Screw bitcoins! Let's patent food!

Dibs on plums! It's the new hype, man!

Lol. How the heck do they thing this would work? We better patent earth fast!

i patent patenting. so i win.

you patent GPL stuff?

then you are infected with GPL!

me will patent ddab!

"Lol. How the heck do they thing this would work? We better patent earth fast!"

First you need to understand what a patent is. It is an exclusionary right (meaning you can legally prevent others from using it) given by the government for an "invention". An invention is defined as something industrially applicable (it has to be useful, duh), novel (new - not something that has been done before), exhibit a sufficient "inventive step" (not obvious) and you must provide full disclosure on how it works/how you did it for it to be protected under patent law.

N.B. Patents are not universally accepted, so a patent in America may not be respected in another country eg. China.

Agricultural patents are typically given to companies who produce a method for improving a strain of plant by giving it various beneficial properties. The patent protects the harvesting/sowing of the fruit/seeds but it the patent itself describes how to make that particular plant so special. You can see one of Monsanto's patents here: http://www.google.com/patents/US4535060 (as I said before, patents must be fully disclosed to get protection, otherwise its just a trade secret)

I'm not supporting agricultural (or for that matter pharmaceutical) patents in any way, but just letting you know that what they are patenting is not so trivial as "I want to patent plums!".

the problem is, acording to patent law, the actualy genetic code that makes the plant "special" (transgenic plant) is patented, as such any plant that has that code is breaching the pattent. this in itself isnt harmfull.

the problem comes from the fact that plants can cross polenate to other plants that dont have the "special" bit of DNA, giving said plant the DNA. this allows the patent lawyers* to sue the shit out of any farmer within a 50 mile radius of the transgenic plant farm, due to copyright infringment, within the space of 2-3 years...

so yes PATENTS ON GENETICS ARE BAD, REALY REALY BAD!!!

*read: demented fucktards that should be burned for crimes agains humanity

"due to copyright infringment" No.

But the gist of your statement is pretty much spot on.

At the very least they have (for now) limitations on how long they are protected: iirc 20 years. Hopefully Monsanto doesn't get the opportunity to pull a Disney and ruin patents as completely as copyright.

edit: Skasi, patents can be beneficial. They encourage companies and inventors to share how they accomplished something cool. There are some obvious problems (see above) and companies like to use them as ammo to prevent others from getting an edge, but they are not entirely without merit. I would also support copyright if it was actually limited in duration, because the intention behind it is well and good, but it just doesn't work when the protection never ends.

zomg... can we discuss religion after patents?

In the USA the main problem is that patents are more or less automatically given. Then you have to go to court to get them nullified.

In addition, we have some iffy patents like software and genetics. Which need reform. Nevertheless, mainly it is just too easy to get patents.