[brlug-poly] [brlug-general] to release or not to release, intellectual retentiveness.

[Tim Fournet]

Eric G Ortego wrote:

>
> They get to purchase it. Why can't they just make it? Maybe its not 
> possible now, maybe it wouldn't even be practical for most in the 
> future, but IMO it should be a possibility for those who want it to 
> solve their problem and are willing to go through the troubles of 
> learning how. The disservice is done by withholding knowledge and 
> giving control of that knowledge's use to a corporation who may use it 
> against anyone who trespasses onto their market.

I hope you're not suggesting that farmers learn how to brew their own 
pesticides ;) . Manufacturing pesticides is very difficult and very 
dangerous. It's also one of those areas where patents are a good idea. 
They allow someone to invent a pesticide, even if they don't have the 
manufacturing abilities required to sell the product themselves in 
volume and get them to market. Just the act of getting it approved for 
use in each state is a LOT of work, something that you'd need the 
resources of a large company for. It's also not really practical to keep 
it as a trade secret, as the government needs to know the composition in 
order to approve it. Patents (or my escrow idea) protect the private 
inventor and allow him to sell his idea. The time period doesn't have to 
be long at all. In this example, it's imperative that his product gets 
on the market as soon as possible, but a few years from now, the 
inventor would have gotten justly compensated for his contribution.