straka@ihlpf.UUCP (02/09/87)
> The major way they deserve reward for this is through people buying their > ... To the degree that they need to > lock out competitors with better or cheaper products, they probably hurt us > all; this may be justified for their innovations, but is damaging to the > degree that they attempt to appropriate concepts they did not create, or The whole concept of patents and copyrights is to induce developers of products to invest their time and money in order to reap economic gain without (somewhat) the risk of some other party stealing those ideas and introducing their own products at a cheaper price due to the lack of development costs. Whew! All in one sentence! The details of the laws and their implementation are debatable, but the base concepts of the laws (and the system they are the manifestation of) are clear. Without protection from "free riders", the incentive to innovate soon disappears. Not perfect, but then, what is? -- Rich Straka ihnp4!ihlpf!straka