Week 06 Reflection -- An Argument of Intellectual Property Laws Featuring Dr. Per Bylund

Dr. Bylund begins by arguing that just because you come up with an idea in your head, it doesn’t mean that someone else does not have it too. He says that ideas are born in countless minds at many different times. He uses the example of the lightbulb to emphasize his point. Three men had come up with ideas about the concept of the lightbulb without knowing the others had the same thing in mind. I agree with Dr. Bylund’s statements thus far. It is true that people can independently imagine the same ideas.

However, when it comes to patenting and protecting your product, I disagree. Creators of early light bulbs patented their designs because they wanted their hard work protected from infringement and misuse. Yes, they can see other concepts used in other light bulbs, but they cannot create a carbon copy of another person’s light bulb design. Imagine spending ten years of your life on a light bulb design, only for another person to copy it and take advantage of it. How would you feel?

Dr. Bylund says that it is not theft but blueprints for the next person. I don’t disagree with his statement, however one must draw the line between stealing a design and being inspired by an idea in someone’s patent. I believe that it is critical to improve and learn from our previous designs and mistakes. One cannot move humanity into the future without learning from the past. I draw the line where someone copies and exploit’s someone else’s hard work.

Bylund argues that once you have a stamp on something, no one else can build off that idea and no one else can improve that idea. I disagree with Dr. Bylund’s argument. You can build off that idea but not that exact idea. For example, in 2016, Apple revealed that they would no longer include a 3.5mm headphone jack with their iPhones. This revolutionary idea shook up the smartphone industry and the availability or unavailability of a headphone jack would be an immediate factor in how consumers purchased their smartphones. Over time, the rest of the industry followed suit with this idea of removing the headphone jack for the sake of more space inside the smartphone. Just because Apple had the patent for an iPhone without a headphone jack, doesn’t mean the rest of the industry couldn’t build off the idea and innovate off of it. Other industry titans such as Samsung and Google also continued the idea of no headphone jack and created innovative solutions such as wireless earbuds.

Source: Dr. Bylund's talk at the Free Enterprise Society meeting (09/21/2021)

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