Yes. Yes. To hold in my hand, a capsule that contained such power. To know that life and death on such a scale was my choice. To know that the tiny pressure on my thumb, enough to break the glass, would end everything. Yes. I would do it. That power would set me up above the gods. And through the Daleks I shall have that power!
-- Doctor Who, "Genesis of the Daleks"

Suppose you had the power to destroy the world. I'm not saying you asked for it. You just sort of happened upon it. And now it's yours. What would you do?

Because the power to destroy the world has been found. It's here: plotpatents.com.

Boing Boing and GrokLaw have reported on the fact that a clever little law firm has come up with a clever little idea. They've applied for a patent on a plot.

I've hung out in various fandoms over the course of my life. Many of these are slightly, well, crazy places. One of the phrases you hear from time to time fits the formula of "The producers of [object of fannish obsession] should sue! That episode of [show other than the object of fannish obsession] ripped off the plot of [episode of object of fannish obsession]!" They say this a lot, partly because they don't know better, but mostly because they don't care, and don't really expect anything to come of it.

Because: it's not illegal to rip off someone else's plot. You can't copyright a plot. You can't own a plot. For that matter, very few people actually invent new plots. This isn't because people lack creativity or invention, but because plots are fairly simple creatures. Depending on who you ask, there are only between ten and thirty distinct plots. Shakespeare didn't invent any of his plots.

Patents are a good idea, or, at least, they were. Giving the inventor a decade or so to make his invention commercially viable is a great way to (a) encourage people to invent and (b) encourage people to not keep their inventions secret. But as the rate of technological advancement increases, we start running into problems: things that get patented these days stand a good chance of being totally obsolete by the time the patent expires. But that's not really the point.

The point is, that the purpose of patents is right there in the constitution. It's to encourage invention. But that's not what they're being used for. They're being used to stifle invention. And in this case, it's the end of everything. With just a few patents, you could completely sew up all of creativity and make it illegal to compose any art without a license for the next couple of years.

And, of course, that's their goal. Well, not to actually stop people from creating, but to force people to pay them to do it. Which means that only those who can afford to will be allowed to. Nothing new under the sun. Ever again.

This can not be allowed to happen. It shouldn't happen, but how much can we really expect from the Patent Office? The folks who work at the patent office can't seriously be expected to have the range and depth of expertise to handle everything that comes at them, as evidenced by some of the recent software patents. These are very dedicated people who work very hard, but can not possibly keep up. Which means that, especially with the weight of Money behind them, some plot patents are liable to slip through at one point. At which point it's game over.

Pity. I rather liked having an imagination.