In honor of the current Full Moon, after reviewing the strange twists and turns of this thread, I have decided to go above and beyond the usual Rodeo Clown style of the GRC persona and do a "scorched earth" presentation on patent and copyright issues.
I'm deeply hurt that you would refer me to the video "Everything is a Remix" and suggest that it will stretch and exercise my understanding of the world.
As far back as I can remember we have had discussions in the home where I grew up about patents. My Dad lifted himself above the level of a share-cropper to owning his own farm by buying a set of tools in the Depression Era (the one back in the days of Mr Hoover and Mr Roosevelt) to work on tractors owned by older farmers who understood horses and harnesses, but not these new fangled tractor-things. He would years later explain to me that he selected those particular tools (the brand) because they had better patents. I have what is left of those tools and the little black toolbox that is older than I am in my garage today.
Henry Ford (of the Detroit Fords) and Harry Ferguson (of the British Fergusons) got together sometime in the late 1930s and decided if they would put the patents that each owned into a joint venture, they could change the history of the farm tractor. To this day if I go to an antique tractor show, I can look at various brands of tractors designed and built after the Ford-Ferguson era and point out the features that they obviously were paying royalties to either Mr. Ford's company or Mr. Ferguson's company. Because of some health issues my Dad bought a 1943 model Ford Ferguson that he was not sure "would farm" but at least he could use it like someone would use one of those rugged versions of a golf cart to get around his farm to supervise. He found out the little thing actually could farm and by 1950 he added a brand new Ferguson to the fleet. (Ford and Ferguson had gone their separate ways by then.) He chose the Ferguson rather than the Ford because Ferguson had better patents. I grew up in a family that worried about buying products with the right patent.
Somewhere around 1950 my Dad had gone to the local machine shop/blacksmith shop and had them craft an accessory to attach to one of Mr. Ferguson's implements that hung off the back of the tractor when ready to do battle with the soil. I had this wack-a-doodle country school superintendent who was tutoring me and teaching me mechanical drawing (drafting we would say later) in Junior High. I gave it my best effort and created a crude drawing of the accessory my Dad had dreamed up and he drove 250 miles through the sage brush, cactus and mesquite to meet with a patent attorney to see if his device was patentable. (After all, it was an era many many people became rich because they patented something!) He never told me what the attorney said, but there was no patent, and no further talk about the device... which was still attached to the disk harrow when we put it in the estate auction in 1997.
The most interesting, colorful and successful broadcaster I ever worked for was a bit of an absentee owner the day I was hired. A few weeks later the G.M. who hired me was gone and the owner once again became the day-to-day working manager. He had taken a leave of absence to sell a patent which he had purchased earlier. He told me some of the details of taking the product idea and turning it into a marketable product and then going on the road until he found a monster national corporation capable of taking the invention he owned and selling it BIG TIME! (He half way wore out a Piper Commanche travelling the nation to get the sale made.) He helped me understand patents.
In my last full-time job I had some administrative functions in a little company that jumped into this newly developing industry that was building "stuff" to mount on top of cell phone towers. We had a 'skunk works' in the back with a creative genius or two and we had product that was totally different than the ho-hum traditional cell phone transmitting antennas that looked like an old TV receiving antenna we used to have on our houses that had gone through a shredder we run yard waste through. And while I was there, they added a Patent Attorney in house to get their filings currected and in order. He pointed out to me one day a big mistake they made in a patent before he got there. They not only described the product but as a final point in the patent indicated how much gain it would produce. A competitor started making a look-alike product and we sued. We lost. There was no infringement. yes their product was a knock-off of ours, but when tested on the testing range, it did not have the amount of output that our product had, and that our patent proclaimed. He had fun training our sales people how to go out and badmouth the product with dignity. "Yes, Mr. Customer. They had a product similar to ours. In fact it was so much like ours we sued them and we lost. Their product performed so poorly, the judge said it did violate the patent specifications.
Over several cups of coffee I got the Patent Attorney to analyze a plan I had. At the time I was attempting to buy a small market radio stration and I had a few programming ideas that I thought were unique at the time, and I wanted to know if there was a way that I could register my programming so it would be protected from being duplicated by competitors. He introduced me to the concept of registering a Business Process. But then he gave me the "Dutch Uncle Tough Talk Speech": A patent is only valueable if you have the resources to pay to defend your invention. And he laid out how expensive it can be to go to court and try to win a case against someone who plans to violate your patent or copyright and has much deeper pockets than you do!
Now, let me get this out of my system: "I'm damned annoyed that you would speak to me like I was nine years old and that I should understand that you are the Talk Radio guy who actually works in radio... and that if I need to know something, I should listen to you!" And that the little YouTube "Everything is a Remix" would make me so much smarter and wiser than I was when I got up this morning.
In looking up your "Everything is a Remix" thingy, I also looked up current congressional activity on maybe doing something about Patent Trolls. As of last month it was hung up in the Senate. Seems as though enough of the Republican Senators on the committee were refusing to go along because all of the paperwork that would be required to enforce a no-trolling concept was going to be an inconvenience to big corporations. (You know, the Samsungs and Apples and Sonys of the world that purposely poach each others designs, knowing that when the case works through the courts 10 to `15 years later they will simply each forgive the other for also mutually infringing on their patents and we will settle out of court for a token amount. In the meantime, our staff lawyers in the patent department will continue to harass and crush the little guys we think are violating our patents, or getting too close for comfort. (The record shows SOME prominent Republican Senators along with almost enough Democratic Senators were ready to pass the bill, but it was the renegade Republicans that were holding up the bill. Those guys are YOUR friends. You need to be talking to THEM... not us.)
We have a broken patent and copyright scheme as the law of the land. But we have no stomach to really fix it. We try to tell people a "no-patent trolling" law will make everything well. It ain't that simple!
We have a broken system of medical finance in this country. But we have no stomach to really fix it. We try to tell people to just let the market place fix it and the market will make everything well. It ain't that simple!
I don't think Talk Radio has done it's job in bringing the public up to speed on how we can best deal with the patent issues, and I don't think Talk Radio has done it's job in bringing the public up to speed on what ails our medical system and providing rational explanations of how we can fix it.
Maybe next month to observe the Full Moon, I could fill you in on my involvement and experience in the delivery and finance of medical care. On that one I will go out of my way to not speak to you as though you are nine years old.
) and I am sure you would counter each of them with insightful opposing views.