Unconstitutional Abuse Of Patent System? [View all]

[eniwetok]

Business benefits from numerous freebies provided by government which greatly enhance the wealth and power of corporations and their owners... freebies such intellectual property monopolies... patents, copyrights and trademarks. (Doesn't Trump claim his "brand" is worth 3 billion?). Then there's free limited liability protections for corporations which arguably should be purchased as insurance from the private sector. This protects the private wealth in the case of corporate bankruptcies... even if it shafts legitimate creditors.

Of these four only two appear in the Constitution. From Art 1

The Congress shall have Power... To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;

Along with the 2ed Amendment it's one of the few places in the Constitution that states a purpose... both are being ignored.

So is any patent for an idea designed just to create vendor lock, hence profits, and not "progress" therefore unconstitutional? Does abuse of the patent system harm the economy more than promote progress?


I'm not sure if there's a patent involved in this example or not... but assume there is. HP recently created new firmware for their printers so third party ink cartridges would not work after a certain date. Their rational.... to protect their intellectual property.

According to http://www.myce.com/news/hp-officially-responds-pre-programmed-failure-date-non-hp-cartridges-80467/

Now HP confirmed this was intentional to the Dutch public broadcasting station ‘NOS’.

“HP printers reject non-HP cartridges in several cases. This is protect innovation and intellectual property, but also to improve the safety of products for customers” , HP told the NOS in a statement. HP also added that, “the company indeed made changes to the software of several printer types”.

The changes are made according to HP, “to protect the printers and to protect the communication between the cartridge and the printer.”

“Affected printers will continue to work with refilled cartridges if they contain the original HP security chip. Other cartridges possibly don’t work”, HP added.