Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.

Re: Giving birth through conversation

Author:Dave Winer
Posted:8/12/2000; 10:22:55 AM
Topic:I patent breathing. I was here first. Quit breathing.
Msg #:19666 (In response to 19665)
Prev/Next:19665 / 19667

On a hot August morning, I think, wouldn't it be great if I had an "artificial pond" with clean cool water that I could spend the day in, to stay cool.

I'm very industrious and eager, so I get out my steamshovel and dig a hole and fill it with water, add a filtration system, a ladder (so it's easy to get in and out) and then when I get bored I invent pool toys, water guns and floats etc.

I'm also a very generous person so when my lawyer comes over in the afternoon and says "Let's patent this!" I say "No, I want everyone to enjoy my invention. I'll get all the satisfaction I need from the emails I get from happy people who are cooler because of my invention."

Everything's fine until one of the users comes up with a neat idea for a new pool toy. It becomes the rage in the pool-user community. (We have our own website.) Unfortunately this person *is* a lawyer and unbeknownst to the rest of us (who praise him mightily for his creativity) he has filed an application with the USPTO to patent the idea.

We have fun with it anyway, and I add his pool toy to my repertoire, and refine the idea, make it happier, and make it work with the ideas I came up with in the interim, and those that everyone else came up with. We're all happy until three years later when he presents us with a piece of paper.

"That's my intellectual property," he says, pointing to the third generation of his pool toy. "You can't use it anymore."

"Bummer," the rest of us say.

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