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Patent and copyright protection
Fri, 05/16/2008 - 10:18 — thebastidge
Will TSI be attempting to protect intellectual property?
- I would certainly hope, that even as a non-profit organization, TSI would still wish to protect their IP enough to prevent others from claiming it for exclusive use. Whether designs and writings are licensed under Creative Commons or traditional copyright, any substantively new invention or improvment, to include processes, should be safeguarded so that no other orgabnization or individual can keep the technology for themselves.
- If a spin-off or completely unrelated for-profit organization eventually results, it could license that technology, and thereby provide funding for greater efforts to promote the ideals that gave impetus to TSI, namely, ilbertarian experimentation with social systems. Even a venture formed for the exact opposite reasons (perhaps a religious fundamentalist authoritarian group as a mere example) and they paid license fees fort TSI intellectual property, it promotes the greater goal.
Yes, but...
The primary purpose for TSI to have a patent portfolio to horse trade with other patent holders. The oil and gas industry has lots of patents and it is extremely likely that we will infringe on one or more of them.
Fair enough, I like that
Fair enough, I like that idea as well.
More on patents
What Patri and I hate about the patent process is that we can't publicly talk about some really neat ideas until after the patent has been applied for. It is really annoying.
Patents and seasteads
Say I am in international waters using a seastead that has some idea that you (or an oil company) patented in the USA. Do you think you or they will be able to collect royalties from me? On what legal basis? How would you enforce your claim? What if I also have a patent on it in Europe or someplace else, would you also pay me? What if I thought of it first and can show I posted about the idea on usenet in 1993, so I think your patent is invalid? What if I have more guns and a seastead that can not sink and I can sink your seastead? Assume all my worldly wealth is on my seastead and it never goes into anyone's territorial waters. I just don't see why I care what patents you or any oil company has. I suppose if I wanted to build seasteads inside the USA as a business. But I don't think I would want to.
Self-inflicted damage can reach you still
If a judge issues an injunction preventing people in the US to do business with you, you'll feel it, whether your wealth is entirely out of the US or not, directly or indirectly. Sure, it's damaging to the US, more than it damages you even, but that kind of consideration never stopped the people with power and authority.
Patents are world-wide
Patents are pretty much world wide these days (kind of like copyright law.)
Wikipedia has an article that introduces the concept:
It is kind of fun to speculate that you are completely self sufficient on your seastead, but it is not very likely. Complying with international patents is probably the more prudent course of action.
don't need self sufficiency / great if patent like copyright law
>It is kind of fun to speculate that you are completely self sufficient on your seastead, but it is not very likely.
I have no illusions about being self sufficient. I live on an island of 12,000 and even at this size self sufficiency is not reasonable.
>Patents are pretty much world wide these days (kind of like copyright law.)
In a small island country in the Caribbean, do you think radio stations or cable companies pay royalties for the copyrighted material they use? From the error messages on cable I don't think so and I am rather confident that none of the radio stations are paying. So if patents are like copyright, why would a floating country care about international patents? Nobody is going to come to a tiny country and try to enforce patents where their home country court rulings have no effect.
Do you think that when I step onto the Azores to go shopping there is any danger that they would arrest me for copyright or patent violation claims? Do you think any small island country anywhere has ever arrested a visitor for copyright or patent violation claims made by some foreigner? Be bad for tourism so I doubt it has ever happened.
But say the Azores goes crazy and starts arresting visitors for patent violations. Then I don't step foot there. Maybe I send a boat ashore for supplies or pay someone from there to bring stuff to me when I am nearby. Does not mean I have to be self sufficient.
But say I don't want to support the economy of such a country with my business, do you think I will have any trouble finding some other islands that have not gone crazy and started arresting visitors for alleged patent and copyright violations?
You can easily waste crazy amounts of money on patents (I have done it). I really think you should not be spending any time or money on patents. I really think your odds of success go up if don't worry about patents. Part of it is the time, part the money, and part the secrecy. But I strongy recommend that anyone who is really interested in starting a floating country not worry about patents.
Maybe someday after we are a sizable country we might start to think about IP rules, but early on I don't think IP is an issue to worry about. Don't think other small countries worry about it. Does a captain of a ship worry if some people on his ship are violating copyright law?
TSI is Calif. non-profit
The seasteading institute is incorporated in the state of California with the intention of obtaining non-profit status from the United States Internal Revenue service. We have to abide by the laws of the US. Period. We have no choice.
If a big corporation comes along and says "you are infringing on patent XYZ, either pay us $$$ or stop infringing", we have to pay attention to them. Corporations do not tend to go after individuals concerning IP issues, they go after other corporations (like TSI.) Your arguments about corporations having individuals arrested are not very convincing.
We do not intend to spend large sums of money applying for patents. Someone has offered to help us out, so I doubt we will have pay much more than the submission fees.
My long term plan is to have seasteads that can be manufactured and deployed at sea. Until we get to that glorious situation, we have to worry about having a judge issue an injunction and shutting down a land based seastead factory.
key value added is the design not a factory
<blockquote>My long term plan is to have seasteads that can be manufactured and deployed at sea. Until we get to that glorious situation, we have to worry about having a judge issue an injunction and shutting down a land based seastead factory. <blockquote>
You could just have some designs that people could take to a shipyard of their choice to have their seastead built. You might charge for the designs, or limit it to a few trusted shipyards, or make it an open source design.
In the end I think we will probably want aluminum or steel. For you to setup your own competative shipyard with robots for cutting, robots for welding, stuff to move the heavy pieces around, and all the experts to make everything work is a huge investment. Until you have a steady stream of orders you would be better off to save your money and use existing shipyards. Your value added is not in construction, it is in a novel design. If the design has been evaluated on computers, modeled in wave tanks, and had full sized versions built and tested then you have invested in a design. If other people like your design then it has some value.
An open source design would not be something a judge could shut down.
Seems strange for a non-profit to have a factory. So strange in fact that I would expect you would be breaking some limit on non-profit organizations. Think it is worth checking the rules.
There are boat designers that sell designs the customer then takes to a boat builder. If some day you get a builder who lives on the ocean, cool. But "builder" and "non-profit" don't need to be the same organization.
Need Both Design and Factory
Without a design, no factory is needed.
TSI will not be running a factory, since it makes no sense. TSI will probably contract with a shipyard to manufacture each prototype seastead.
Once the prototype seasteads are manufactured and verified, TSI will strongly encourage the formation of at least one factory. The factory will invest in infrastructure, molds, personal training, marketing, sales, etc. Hopefully, an efficient factory will produce seasteads at a substantially lower cost than a shipyard that wants to build just one. However, TSI ultimately does not care if there is one factory, many factories, one shipyard or many shipyards. Indeed, the more organizations making seasteads should result in competition to bring down prices. In fact, as a non-profit, TSI is not legally allowed to favor one organization over another; they must all be treated equally. TSI ultimately wants there to be healthy competition between seastead manufactures.
There are some issues associated with manufacturing seasteads and safety organizations. Who pays for the safety seal of approval? Is TSI involved in that, or does each factory have to independently pay for a safety seal? I don't know.
Each organization that manufactures a seastead on land, will have to obey the laws of the appropriate country.
dedicated factory might or might not make sense
<blockquote>TSI will strongly encourage the formation of at least one factory. The factory will invest in infrastructure, molds, personal training, marketing, sales, etc. Hopefully, an efficient factory will produce seasteads at a substantially lower cost than a shipyard that wants to build just one.</blockquote>
If the material ends up being concrete or fiberglass, then having one factory that can reuse the same molds many times will make sense. If the material ends up being aluminum or steel, a seastead factory that was not fully utilized could easily cost more per seastead than a regular shipyard that was busy all the time making ships, only some of which were seasteads. Can also do things like order all the pieces to be cut and bent and then just do the welding yourself. Anyway, the decision to setup a factory just for seasteads will depend on the material used and the volume of orders. I think it is too early to really say if one will be reasonable. I don't think it will be reasonable early on, but I am not sure how long "early on" will last.
>Each organization that manufactures a seastead on land, will have to obey the laws of the appropriate country.
But if what TSI produces is just a set of blueprints then a customer can pick the country with the laws that work for them. It makes for one less thing that can cause problems.
I also doubt that a shipyard that just built what the customer's blueprints said to could get in trouble for patent infringment. Probably just the owner of the ship. But if the owner is off in international waters as soon as the seastead is finished they probably won't get in trouble either.
Doubts
How do we resolved these doubts? I am not an intellectual property lawyer and I really doubt that you are one either. Well we could ask an international patent attorney, but they tend to charge a lot of money for their time and opinions.
Interesting paper on issues of IP for international ships
This paper about patents and ships/shipyards is interesting:
http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/maritime/maritime_industrial/doc/Shipbuil...
Seems that ships with patent infringments are explicitly given a pass. So not only do I not have to worry about stepping foot on the Azores, seem under international convention they won't even trouble my ship. Only possible trouble is if someone knew my ship was going to infringe while it was under construction, but with a remote and quiet shipyard quickly building a small ship I don't really think there is much chance.
“The use of any invention in any vessel, aircraft or vehicle of any country which affordssimilar privileges to vessels, aircraft or vehicles of the United States, entering the UnitedStates temporarily or accidentally, shall not constitute infringement of any patent, if theinvention is used exclusively for the needs of the vessel, aircraft or vehicle and is notoffered for sale”.
And also:
“Patents: Patented Devices Forming Part of Vessels, Aircraft, or Land Vehicles In any country of the Union the following shall not be considered as infringements of the rights of a patentee: (i) the use on board vessels of other countries of the Union of devices forming the subject of his patent in the body of the vessel, in the machinery, tackle, gear and other accessories, when such vessels temporarily or accidentally enter the waters of the saidcountry, provided that such devices are used there exclusively for the needs of thevessel;(ii) the use of devices forming the subject of the patent in the construction or operationof aircraft or land vehicles of other countries of the Union, or of accessories of suchaircraft or land vehicles, when those aircraft or land vehicles temporarily or accidentallyenter the said country.”
More from paper on ships and patents
"Article 5ter Paris Convention demonstrates a concern to leave the channels of international commerce free from the burdens that would result if vessels had to conform to the patent laws of all nations that the vessel or vehicle visits during its lifetime. Different inventions are likely to be patented in different countries, and the same invention may be patented by different parties in different countries. Article 5ter Paris Convention places foreign-owned means of transport beyond the reach of domestic patentees’ exclusive rights. This prevents the international traffic of goods and persons from being obstructed by seizures at the borders and other measures."
I would suggest a seperate
I would suggest a seperate not-for-profit organization be setup for actual construction or related business. You don't get a tax deduction, but any/all revenue generated would go back into projects for seasteading. The non-profit should be saved for research, grants and that type of activity.
You may get what you want, but will you want what you get?
I would suggest a seperate
I would suggest a seperate not-for-profit organization be setup for actual construction or related business. You don't get a tax deduction, but any/all revenue generated would go back into projects for seasteading. The non-profit should be saved for research, development, grants and that type of activity.
You may get what you want, but will you want what you get?
For profit company
Starting up a for profit company to build these structures is the long term plan.
Patents are ridiculous. All
Patents are ridiculous. All they are good for is protecting you from other patents...
No argument
Patents tend to be useful for outfits that have fairly deep pockets. There is some pretty serious abuse of patents out there. (I live in the SF Bay area, and patent litigation articles make it the front page of the local newspaper on a regular basis.)
If we want to succeed in building a seastead community (and we do), we need to plan accordingly. Dealing with other organizations patents is part of the realistic planning process. We think it is both annoying and manageable.
No counter-argument. A
Just need to flag seastead with country that signed convention
I think if we flag our seasteads with some country that is part of this agreement that we don't have to worry about patents outside of the country our seastead is built in (and maybe not even there). There are a number of countries with shipyards where, in the unlikely event that you are caught, the fees for violating patents are very small.
http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/mpep/documents/appxp_5_ter.htm
http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/mpep/documents/appxp.htm
Again, I don't think patents are worth the trouble for seasteaders to get. And I don't think the patents of others can trouble us much.
I don't really expect to violate any patents anyway. Main patented things I am interested in is coatings to protect steel, motors, solar panels, etc. These are things I clearly just want to buy anyway.
If someone claims to have a patent for a wheel on its side (tension circle) I will just laugh and say I am sure the patent on the wheel has expired.
TSI will obey US laws
TSI will obey US laws. Period.
If other people want to build a seastead and try to avoid paying patent royalties, that is their issue, not mine.
If TSI engages a shipyard to build a seastead without paying any relevant patent royalties, I'll resign from the TSI board immediately.
TSI purpose
Is it really the plan of TSI to engage a shipyard? Sorry, i don't know much about your non-profit status, but I would be very surprised if that would even be allowed. I certainly would not suggest that TSI violate ANY law as a U.S. based corporation. I might joke about it, but that would be suicide. That's why I would think that TSI would remain a research & development organization. What other people do with the R & D is up to them, unless TSI is engaged with them in some way.
What does the corporate charter state as the purpose of the organization? Will all of the products of TSI be released under an "Open source" type of license? If so, what license will you use?
You may get what you want, but will you want what you get?
R&D
The primary charter of TSI is research and development, in addition to community building.
We are trying to get several seastead designs published. We can not guarantee that those designs will not infringe on some patents in some countries. If a design infringes upon a patent, the person trying to build the design has the option of obtaining a license from the patent holder or building the structure in some other country where the patent is not honored.
TSI will probably attempt to get one of each design constructed to demonstrate feasibility. After that, a free and open marketplace can compete to construct the structures at the lowest cost and highest quality.
Ok, that is in line with
Ok, that is in line with what I expected. But will you release under an Open Source license, and if so, which?
I'm asking because I have specific volunteer projects I want to do, and I want to be sure if I donate them and my efforts to this organization they will stay open.
What I am looking for is a page that states your organizations goals and principals in general (Commitment to openness, will not patent others ideas unless given permission to do so, will make any patents generated available at $x, not violating laws, etc) and a legal agreement given by TSI that all material contributions will be kept open under xyz license or any other compatible license.
I think if you are going to get SERIOUS contributions, you must assure those given them how they will be used to further your goals and objectives.
You may get what you want, but will you want what you get?
I would suggest leaving it
I would suggest leaving it under the public domain, making the possiblilty of wide spread use as high as possible.
Patents not an issue for ships passing through
Even if your seastead/ship violates a patent in some country you will not get in trouble if you visit there:
"Article 5ter Paris Convention demonstrates a concern to leave the channels of international commerce free from the burdens that would result if vessels had to conform to the patent laws of all nations that the vessel or vehicle visits during its lifetime. Different inventions are likely to be patented in different countries, and the same invention may be patented by different parties in different countries. Article 5ter Paris Convention places foreign-owned means of transport beyond the reach of domestic patentees’ exclusive rights. This prevents the international traffic of goods and persons from being obstructed by seizures at the borders and other measures."
http://wiki.seasteading.org/index.php/Patents
http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/maritime/maritime_industrial/doc/Shipbuil...
http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/mpep/documents/appxp_5_ter.htm
My plan is to migrate around, visiting different islands throughout the year. So I don't think I will ever have any trouble with patents. If you park a resort seastead inside the US EEZ you might need to be more worried about patents. Something that looked like an oil platform might not be counted as a "means of transportation" if it was parked most of the time, even if it could move.
Buyers are not liable for patent infringements
You as a buyer of a seastead do not have to care about patent infringements.
You as a manufacturer of a seastead have to care about patent infringements. Patents filed in a country are only protecting the product in that country. You have to file a patent for every country you want to protect your product in.
This is no legal advice.
Patents basically don't apply to international ships
>You as a manufacturer of a seastead have to care about patent infringements. Patents filed in a country are only
>protecting the product in that country. You have to file a patent for every country you want to protect your product in.
The protection does not apply to visiting ships, even if I manufacture my own. So for those of us interested in seasteads that are moving around, patents could only be an issue where we make the seastead. But if we make it in the open ocean even that is not an issue. So in the long run, when we are manufacturing seasteads at sea, I don't think patents will matter to seasteaders, at least as far as the seasteads themselves.