It's not "inane" but reflects the views of many people in the engineering community outside this particular bubble.
Ironically, he's one of those engineers that Reddit/HN say that there aren't enough of in Congress:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Massie ("Thomas Massie was born in Huntington, West Virginia. He grew up in Vanceburg, Kentucky and met his future wife, Rhonda. He earned a Bachelor's degree in electrical engineering and a Master's degree in mechanical engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
In 1993, at MIT, he and his wife started a successful company, called SensAble Devices Inc. Massie was the winner in 1995 of the $30,000 Lemelson-MIT Student Prize for inventors. The company was re-incorporated as SensAble Technologies, Inc. in 1996 after partner Bill Aulet joined the company. They raised $32 million of venture capital, had 24 different patents, and 70 other employees.
After Massie sold the company, he and his wife moved back to their hometown in Lewis County. They raised their children on a farm, where he built his own off-the-grid timberframe house.").
I know a couple of founder-engineers who would probably share Massie's view. The patent system has lots of problems, but it does allow for something very valuable: arms-length transactions in the products of R&D efforts.
It's inane because any reform that helps invalidate patents can be seen as weakening the patent system.
Notice he didn't specify whether or not it weakens strong patents, but the patent system. A good thought experiment would be to ask yourself if you think the patent system needs to be made stronger. If you don't think it needs to be made stronger then would it still work if made weaker? If neither is true, you are close to saying the system is perfect the way it is.
Comments
It's not "inane" but reflects the views of many people in the engineering community outside this particular bubble.
Ironically, he's one of those engineers that Reddit/HN say that there aren't enough of in Congress:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Massie ("Thomas Massie was born in Huntington, West Virginia. He grew up in Vanceburg, Kentucky and met his future wife, Rhonda. He earned a Bachelor's degree in electrical engineering and a Master's degree in mechanical engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 1993, at MIT, he and his wife started a successful company, called SensAble Devices Inc. Massie was the winner in 1995 of the $30,000 Lemelson-MIT Student Prize for inventors. The company was re-incorporated as SensAble Technologies, Inc. in 1996 after partner Bill Aulet joined the company. They raised $32 million of venture capital, had 24 different patents, and 70 other employees. After Massie sold the company, he and his wife moved back to their hometown in Lewis County. They raised their children on a farm, where he built his own off-the-grid timberframe house.").
I know a couple of founder-engineers who would probably share Massie's view. The patent system has lots of problems, but it does allow for something very valuable: arms-length transactions in the products of R&D efforts.
It's inane because any reform that helps invalidate patents can be seen as weakening the patent system.
Notice he didn't specify whether or not it weakens strong patents, but the patent system. A good thought experiment would be to ask yourself if you think the patent system needs to be made stronger. If you don't think it needs to be made stronger then would it still work if made weaker? If neither is true, you are close to saying the system is perfect the way it is.