Re: Fossil Records Show Biodiversity Comes and Goes

From: raylopez99 (raylopez99_at_yahoo.com)
Date: 03/19/05 

Date: 19 Mar 2005 00:19:37 -0800

I was too young for Flying Circus, but I did like the Knight Fight and
the lopping off of his arm. They incorporated that into a chess game
later on too--with the blood squirting out.

But seriously, this sketch raises some interesting and fundamental
problems with existing patent laws in most Western countries--namely,
anybody can file for a patent and claim a 'theory' even though they
cannot prove the theory works. Then, later, the patentees sue and
harass legitimate business that actually "proved" the patent works.
I'm not using the right legal language, but if you search Jerome
Lemuelson you'll get a flavor of what I'm talking about.

In practice the patent office should require that people prove they
actually produced what they are trying to patent, with a scale model or
computer simulation or DNA sample or source code that works. For
nuclear physics stuff maybe they could get away with just a thought
experiment, but for practical inventions they need to require something
concrete, IMO.

This is deep, deep stuff.