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> As a meta-item on this discussion, it appears that we have a disagreement of value systems. I agree :-) > I'd recommend "Sequential Innovation, Patents, an

> As a meta-item on this discussion, it appears that we have a disagreement of value systems. I agree :-) > I'd recommend "Sequential Innovation, Patents, and Imitation" (http://www.researchoninnovation.org/patent.pdf http://www.researchoninnovation.org/patent.pdf), among others. Personally, I would not recommend anything by Bessen without significant cross-checking. Many of the author's works have been shown to have poor methodology. As I recall (it's been a while since I read it), this particular paper presents a theoretical model with little empirical evidence to back it up. Additionally, it posits that R&D intensity does not increase with more patenting by firms, something that later empirical studies refute. > Evaluating the positive effects requires not only identifying an invention/product, but determining whether the invention/product would still have been published/created in the hypothetical scenario in which patents did not exist. That is one way to do so, but that is a narrow view. At the macro level, this can be shown by the amount of investment into R&D activity that is evidently incentivized by patents. More money and resources funneled towards innovative activity enables more innovation. While it may not serve as direct proof of specific innovations, it is obvious that without resources being invested into R&D, many innovations would not have occurred sooner or at all. Would Microsoft pour billions into MSR if it did not hope to profit from it at some point in the future? > The meta-study covered three points: 1) efficacy at promoting innovation (one genuine purpose of the patent system), for which it failed to provide any direct evidence (things that would not have happened otherwise) and could only fall back on economic claims (rewarding things that were done; see (3)); 2) efficacy at promoting publication (another genuine purpose of the patent system), which it rather conclusively refuted; and 3) economic incentives and monetary evaluation of patents, which as a non-goal of the patent system (only a means), is irrelevant when evaluating whether a patent system should exist. The goal of a patent system is "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts". Promoting disclosure, as is capturing rewards, encouraging financing and increasing innovation through forced work-arounds, are all post-hoc rationalizations of that clause rather than explicit goals. It is incorrect to say economic incentives are a non-goal. Insofar as it diverts more resources towards R&D, patent systems evidently do well. > ... I don't consider the patent system's definition of "novel" the only measure of a technology's inventiveness or usefulness. Agreed. I have a number of issues with the current implementation of patent systems, but not with the fundamentals. > PGP, GCC, WebRTC, etc. Thanks for the examples. I'll note that often what was prevented was re-implementation of existing technologies available on the market, and nothing prevented the research and development of follow-on innovation, only its distribution to the market, which ostensibly would also have been allowed if a license was taken. Sure that would have increased costs of downstream applications, but why should products not pay their fair dues to the upstream innovations that made them possible, even if the products themselves are given away for free? In the case of MP3s, patents were directly responsible for spurring the then-languishing development of Vorbis, which many consider a better technology. > Both of which I'd hold up as examples for "why we shouldn't have software patents". In particular, if you see i4i as a good example, then I'd deeply question your evaluation of value. Both of them were operating companies whose technology was ripped off by Microsoft. I don't see what's so bad about i4i - they were a practicing entity that filled a business niche that MS ignored for years and then decided to just take over once i4i proved it was valuable. > But in both cases, so what? Neither of those contradicts my statement that "I've never once seen a patent lawsuit in which I could muster the slightest sympathy for the plaintiff or the slightest belief that they deserve anything". So this was not a strawman after all, and I guess therein lies our disagreement. I believe these inventors took enormous risks and caused an undeniable leap forward in their respective fields, and should have reaped proportional rewards. They certainly did well enough, but not nearly as well as they should have. Different value systems, I suppose.

JoshTriplett 11y ago
> The goal of a patent system is "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts". Promoting disclosure [...] are all post-hoc rationalizations of that clause Writings contemporary with that exact clause explicitly state its justification as encouraging the publication of ideas that might otherwise be kept secret; the presumption is that without patents industry would keep more secrets. I think we have ample evidence today to doubt that, but hundreds of years ago that seems plausible. > I'll note that often what was prevented was re-implementation of existing technologies available on the market, and nothing prevented the research and development of follow-on innovation, only its distribution to the market, which ostensibly would also have been allowed if a license was taken. Sure that would have increased costs of downstream applications A per-copy license fee of a penny kills FOSS completely; there is no "increased costs". Software has little value if not distributed, and demanding any licensing cost has the same effect as a cease-and-desist, killing the project in either case. In all cases, I specifically noted the novelty of the software developed; I left out the large stack of cases involving "just" reimplementation, as I figured you'd find them unmoving. For a more extensive (though by no means incomplete) list, see https://www.gnu.org/patent-examp/patent-examples.html https://www.gnu.org/patent-examp/patent-examples.html . I grew up through the libgif/libungif debacle, through MP3 being unavailable, through FFMPEG and LAME practically being contraband, through Debian having a "non-us" archive (ostensibly for crypto due to ITAR, but in practice also for patents). I see patents as a minefield, with the known mines marked by the projects hurt by them. I see patents stopping software development on a regular basis. And in case it looks like I've only seen one side of the issue: I've also successfully filed a dozen patents (all of which have Free Software implementations released), dealt with corporate patent licensing and contract negotiation, and seen various other patent-related workings inside companies. I stand by my conclusion that patents do more harm than good. > why should products not pay their fair dues to the upstream innovations that made them possible All innovation is follow-on innovation. Everything builds on previous things. "pay their fair dues" presupposes that ideas should have owners and monopolies who can extract dues; I don't consider that "fair" at all. The problem becomes even worse in the case of "out of nowhere" patents; you can hardly call them "upstream innovations" if the author of the software didn't even know about the patent, let alone read it and build on it. The rate of innovation is far too fast for patents. One of the many short-term reforms that would help curb the damage would be a drastically reduced duration; 20 years represents many generations of technology, and a company or companies dedicated to excluding others can stretch that out indefinitely with a steady series of patents (and vague threats and FUD, which work almost as well). > Both of them were operating companies whose technology was ripped off by Microsoft. Microsoft wrote their own implementations of both technologies (or in the case of DoubleSpace, obtained it from a different company). DoubleSpace was not a copy of Stacker, and Word was not a copy of whatever i4i supposedly made when they weren't suing people. The term "ripped off" presupposes ownership of ideas and agreement with the patent system. I don't think it would be reasonable for one company to control the entire concept of disk compression from 1990-2010. I don't believe Microsoft did anything wrong in either case. > So this was not a strawman after all It was: you held up an argument I never made that had obvious incorrect statements in it to make it sound ridiculous. "The Wright Brothers and Apple did not innovate" is a ridiculous notion. "Ideas should not have owners, and inventors do not have an innate right to control ideas" is a defensible position, just one you disagree with. > They certainly did well enough, but not nearly as well as they should have. Apple, the biggest company in the world, didn't do nearly as well as they should have? They've been wildly successful, due in no small part to the exact innovations you're talking about. (And I doubt that success would have been appreciably smaller without patents.)

JoshTriplett 11y ago

> The goal of a patent system is "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts". Promoting disclosure [...] are all post-hoc rationalizations of that clause Writings contemporary with that exact clause explicitly state its justification as encouraging the publication of ideas that might otherwise be kept secret; the presumption is that without patents industry would keep more secrets. I think we have ample evidence today to doubt that, but hundreds of years ago that seems plausible. > I'll note that often what was prevented was re-implementation of existing technologies available on the market, and nothing prevented the research and development of follow-on innovation, only its distribution to the market, which ostensibly would also have been allowed if a license was taken. Sure that would have increased costs of downstream applications A per-copy license fee of a penny kills FOSS completely; there is no "increased costs". Software has little value if not distributed, and demanding any licensing cost has the same effect as a cease-and-desist, killing the project in either case. In all cases, I specifically noted the novelty of the software developed; I left out the large stack of cases involving "just" reimplementation, as I figured you'd find them unmoving. For a more extensive (though by no means incomplete) list, see https://www.gnu.org/patent-examp/patent-examples.html https://www.gnu.org/patent-examp/patent-examples.html . I grew up through the libgif/libungif debacle, through MP3 being unavailable, through FFMPEG and LAME practically being contraband, through Debian having a "non-us" archive (ostensibly for crypto due to ITAR, but in practice also for patents). I see patents as a minefield, with the known mines marked by the projects hurt by them. I see patents stopping software development on a regular basis. And in case it looks like I've only seen one side of the issue: I've also successfully filed a dozen patents (all of which have Free Software implementations released), dealt with corporate patent licensing and contract negotiation, and seen various other patent-related workings inside companies. I stand by my conclusion that patents do more harm than good. > why should products not pay their fair dues to the upstream innovations that made them possible All innovation is follow-on innovation. Everything builds on previous things. "pay their fair dues" presupposes that ideas should have owners and monopolies who can extract dues; I don't consider that "fair" at all. The problem becomes even worse in the case of "out of nowhere" patents; you can hardly call them "upstream innovations" if the author of the software didn't even know about the patent, let alone read it and build on it. The rate of innovation is far too fast for patents. One of the many short-term reforms that would help curb the damage would be a drastically reduced duration; 20 years represents many generations of technology, and a company or companies dedicated to excluding others can stretch that out indefinitely with a steady series of patents (and vague threats and FUD, which work almost as well). > Both of them were operating companies whose technology was ripped off by Microsoft. Microsoft wrote their own implementations of both technologies (or in the case of DoubleSpace, obtained it from a different company). DoubleSpace was not a copy of Stacker, and Word was not a copy of whatever i4i supposedly made when they weren't suing people. The term "ripped off" presupposes ownership of ideas and agreement with the patent system. I don't think it would be reasonable for one company to control the entire concept of disk compression from 1990-2010. I don't believe Microsoft did anything wrong in either case. > So this was not a strawman after all It was: you held up an argument I never made that had obvious incorrect statements in it to make it sound ridiculous. "The Wright Brothers and Apple did not innovate" is a ridiculous notion. "Ideas should not have owners, and inventors do not have an innate right to control ideas" is a defensible position, just one you disagree with. > They certainly did well enough, but not nearly as well as they should have. Apple, the biggest company in the world, didn't do nearly as well as they should have? They've been wildly successful, due in no small part to the exact innovations you're talking about. (And I doubt that success would have been appreciably smaller without patents.)