source economies.

That may be getting off the point a little, interesting thoughts though, I can see what you're saying and with some technologies and industries I think it would be quite apt. But I think that in most cases, more open publishing of inventions would give the world a better net outcome than less open publishing..

I went through some thought processes back in the early days when very few people were doing aquaponics, whats the best way to go about this? Should I be trying to patent anything about the systems before releasing information packages and system? Guess I can't help the "tree hugger" side of me though, I wanted to make things freely available so that people could do it themselves. Or perhaps it was more a case of having to do that to create a market in the first place because there was no market at that time for aquaponics.

I was the first person to use standpipes in aquaponics beds, the Speraneos back then were using capped drain pipes with different numbers of holes drilled in them to control the flooding of beds. Discussion over a few beers with engineering mates led to the idea of the stand pipe in the growbed allowing a far more efficient way of setting a flood height in the bed. There's possibly nothing patentable there but I'm sure that it's done the world more good to freely talk about it and offer it as a solution to people practising aquaponics rather than trying to keep it quiet and trying to control it.

I guess it all just depends on what the invention is your talking about... :dontknow:

I'm sure there would be situations where it goes the other way.

Stuart Chignell

I decided to end my environmental consulting career after a friend had a particularly disapointing client.

He was contract to do a flora and fauna management plan for the bushland around one of the Navies bases. In his one day of preliminary research he found the previous seven reoprts sitting on a shelf. He took the seventh, rebadged it, attributed it and submitted it. We all waited for him back at the office to see how he had gone when he had the hand over meeting. He walked in and pulled the $15,000 check from his wallet. "They seemed pleased and thanked me very much."

Later we both decided that we were not going to save the environment by teaching people better ways of doing things so we decided to go into business and do better things.

My AP endeavour is my latest attempt to achieve this. I want to make a stack of money from it and when I do I will buy toys but I will also go onto start another venture that will also benefit the environment and people in some way and with extra cash buy up threatened habitat, fund research and lots of other cool stuff. Cool stuff that I believe needs to be done but needs money to do it.

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