this post was submitted on 05 Feb 2024
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Showerthoughts

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A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The most popular seem to be lighthearted, clever little truths, hidden in daily life.

Here are some examples to inspire your own showerthoughts: 1

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We live in a post information scarcity society and we still haven't moved on from capitalism. (lemmy.dbzer0.com)
submitted 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) by [email protected] to c/showerthoughts
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Edit: Changed title to be more accurate.

Also here is the summary from Wikipedia on what Post-scarcity means:

Post-scarcity is a theoretical economic situation in which most goods can be produced in great abundance with minimal human labor needed, so that they become available to all very cheaply or even freely. Post-scarcity does not mean that scarcity has been eliminated for all goods and services but that all people can easily have their basic survival needs met along with some significant proportion of their desires for goods and services. Writers on the topic often emphasize that some commodities will remain scarce in a post-scarcity society.

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

In the current patent system the owner can choose to licenses their patent,

Yes, but they do not have to, because it is a system of scarcity. They get to choose whether or not it's scarce and exactly how scarce it is. In many cases companies buy patents just to sit on them and prevent anyone else from using them. In the system I'm describing, all ideas are available for everyone to use in any way they want.

It honestly feels like you're intentionally not understanding that distinction at this point.

You’re awfully light on the details of how an inventor is rewarded.

I've already explained it very clearly. You want more details on a specific aspect, go ahead and ask a specific question. You want a fully fleshed out system that covers every edge case? Then get politicians and lawyers to start actually designing the system, if we spent the billions and billions and billions of dollars that we have spent creating and enforcing our current system on creating and enforcing a new one, a lot of those details you're looking for would get filled in.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Inventors getting a percent of sales doesn't is a vague description.

How is the royalty rate determined?

How are cheap to manufacture/replicate inventions handled? With a low royalty rate the inventor may not recoup costs for a valuable patent.

How are products with multiple patents handled?

How are patent fees enforced?

Why would a company publish a patent in your system? They can be 1st to the market and be the only ones in the market until their competitors reverse engineer their patent.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

How is the royalty rate determined?

How was 20 years decided for patent lifetime? This is an implementation detail to be argued about to find a fair formula.

How are cheap to manufacture/replicate inventions handled? With a low royalty rate the inventor may not recoup costs for a valuable patent.

Again, this is a matter of determining a fair mathematical formula that rewards inventors appropriately depending on the amount of sales.

Also, for comparison how does our current patent system ensure that inventors recoup costs on valuable patents? How does our current patent system reward downstream inventions and ideas? You seem to have lofty goals for a new system that our current system doesn't address.

How are products with multiple patents handled?

Again, implementation detail, but if multiple ideas contribute to the same product then the inventors of both would get rewarded.

How are patent fees enforced?

What patent fees? We're talking about taxing products / services / corporate profits and then using that money to reward inventors.

Why would a company publish a patent in your system? They can be 1st to the market and be the only ones in the market until their competitors reverse engineer their patent.

Because 6 months later when it's reverse engineered any competitor will be able to recreate it. If your idea is so unique and complex that you don't think it can be reverse engineered then fine, keep it as a trade secret, that's already how our current system works.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 11 months ago

This is an implementation detail to be argued about to find a fair formula.

I thought your plan was simplifying things and getting lawyers out of it, guess not.

Again, this is a matter of determining a fair mathematical formula that rewards inventors appropriately depending on the amount of sales.

How is a fair mathematical formula determined?  Who decides what is appropiate?  Are sales the only metric for the formula?

Also, for comparison how does our current patent system ensure that inventors recoup costs on valuable patents?

The inventor licenses the patent for for an agreed upon value.  Value is determined by the market.

How does our current patent system reward downstream inventions and ideas?

See above.

You seem to have lofty goals for a new system that our current system doesn’t address.

How are those not addressed?

What patent fees? We’re talking about taxing products / services / corporate profits and then using that money to reward inventors.

Money that goes to patent holders is a patent fee no matter how the money is collected.  If a company uses a patented invention but doesn't list it how is that infringement enforced?  More lawyers and lawsuits?

Again, implementation detail, but if multiple ideas contribute to the same product then the inventors of both would get rewarded.

Details are the important part, how is the value of one patent determined over another, ie how do they split the revenue.