Quotulatiousness

July 7, 2012

Tim Worstall: the software patent system is FUBAR’ed

Filed under: Business, Law, Technology — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 11:05

In Forbes, Tim Worstall explains the odd situation of Amazon trying to obtain patents to use defensively when (not if) they get sued for entering the smartphone market:

… Amazon isn’t searching out patents which would allow it to build phones to, say, the GSM or CDMA standards. For those patents, by virtue of being included in those standards, must be made available to all comers on reasonable and non-discriminatory terms (RAND, or Europeans add “Fair” to the beginning to give FRAND). So any patent that is actually necessary to make a phone that interacts with the network is already available to them on exactly the same terms that Samsung, Apple, Nokia or anyone else pays for them.

No, what Amazon is looking for is just some bundle of patents, somewhere, that have something to do with mobile telephony. So that when (and sadly, it really is when, not if) they get sued by someone or other for breaching a patent then they’ve got some great big bundle of documents that they can wave back at them. Such patents can range from the possibly valid (slide to unlock perhaps) through to two that really irk me: Apple claiming a patent on a wedge shaped notebook and, unbelievably to me, on the layout of icons on the Galaxy Tablet in Europe.

I take this to be evidence that the technology patent system has simply got out of hand: that the system is entirely Fubar in fact. We need to recall what a patent is supposed to do: it is not that intellectual property is some God given right. Rather, we realise that given that ideas and technologies are public goods it is very difficult to make money out of having invented them. Thus we artificially create intellectual property in the form of patents and trademarks. But we are always walking a narrow line between encouraging invention by awarding such rights and discouraging derivative inventions by awarding rights that are too strong.

Genuine iconoclasm in Mali

Filed under: Africa, Religion — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 10:57

Robert Fulford on the religious strife in Mali:

In the modern West, an iconoclast is someone who criticizes cherished beliefs. The people we call iconoclasts deal in nothing more dangerous than opinion. But in regions dominated by Islamists that term becomes painfully literal.

It means breaking icons — destroying sculpture and desecrating tombs for the purpose of religious purity. It means gangs of thugs with axes and dynamite and the need to impose their beliefs on others.

This week the world learned that iconoclasm has found a new home in the wretched African state of Mali. A landlocked, geographically misshapen nation of 14.5 million, Mali has borders with seven other countries. At the moment, Malian refugees are crossing three of those borders (Mauritania’s, Niger’s and Burkina Faso’s) to escape the results of the Islamist rebellion that overturned their national government in March.

The dominant rebels belong to Ansar Dine, which means “Defenders of the Faith.” They are Sunnis allied with al-Qaeda. They now control northern Mali and they have put the destruction of graves and monuments at the top of their agenda.

In the last week or so they have destroyed six graves of ancient Sufi saints. At a 15th-century mosque in Timbuktu they took their axes to an entrance considered sacred. According to local belief, it was expected the door would remain closed till the world ended.

This is a Muslim vs. Muslim conflict. A spokesman for Ansar Dine summarized the party line on venerating Sufi shrines: It’s un-Islamic. “What doesn’t correspond to Islam, we are going to correct.” It’s what must be done to defend the faith.

Deregulating a “natural monopoly”

Filed under: Economics, USA — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 09:44

Arnold Kling is a Pepco customer. Pepco is one of the regulated electricity providers in Washington DC and surrounding area. He suggests that there may be a better way to deliver electricity to customers:

A recent storm in the Washington, D.C. area left many households without power for days. Customers served by one company, Pepco, appeared to suffer the worst. Pepco had the slowest rate of power restoration of all the area’s electricity suppliers.

As an economist and a Pepco customer, I am concerned by two factors that insulate Pepco from facing market discipline concerning reliability. The first is that Pepco is a regulated monopoly. The second is that there is no price indicating the benefits of reliability.

The fact that Pepco is a monopoly means that its incentive to improve its operations is limited. Regulators may cajole and threaten, but ultimately Pepco is like an employee with tenure — no matter how badly it performs, it can never be fired.

The fact that there is no market price for reliability makes matters even worse. The amount that Pepco invests in ensuring reliable provision of electricity does not have to bear any relationship whatsoever to the value that consumers place on reliability.

Update: Oops, forgot the hat-tip:

Andrew Coyne on the high school relationship that is Canada and the USA

Filed under: Cancon, USA — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 00:05

I have to admit that I never saw the diplomatic and trade relationship between the two countries in quite this way before:

As veteran diplomats and foreign policy specialists trade blows over who is to blame for the crisis in Canada-U.S. relations — How Obama Lost Canada; How Obama Won Canada; Obama Didn’t Lose Canada; Maybe Canada Lost Obama, Ever Think of That? — thoughtful observers on both sides of the border are concerned that important nuances in the debate are being overlooked.

While managing a bilateral relationship is never easy, especially one as complex and multi-faceted as that between Canada and the U.S., sources close to the Canadian government stress that America totally did not break up with Canada, Canada broke up with it first. They point to the Obama administration’s politically motivated decision to block approval of the Keystone XL pipeline extension as an important irritant in the relationship, adding that America has been avoiding Canada in the halls for weeks.

On the other hand, long-time State Department watchers suggest Canada may have erred in focusing its diplomatic efforts too intently on the administration, in a capital in which power is increasingly dispersed, and besides Canada didn’t even look at America in the library even though they were like studying at the same table.

Seeking to downplay tensions, they note that today’s disputes pale in comparison to the controversies that have sometimes roiled relations between the two countries in the past, such as over Vietnam or that thing at the party last year after grad.

Nonetheless, it is clear that on a number of issues there is a gathering sense of grievance on the Canadian side, a feeling that Canada’s concerns are not taken seriously in official Washington. Sources in the department of Foreign Affairs, who did not want to be named because they had English Lit with America right after lunch, cited a long list of perceived slights, from the Buy America provisions in the stimulus bill to the failure to support Canada’s bid for a seat on the Security Council to the lack of recognition of Canada’s contribution to the Afghanistan mission. Would it have killed America, these sources ask, just to call?

In response, Canada has moved to more aggressively assert its interests, for example warning it might cultivate China and other export markets for its crude oil, scaling back its commitment to Afghanistan and changing its Facebook status to “it’s complicated.”

He’s talked some sense into me: no longer will I deny that the bilateral relationship between Canada and the United States should be described in terms of “a sexual chemistry you could cut with a knife”.

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