Apple Corporation is Bad for Technology

[TimG]

80% of the funding for research into new drugs and vaccines comes from the taxpayer.

So your argument is we don't need patents because the amazing innovators within the government bureaucracy will make up for any short fall in funding?

Government is good for funding fundamental research but taking that fundamental research are turning it into useful products requires private investment. No ROI means no private investment. Possible drug are already ignored because the ROI is not large enough. Further reducing ROI will reduce the number of new drugs. There is no doubt.

Edited September 1, 2012 by TimG

[Boges]

You two are making this Apple hating thread very boring.

[dre]

So your argument is we don't need patents because the amazing innovators within the government bureaucracy will make up for any short fall in funding? Government is good for funding fundamental research but taking that fundamental research are turning it into useful products requires private investment. No ROI means no private investment. Possible drug are already ignored because the ROI is not large enough. Further reducing ROI will reduce the number of new drugs. There is no doubt.

Theres no doubt for YOU because youre approaching this with your mind already made up based on a bunch of untestable assumptions, and conventional wisdom, and you dont seem to believe in the market place. The entire basis of the free market is that labor and materials will be combined to fill needs and satisfy demand. Yet you expect us to believe that even with hundreds of millions of customers willing to pay trillions of dollars for drugs the market will just sit there and go "duh..." and no supply side will emerge.

Your argument appears to be that in order for demand to be satisfied in a free market, government backed monopolies are required. I tend to think there would be thousands of companies chasing all that money and demand whether we had government backed monopolies or not.

Edited September 1, 2012 by dre

[TimG]

The entire basis of the free market is that labor and materials will be combined to fill needs and satisfy demand.

Your are missing a KEY element of the free market. A demand is ONLY satisfied if the people investing the money to satisfy that demand have a reasonable ROI. If there is no ROI there is no magic that will convince people to invest the money which means the demand goes unsatisfied.

What you have failed to do is provide any remotely plausible argument that would motivate companies to invest 100 millions into drug R&D if their discoveries can be immediately copied by companies that don't have the sunk costs to recover. All you are offering is wishful thinking. Sorry. The current system works more or less. If you want to get rid of you need to demonstrate that the alternative would be better. Wishful thinking on your part not an argument.

Edited September 1, 2012 by TimG

[bleeding heart]

So your argument is we don't need patents because the amazing innovators within the government bureaucracy will make up for any short fall in funding?

No, his argument (though not nearly his entire point) is that the majority of fundamental research is done on the taxpayer dime.

Edited September 1, 2012 by bleeding heart

[TimG]

No, his argument is that the majority of fundamental research is done on the taxpayer dime.

Fundamental research does not produce drugs that can be given to people. It really makes no difference how much fundamental research is done if that final step is not completed then there are no new drugs for people to use. The only way his argument makes any sense is if he is arguing that governments become the drug companies and develop the new drugs. We know that model is a failure and is not worth discussing.

[bleeding heart]

Fundamental research does not produce drugs that can be given to people. It really makes no difference how much fundamental research is done if that final step is not completed then there are no new drugs for people to use.

Of course.

[dre]

Your are missing a KEY element of the free market. A demand is ONLY satisfied if the people investing the money to satisfy that demand have a reasonable ROI. If there is no ROI there is no magic that will convince people to invest the money which means the demand goes unsatisfied.

What you have failed to do is provide any remotely plausible argument that would motivate companies to invest 100 millions into drug R&D if their discoveries can be immediately copied by companies that don't have the sunk costs to recover. All of you are offering is wishful thinking. Sorry. The current system works more or less. If you want to get rid of you need to demonstrate that the alternative would be better. Wishful thinking on your part not an argument.

Your are missing a KEY element of the free market. A demand is ONLY satisfied if the people investing the money to satisfy that demand have a reasonable ROI. If there is no ROI there is no magic that will convince people to invest the money which means the demand goes unsatisfied.

That element is built into the market place, and no government backed monopoly is necessary. Its called pricing.

All of you are offering is wishful thinking.

Not really... im just saying whether or not IP law provides a net benefit to society is open to question. Iv pointed out a whole host of ways in which its problematic, and why its becoming more problematic with increasing speed.

In my opinion yours is the wishfull thinking... As I said before you have to believe this...

Yet you expect us to believe that even with hundreds of millions of customers willing to pay trillions of dollars for drugs the market will just sit there and go "duh..." and no supply side will emerge.

And I dont believe that for a second.

Furthermore your entire thesis here is that the government should create artificial scarcity in the market place, because its in the greater good. Its not even clear to me that this is something government oughtta be involved in. When the government imposes itself on the market place there is all kinds of side effects and unintended consequences. In the case of IP law not only is the government creating artificial scarcity it is also severly impeding the free flow of information and ideas.

In order for you to prove that IP rights have a net benefit for society you would first have to know the total cost of the massive beaurocracy and all related elements, and the benefit remaining after all the detriments have been considered would need be higher than the cost. This is obviously a very hard thing to do and studies that have attempted to take all this into consideration have found very mixed results. What is the COST of the government creating artificial scarcity? What is the COST of the government restricting peoples freedom in such an overt way? What is the cost of the government restricting the free flow of knowledge and ideas?

You dont know the cost of ANY of these things, so its funny that you would boldly proclaim that your own judgement is a FACT.

The other problem is that patents often to not protect the origionator of an idea. They simply protect the first person that happens to march into the patent office. If I have an idea on my own that infringes on an existing patent I have stolen NOTHING. However if someone else marches into the patent office and is granted a monopoly on an idea that I had on my own a great deal has been stolen from me. The government has granted an injunction against me acting on my own thoughts. In the real world a lot of different people can have the same idea. In the government backed IP world only the person that marches into the patent office gets to use the idea, and everyone else is barred regardless of whether or not they got the idea from imitating the patent holder or not. How much innovation is discouraged by this type of affront on personal freedom?

I admit I dont know the answer. Im not sure if we IP rights as they are administered today provide a net benefit or not. But neither are you and this is NOWHERE NEAR the obvious slam-dunk you think it is. I dont know if the government should get completely out of the artificial scarcity business or not. I do think that we should re-evaluate the idea though.

I found this interesting.

One key problem is the wide-spread perception that governments should proactively do "good" and "useful" things, to benefit society. This is very popular, and politicians try to always cast whatever they happen to be doing in this light. So it has been argued that governments should pursue policies which foster the economic strength and competitiveness of their nation. This is usually accomplished by enacting fairly arbitrary decisions on which activities to encourage and which to prohibit, instead of just having faith that a free market economy will flourish on its own, without government control.

Unfortunately, almost all government interventions have undesired side-effects, which are often difficult to foresee, and often end up being worse than the "problem" that was supposed to be fixed in the first place.

Regarding "Intellectual Property Rights", the usual justification for promoting this system is that companies supposedly need a specially protected time span during which they can recuperate their investment for developing a new product. Thus, with this system, companies ought to have an incentive to innovate more than they would otherwise. However, is this really true?

An analysis ought to have been made of the trade-off inherent in such legislation. As copyrights and patent protection involve such a severe restriction of public freedom, they are only justifiable if it can be conclusively proven that instantiating such drastic measures does more good than harm. Otherwise, even if the effect turns out to be just neutral and not damaging, one might as well live without all the bureaucracy. The proof that this legislation is beneficial to the general public has not yet been provided. It is certainly quite difficult to perform such an analysis, as we have no experimental control available, i.e. a technology-intense society without any such restrictions. There have been some studies on this question, e.g. [Man86], which have found that there is a very mixed reception of patents in the industry.

Edited September 1, 2012 by dre

[TimG]

That element is built into the market place, and no government backed monopoly is necessary. Its called pricing.

You are stubbornly ignoring the effect of freeloaders on market dynamics. If one company spends 100s of millions developing a drug that can be copied easily then it will lose market share to competitors that do not have those sunk costs because the competitors will always be able to see drugs more cheaply. There is simply no way for the company that spent the money to recover their R&D costs without the patents. Eliminate those and companies will simply not choose to invest the money in drug R&D no matter what the demand.

[dre]

Fundamental research does not produce drugs that can be given to people. It really makes no difference how much fundamental research is done if that final step is not completed then there are no new drugs for people to use. The only way his argument makes any sense is if he is arguing that governments become the drug companies and develop the new drugs. We know that model is a failure and is not worth discussing.

I wasnt arguing for that, but nice try.

You made the following claim...

Money would not be invested in new drug R&D

I simply pointed out that 80% of it comes from the taxpayer. The fact is that a great deal of money would still be invested in drug r&d with or without IP rights. In fact, more might be. You could end up with thousands of companies competing to be the ones to bring a new product to market instead of just the one company that happened to flag down a faster taxi driver on the way to the patent office.

[TimG]

The fact is that a great deal of money would still be invested in drug r&d with or without IP rights.

Simply repeating a false assertion does not make it true. Government funding does not create useful drugs. Private funding does. Private funding is not available unless there is an ROI. You have not presented any plausible scenario that would motivate private investors to develop to new drugs in the absence of patents.

You could end up with thousands of companies competing to be the ones to bring a new product to market instead of just the one company that happened to flag down a faster taxi driver on the way to the patent office.

Why would any invest money to 'bring the product to market'? Why not wait until someone else has 'brought the product to market' and then copy it. It would be cheaper and without those R&D costs you would be able to undercut your competitors.

[dre]

You are stubbornly ignoring the effect of freeloaders on market dynamics. If one company spends 100s of millions developing a drug that can be copied easily then it will lose market share to competitors that do not have those sunk costs because the competitors will always be able to see drugs more cheaply. There is simply no way for the company that spent the money to recover their R&D costs without the patents. Eliminate those and companies will simply not choose to invest the money in drug R&D no matter what the demand.

Youre assuming patents are the only way to deal with this problem, and that a market based solution would not emerge in the absence of government backed monopolies. But theres a whole lot of different potential solutions to this problem. That initial investment could be partially offset by research grants. In fact it already is. The approval process for drugs could be streamlined. Companies can also enter into voluntary contracts amongst themselves (we wont make boner pills if you dont make cancer drugs).

But again you are only looking at one side of the equation. Even if you could prove your assumption that less new drugs would be brought to market (which you havent and cant) that does not demonstrate a net benefit of the IP system. It would simply illustrate one specific benefit. You then have to consider the thousands of other factors and cost of the system, and all the unintended consequences before you can make a judgement in either way.

[cybercoma]

Apple is now launching another legal attack against Samsung and American consumers. This one will include Samsungs Galaxy S3 which IMO is a much nicer phone than the Iphone.

This one will target pretty much all the rest of samsungs devices, that apple claims infringe against the following patent...

Performing a gesture on an unlock image This ones a beauty, and it should allow Apple to go after every single android device ever made

I agree that it sounds stupid, but if Apple owns the patent to "unlocking a device using gestures" then it's well within their rights to sue for infringement.

Samsung could overcome the patent infringement in a number of different ways, but instead choose to use Apple's feature. They could have a button or switch on the phone for unlocking it or they could have users enter in a passcode or series of taps of some nature to unlock the phones.

My point earlier and still remains that these sorts of lawsuits aren't bad for technology; they actually increase the amount of variety in the market place by forcing companies to come with unique ideas and designs. There's no reason every smartphone needs to be like the iPhone. Come up with something new, something better, something innovative. If they hit on a set of features that people like better than the iPhone and secure their own patents, they will be golden.

[TimG]

Youre assuming patents are the only way to deal with this problem, and that a market based solution would not emerge in the absence of government backed monopolies.

There is no rational basis for assuming that one will emerge given the nature of competition.

Companies can also enter into voluntary contracts amongst themselves (we wont make boner pills if you dont make cancer drugs).

ROTFL - you are proposing that we eliminate anti trust laws and allow collusion among drug makers in order to "fix" the problems created by eliminating patents? That is a perfect example of a cure which is worse than the disease.

The onus not on me to prove the benefit. We have a system. It has flaws but new drugs are being brought to market. If someone wants to radically change the system they to demonstrate beyond all reasonable doubt that the cure is not worse than the disease. You can't do that. That means a more productive discussion would be one about how to fix the flaws with the existing system rather than eliminate it.

[dre]

Simply repeating a false assertion does not make it true. Government funding does not create useful drugs. Private funding does. Private funding is not available unless there is an ROI. You have not presented any plausible scenario that would motivate private investors to develop to new drugs in the absence of patents.

Why would any invest money to 'bring the product to market'? Why not wait until someone else has 'brought the product to market' and then copy it. It would be cheaper and without those R&D costs you would be able to undercut your competitors.

Simply repeating a false assertion does not make it true. Government funding does not create useful drugs. Private funding does.

So if a company considering developing a new drug gets a research grant from the government, the money wont work to pay its chemists, and build its production line? Would it spontaneously combust if they tried to use it?

The reality is that development costs absolutely COULD be offset or partially offset by government grants. That would CHANGE the ROI and companies would need less of their own money up front.

And you have done absolutely nothing to prove your assumption that an acceptable ROI could not be realized in the absence of government granted monopolies. And you make the FURTHER assumption that government backed monopolies are the only possible solution to this problem.

[cybercoma]

As Kevin O'Leary said, "I'd be a commie if I could make a buck at it."

The guy is a scumbag, plain and simple. He turns a blind eye to Chinese human rights violations all to make a buck. He doesn't care about human suffering as long as he can make money off of it. He's a filthy disgusting human being and so ends my off-topic rant about Kevin O'Dirtbag.

[dre]

There is no rational basis for assuming that one will emerge given the nature of competition.

ROTFL - you are proposing that we eliminate anti trust laws and allow collusion among drug makers in order to "fix" the problems created by eliminating patents? That is a perfect example of a cure which is worse than the disease.

The onus not on me to prove the benefit. We have a system. It has flaws but new drugs are being brought to market. If someone wants to radically change the system they to demonstrate beyond all reasonable doubt that the cure is not worse than the disease. You can't do that. That means a more productive discussion would be one about how to fix the flaws with the existing system rather than eliminate it.

I disgree. Im not the one calling for any positive action. The government is confiscating billions of dollars from the tax payer and using to create artificial scarcity in the market place and theres a growing concern that its counter productive. Its also going to implode under its own weight... the number of patents being granted is rapidally increasing, as are the resources wasted on patent litigation.

That means a more productive discussion would be one about how to fix the flaws with the existing system rather than eliminate it.

THats a pretty short discussion. I tackled it on the first page.

Intellectual property law badly needs to be reformed. Patents should only be granted for truly innovative property (not a common color or common shape) and they should expire way faster.

The problem is nobody is GOING to fix anything. Huge government beaurocracies dont tend to voluntarily shink themselves. What IS going to happen is more and more patents on more and more things, and more and more patent litigation consuming more and more resources.

Edited September 1, 2012 by dre

[bleeding heart]

The guy is a scumbag, plain and simple. He turns a blind eye to Chinese human rights violations all to make a buck. He doesn't care about human suffering as long as he can make money off of it. He's a filthy disgusting human being and so ends my off-topic rant about Kevin O'Dirtbag.

Yeah, well, what irritates about Kevin is that he seems fully aware of the ugliness of his propositions, and utters them (continually) in a way designed to provoke; he enjoys it. He's like those folks who bravely condemn "political correctness" right before going on a racist or sexist or homophobic rant...under the pretence that "I'm just saying what everybody thinks!"

And of course this is usually dead wrong, factually incorrect, and that's where O'Leary's thoughtlessness, his demonstrable lack of true insight and understanding, comes into play.

I mean this exactly; I'm not engaging in rhetorical overstep; consider:

O'Leary: "Mixing economics and morality is evil, and shouldn't ever be done."

OK, I realize that less thoughtful and insightful "free marketeers" [sic] will nod their heads numbly at this proposition...because they don't understand the meaning of basic English words.

But you can't moralize about how something should have no moral component. That doesn't make sense.

If there is no morality to economics, it is logically impossible for such an admixture to be "evil."

Yes?

What a maroon.

I guess this is what you get when simplistic and narrow-parameter thinkers like Hayek replace the more thoughtful humanists like Adam Smith.

Edited September 2, 2012 by bleeding heart

[Boges]

http://money.cnn.com/2012/09/12/technology/apple-iphone-5-event/index.html

Today is iSheeple Christmas where they unveiled the iPhone 5.

No real upgrade to the camera. There's an App for iOS 6 that'll have new features.

We don't know how fast it'll be or how much RAM it'll have. Which is, kinda, one of the most important things to consider when upgrading.

A 4" screen. Galaxy S2 is 4.5" and the S3 is 4.8" having a nice large screen on your smart phone is a good thing or they would have stayed with a 3.5" screen.

It has 4G/LTE. Congrats Apple you're the last to the party with that.

iSheep will also have to buy into a knew smaller adapter. I read on the Apple site that they have converters but of course they'll be sold separately. You'd think they could throw someone who just bought an iPad a bone by offering one for free.

For an Apple user the more exciting thing would be the unveiling of iOS 6. It's got some neat features included in that, including things that Android doesn't have. Going away from Google Maps will put them at a huge disadvantage though, because Google is the industry leader in stuff like that.

First comment on the story I linked to above made me LOL

LTE, 4.0 inch screen, 3D navigation. This is 4 inch IPhone revolution!!!

Hey Siri tell me if anyone else done this before?

Siri: Yes many Android phone has this features and bigger screens for long time. Do you want me to help file lawsuits against them so they can stop selling in US?

Edited September 12, 2012 by Boges

[blueblood]

The guy is a scumbag, plain and simple. He turns a blind eye to Chinese human rights violations all to make a buck. He doesn't care about human suffering as long as he can make money off of it. He's a filthy disgusting human being and so ends my off-topic rant about Kevin O'Dirtbag.

Do you employ people?

Do you put up your own money to hel finance people with start up businesses?

Didn't think so.

Seems like mr. Dirtbag helps more people than you do...

[cybercoma]

Do you employ people?

Do you put up your own money to hel finance people with start up businesses?

Didn't think so.

Seems like mr. Dirtbag helps more people than you do...

Slave holders were great people too in your world, I imagine.

[blueblood]

Slave holders were great people too in your world, I imagine.

Nope slavery was wrong, no salaries paid, very low productivity, and unforeseen societal problems afterwards.

Try again

[bleeding heart]

Do you employ people?

Do you put up your own money to hel finance people with start up businesses?

Didn't think so.

Seems like mr. Dirtbag helps more people than you do...

O'Leary believes that mixing "economics and morality is evil [sic]".

So your defense of his behaviour is waaay out of line, apparently in the realm of Satan or Marx or whathaveyou.

Edited September 16, 2012 by bleeding heart

[blueblood]

O'Leary believes that mixing "economics and morality is evil [sic]".

So your defense of his behaviour is waaay out of line, apparently in the realm of Satan or Marx or whathaveyou.

His behavior creates wealth, employment, and improves people's lives

How evil is that?

[bleeding heart]

His behavior creates wealth, employment, and improves people's lives

How evil is that?

Hey, it's O'Leary's formulation, not mine. I don't hold to some specious view of a single, magical component of human endeavour that should be free from moral concerns.

He does, or says he does.

Edited September 16, 2012 by bleeding heart