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The Pizzaright Principle

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by Jay Garmon 1 view

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Last February, when CHUGHLETT asked "Should intellectual property exist?", the result was one of TechRepublic's all-time Top Ten most active threads.
https://www.techrepublic.com.com/5208-11183-0.html?forumID=9&threadID=169191&start=0

So, when I came across "The Pizzaright Principle" from Princeton professor Ed Felten, I knew I had a juicy subject on the line.
http://www.freedom-to-tinker.com/?p=902

Basically, the principle boils down to this: The acid test for any argument towards an intellectual property right is applying that same right to the making and selling of pizzas. If the pizza version of the argument is absurd, so is the intellectual property argument.

To quote Felten:

"Pizzaright ? the exclusive right to sell pizza ? is a new kind of intellectual property right. Pizzaright law, if adopted, would make it illegal to make or serve a pizza without a license from the pizzaright owner."

This, of course, would royally suck. If, say, Pizza Hut controlled the Pizzaright patent, it would be guaranteed market supremacy, either by denying Domino's or Papa John's the right to make pizza, or charging such and exorbitant royalty rate that Pizza Hut was guaranteed higher profits regardless of its efforts in the marketplace. All consumers would suffer from a lack of competition in the marketplace, both in the price and variety of pizzas available.

The Amazon.com "we invented one-click shopping" copyright issue immediately springs to mind in light of Pizzaright. God forbid that online shopping be easy anywhere but Amazon, because there's no way the consumer would benefit from that competition.

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by stress junkie

There are numerous examples of how the principle of intellectual property has been misapplied. The USPTO, alias the Patent Office, has granted numerous meritless patents in the last decade. That doesn't mean that IP doesn't exist.

Let's put it this way. Jay, what if you wrote a story and it was published. Then another publisher started to publish your story without permission and without paying you or your official publisher any royalties. Would that be fair to you or to your official publisher?

It's just that simple. If you have something unique then you should have the right to benefit from its use. If you have a common product just like numerous other people then you have a public domain product.

End of story.

by Jay Garmon

Again, it all goes back to idea versus expression. Copyright and patents are designed to protect unique expressions, not broad ideas. To continue the Amazon.com analogy, they have every right to protect the precise code and architecture they used to implement one-click shopping (the unique expression). They are not entitled to patent or copyright one-click shopping in general (the broad idea), as simplifying the online shopping experience benefits the consumer, and is a logical tactic far too braod to be worthy of copyright ro patent. You can copyright and patent your pizza recipes, but you can't claim ownership of the right to make and sell pizzas.

by zetacon4

haha!

On the subject of broad ideas, vs. expressions, what do you think will happen to the Creative MP3 player interface issue? Will Apple be forced to license the current interface in the iPod? Who will take on the responsibility of determining if Creative has a viable patent and is it enforcable? Inquiring minds want to know!!

Yummmmm Good pizza!

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