alt Hacker NewsI believe the restriction on personal replication of patented designs is a US thing (only?). At least in Germany, you are legally allowed to make patented things for yourself or science to some capacity. The whole point of a patent is encouraging progress through disclosure of knowledge.
The US restriction is quite mad, if you think about it. Freedom my ass.
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You correct, you are allowed to "break" patent law in Germany, if the use is private and non-commercial. This does not encompass schools and science though.
The whole point of a patent is encouraging progress through disclosure of knowledge.
I guess you could argue that inventors would hide their designs without patents, but that's not how any industry I'm familiar with works; if they thought that obscurity was an option, they'd stick with it and just label it a trade secret!
Uh no you can definitely make a replica of a patented device at home in the US. You can not sell it. I don’t think you could distribute the files of a reverse engineered Noctua fan online either.
> The whole point of a patent is encouraging progress through disclosure of knowledge.
Well, in terms of its design, the patent system was designed to reward what we now call theft of IP, by granting someone exclusive use of a technology that they would bring in from another country. Greenfield invention was an afterthought and some of the problems we face stem from that disconnect.