Surely You’re Trolling, Mr Allen!
Reading about Paul Allen’s recent round of “…but on the web” e-commerce patent suits reminds me of one of the most objectionable aspects of the current patent system: the way that when a new technology or medium appears, rights to using it in combination with existing ideas seem to get assigned in a “first post!” manner.
It always makes me think of this excerpt from the “I Want My Dollar!” story Feynman tells in “Surely You’re Joking, Mr Feynman!”:
…during the war, at Los Alamos, there was a very nice fella in charge of the patent office for the government, named Captain Smith. Smith sent around a notice to everybody that said something like, “We in the patent office would like to patent every idea you have for the United States government, for which you are working now.[…]
I say to him, “That note you sent around: That’s kind of crazy to have us come in and tell you every idea. […] There are so many ideas about nuclear energy that are so perfectly obvious, that I’d be here all day telling you stuff.”
“LIKE WHAT?”
“Nothin’ to it!” I say. “Example: nuclear reactor under water; water goes in, steam goes out the other side, pshshshsht - it’s a submarine. Or: nuclear reactor; air comes rushing in the front, heated up by nuclear reaction, out the back it goes, Boom! Through the air - it’s an airplane. Or: nuclear reactor; you have hydrogen go through the thing, Zoom! - it’s a rocket. Or: nuclear reactor; only instead of using ordinary uranium, you use enriched uranium with beryllium oxide at high temperat ure to make it more efficient - it’s an electrical power plant. There’s a million ideas!” I said, as I went out the door.
Nothing happened.
About three months later, Smith calls me in the office and says, “Feynman, the submarine has already been taken. But the other three are yours.”
