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People's incentive to create is the same as it always was: creative people just want to. What patents were set up to prevent, IIRC, was trade secrets - they we

People's incentive to create is the same as it always was: creative people just want to. What patents were set up to prevent, IIRC, was trade secrets - they were a way to bribe creators to publish their ideas rather than sit on them. IMO, they were a sledgehammer to swat a fly. Trade secrets would be reinvented. Locking an idea out of the commons for a whole patent term (and longer if they can attach new patents off the side) is a worse outcome.

venomsnake 11y ago
But on the other hand reproducing the result without reading the patent, should be able to invalidate said patent. If I don't care how you achieved the one click purchase button, I should be able to have my implementation on my page.
- JulianMorrison 11y ago
  Invalidating patents may not be so hard in the abstract, but the trouble is you have to fight a long and legally technical court case to do it. With no certainty of winning even if you are right.
- rrmm 11y ago
  That's too low of a standard imo: just knowing something is possible and what that specific thing is, confers a lot of useful information.
  - JulianMorrison 11y ago
    However, that argument also suggests that trade secrets are not much of a barrier to innovation.
    - rrmm 11y ago
      It definitely depends on the invention in question. Consider the case of nuclear weapons. The first big leap is that the energy of fission can be made to be explosively released. Once you know that this is the case, most people in the field might be able to come up with something along the lines of a gun-type warhead. On the other hand, implosion devices, even if you know they are possible, still require a huge amount of work and design studies to make work reliably. Knowing that they are possible isn't the hard part--making it work is.
thaumasiotes 11y ago
> What patents were set up to prevent, IIRC, was trade secrets - they were a way to bribe creators to publish their ideas rather than sit on them. This is what I learned too. I can't for the life of me understand why the US has trade secret laws in addition to the patent laws. From some light reading on wikipedia, the answer seems to be "why do we need a reason?"
- danarmak 11y ago
  For that matter, software or algorithms can be under copyright (may not publish), patent (must publish as part of the patent), and trade secret (may publish only if already public knowledge) at the same time.

venomsnake 11y ago

But on the other hand reproducing the result without reading the patent, should be able to invalidate said patent. If I don't care how you achieved the one click purchase button, I should be able to have my implementation on my page.

JulianMorrison 11y ago
Invalidating patents may not be so hard in the abstract, but the trouble is you have to fight a long and legally technical court case to do it. With no certainty of winning even if you are right.
rrmm 11y ago
That's too low of a standard imo: just knowing something is possible and what that specific thing is, confers a lot of useful information.
- JulianMorrison 11y ago
  However, that argument also suggests that trade secrets are not much of a barrier to innovation.
  - rrmm 11y ago
    It definitely depends on the invention in question. Consider the case of nuclear weapons. The first big leap is that the energy of fission can be made to be explosively released. Once you know that this is the case, most people in the field might be able to come up with something along the lines of a gun-type warhead. On the other hand, implosion devices, even if you know they are possible, still require a huge amount of work and design studies to make work reliably. Knowing that they are possible isn't the hard part--making it work is.

thaumasiotes 11y ago

> What patents were set up to prevent, IIRC, was trade secrets - they were a way to bribe creators to publish their ideas rather than sit on them. This is what I learned too. I can't for the life of me understand why the US has trade secret laws in addition to the patent laws. From some light reading on wikipedia, the answer seems to be "why do we need a reason?"

danarmak 11y ago
For that matter, software or algorithms can be under copyright (may not publish), patent (must publish as part of the patent), and trade secret (may publish only if already public knowledge) at the same time.