* Roy Schestowitz peremptorily fired off this memo:
> Ideas Are Everywhere... So Why Do We Limit Them?
>
> ,----[ Quote ]
>| Gladwell uses this to talk up what Myhrvold is doing, suggesting that
>| Intellectual Ventures is really about continuing that process, getting those
>| ideas out there -- but he misses the much bigger point: if these ideas are
>| the natural progression, almost guaranteed to be discovered by someone sooner
>| or later, why do we give a monopoly on these ideas to a single discoverer?
>| Myhrvold's whole business model is about monopolizing all of these ideas and
>| charging others (who may have discovered them totally independently) to
>| actually do something with them. Yet, if Gladwell's premise is correct (and
>| there's plenty of evidence included in the article), then Myhrvold's efforts
>| shouldn't be seen as a big deal. After all, if it wasn't Myhrvold and his
>| friends doing it, others would very likely come up with the same thing sooner
>| or later.
>|
>| This is especially highlighted in one anecdote in the article, of Myhrvold
>| holding a dinner with a bunch of smart people... and an attorney. The group
>| spent dinner talking about a bunch of different random ideas, with no real
>| goal or purpose -- just "chewing the rag" as one participant put it. But the
>| next day the attorney approached them with a typewritten description of 36
>| different inventions that were potentially patentable out of the dinner. When
>| a random "chewing the rag" conversation turns up 36 monopolies, something is
>| wrong. Those aren't inventions that deserve a monopoly.
> `----
>
> http://techdirt.com/articles/20080507/0114581051.shtml
I read Gladwell's article in the New Yorker. Nowhere did Gladwell
mention the patent crap (and Myhrvold's innovation of "The Microsoft
Tax").
I meant to write a letter to the editor about it. Dang. So much to do,
so little time.
I can just see Bill smirking:
--
It's possible, you can never know, that the universe exists only for me. If so,
it's sure going well for me, I must admit.
-- Bill Gates, TIME magazine Vol. 149, No. 2 (13 January 1997)
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