Yesterday in class we watched 6 TED talk videos that related to patents. The first I wanted to discuss was the Lessons from Fashion's Free Culture that was given by Johanna Blakley. Blakley knows all about the fashion culture and how in fashion unlike other products, there are trends. Now why are there trends? Because clothes were decided to be too utilitarian for patents because it would be difficult to produce clothes if people could patent each and every type of sleeve and size of shirt etc. IN countries like Japan and the EU there are patents for their fashion but they are either far too stringent that it would be impossible to get a patent or far too lenient so that they would issue a patent immediately until it is challenged, then they will check it. That means there is constant innovation in the american market of fashion because there is always a trend for each and every season so unlike the computer industry, there are no fashion police.
Fashion like this could be patented but since it is defined as to be too utilitarian it is in fact just a fashion trend. Overall, Blakely challenges those watching to see if the world would be better with shared technology and patents. Would that better our world? It would significantly drop the prices but I do not think that it would help the companies or those investing in innovation at all. 
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