# Suing the Aliens (intellectual exercise) **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 3, 2012, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suing-the-aliens-intellectual-exercise/627152 "2012-07-03T23:16:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2012, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suing-the-aliens-intellectual-exercise/627152/21 "2012-07-09T14:50:12Z")
I think the release of technology would piss off a lot of people who currently make money off of our current tech, they would try to suppress it, hide it, discredit it and try to legally restrict people’s access to it. What a sad world we live in, I welcome the Grays, it’s the humans with the problems. ---
**Author:** ![Max\_Torque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Max\_Torque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_Torque)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2012, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suing-the-aliens-intellectual-exercise/627152/22 "2012-07-11T15:09:40Z")
In case anyone is interested: a book came out just yesterday called **[Year Zero](http://www.amazon.com/Year-Zero-Novel-Rob-Reid/dp/0345534417/)** on this very subject: > [@](#): > > Low-level entertainment lawyer Nick Carter thinks it’s a prank, not an alien encounter, when a redheaded mullah and a curvaceous nun show up at his office. But Frampton and Carly are highly advanced (if bumbling) extraterrestrials. And boy, do they have news. > > The entire cosmos, they tell him, has been hopelessly hooked on humanity’s music ever since “Year Zero” (1977 to us), when American pop songs first reached alien ears. This addiction has driven a vast intergalactic society to commit the biggest copyright violation since the Big Bang. The resulting fines and penalties have bankrupted the whole universe. We humans suddenly own everything—and the aliens are not amused. ---
**Author:** ![iamthewalrus\_3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/258eb7/32.png) [@iamthewalrus\_3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamthewalrus_3)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2012, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suing-the-aliens-intellectual-exercise/627152/23 "2012-07-17T21:03:21Z")
> [@Grumman](#): > > If anything the Greys’ technology should invalidate patents, not the other way around. If people have developed the same technology in a vacuum, it means your invention is not innovative enough to be protected by a patent. The fact that someone else has come up with the same idea is not sufficient to prove that an invention is “non-obvious” and not deserving of patent protection. However, if the Greys’ could prove that they invented it first, it would be prior art, and the current patentholder would have an invalid patent. ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2012, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suing-the-aliens-intellectual-exercise/627152/24 "2012-07-17T22:20:48Z")
Well that would be the entirely new can of worms that would be opened up. Do we throw out megatons of Human patents because it was also developed by an alien culture? Do we allow them to sue us for infringing on patents we couldn’t possibly have known about? Do we allow them to put forth new claims that effectively stifle innovation and manufacturing on this world? Or do we say that all existing patents hold true, but new patents will be subject to alien rights to said technology, which may also dead-end us by preventing development in new fields? Or do we say ‘fuck off’ to the aliens? ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2012, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suing-the-aliens-intellectual-exercise/627152/25 "2012-07-18T00:19:04Z")
> [@Sacrilegium](#): > > When I first started reading the title and the very beginning of the OP, I assumed we’d be suing them for emotional/physical damage from all the anal probes. No doubt somebody would try something like this: [QUOTE=Babylon 5, “Grail”] **Mr. Flinn:** We went through their archives, and we found proof that his great-grandfather abducted my great-grandfather, and just took him away in a spaceship. Frankly, Your Honor, we want damages! **Ombuds Wellington:** _(to alien)_ How do you plead? **Alien:** _(holds up a card with strange symbols)_ **Ombuds Wellington:** Could I please have a translation team in here? _(mutters)_ Why is it Ombuds Zimmermann never gets these cases? Only me? [/QUOTE] [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suing-the-aliens-intellectual-exercise/627152.md?page=1)