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> Bet my team of PhDs would come to the same solution. Maybe they would, but they didn't. The point of the patent system is to incentivize people to publish t

> Bet my team of PhDs would come to the same solution. Maybe they would, but they didn't. The point of the patent system is to incentivize people to publish their inventions. The secondary purpose is to encourage invention. Giving a temporary monopoly is not the greatest solution, but try coming up with a better one.

cmdrfred 11y ago
> Bet my team of PhDs would come to the same solution. What is missed here is they might of come up with a better solution, but due to the risk of a lawsuit they never even try.
- sgt101 11y ago
  I don't follow this - why would anyone get sued for trying to come up with a different solution?
  - thawkins 11y ago
    Because they may contravene, a vague overly broad software patent, that effectually locks up ideas, not implementations.
  - justinclift 11y ago
    Because the current way patents in the US are viewed, is as ammunition to attack competitors (and potential competitors). :(
chris_wot 11y ago
Open Source software largely handles what patents are intended to do. If someone makes some cool software, then someone else works out how that works. Then they develop code, which they publish under an open license. Then others contribute to it, or if that doesn't work then they fork the code and thus innovation AND publication occurs. And as software gets more complex, you need to support it and build new features. That happens all the time without the aid of patents. In fact, when a patent is made, then sure its patented but so what? It can't be used for decades, and so only one party benefits and the idea that is beneficial to society stagnates. This is not a zero sum game here. If you patent a medicine for 10 years, then people like Martin Shkreli come along and jack up the price of their product, nobody is allowed to offer cheaper medicine and literally millions die. Or you have a situation where a non-lethal arrow is patented, someone independently comes up with the same idea, documents it and sells it, does to want to patent it and then gets sued to an inch of their life. Then you have an independently document invention, and no innovation. The argument doesn't stack up.
- mamon 11y ago
  Open Source accomplish exactly the opposite of what patents are for: instead of encouraging innovation by providing financial incentive (from temporary monopoly on selling said innovation) it discourages it because it basically ensures that you'll never make any money on your invention. Maybe I'm missing something but there aren't many examples of truly innovative open source software - most of OSS projects even describe themselves as "Open Source alternative to [insert innovative commercial product here]"
  - chris_wot 11y ago
    Email isn't patented, not it the web, nor is TCP/IP, nor is any one of dozens of non-patented inventions you use on a daily basis. If TCP/IP was patented, do you think you'd see the Internet as we know it today? Would NetFlix, or Wikipedia or even Google would exist in the form it is now? I don't think so. edit: removed the "that's ridiculous" comment. I'm sorry, you aren't ridiculous, nor is your comment. That showed you a great deal of disrespect, and I was out of line. I hope you can accept this apology. My disagreement with your argument should never have led to disrespectful comments. (I just hit the up vote arrow) I think some of my other comments have this language in them. That's unfortunate, it's just this is just the first one I noticed.
- Qwertious 11y ago
  Actually, open-source is the exact opposite of what patents are intended to do - patents discourage trade secrets that die with their inventors by giving their holders a right to timed exclusivity (regardless of whether other people know how to copy them or not), in exchange for publicly documenting said trade secrets. Open-source is essentially just a tool for collaborating on software more easily (ignoring the Free Software side for a sec), but which requires giving up propriety over the software.
  - chris_wot 11y ago
    Can you give any example of a trade secret that cannot be reinvented had it not been for patents? Patents are hundreds of years old. In the fifteenth century markets and science was very different to what it is today. There is an argument that patents were helpful before the world evolved to freer markets. I mean, patents were invented around the time of feudalism, and nobody now considers THAT to be a good idea. An example used for the case of patents is James Watt's steam engine, an amazing invention. But in my view it is an example of an invention where innovation was deliberately stymied; sure he improved upon it greatly, but then again he prevented any number of other capable people from doing so and caused a monopoly. And ironically he could not have patented his invention had he not taken the original non-patented ideas of Thomas Savery and Thomas Newcomen, who originally worked out the general principle. In fact, you only have to look at the most important invention IMO the world ever produced to see that patents would have stopped innovation entirely - the printing press, which predates patents by a century. Without the printing press, almost no modern innovation would have been possible. There were vast numbers of printing presses produced that allowed much more rapid dissemination of ideas and ushered in the current age. Had a patent been allowed on this innovation, then the modern day would look much, much more different. Even religion would have been different. No, patents may discourage trade secrets, but you assume that they are the only mechanism for doing so, and you dismiss the fact that they aren't necessary to prevent someone else from discovering that trade secret.

cmdrfred 11y ago

> Bet my team of PhDs would come to the same solution. What is missed here is they might of come up with a better solution, but due to the risk of a lawsuit they never even try.

sgt101 11y ago
I don't follow this - why would anyone get sued for trying to come up with a different solution?
- thawkins 11y ago
  Because they may contravene, a vague overly broad software patent, that effectually locks up ideas, not implementations.
- justinclift 11y ago
  Because the current way patents in the US are viewed, is as ammunition to attack competitors (and potential competitors). :(

chris_wot 11y ago

Open Source software largely handles what patents are intended to do. If someone makes some cool software, then someone else works out how that works. Then they develop code, which they publish under an open license. Then others contribute to it, or if that doesn't work then they fork the code and thus innovation AND publication occurs. And as software gets more complex, you need to support it and build new features. That happens all the time without the aid of patents. In fact, when a patent is made, then sure its patented but so what? It can't be used for decades, and so only one party benefits and the idea that is beneficial to society stagnates. This is not a zero sum game here. If you patent a medicine for 10 years, then people like Martin Shkreli come along and jack up the price of their product, nobody is allowed to offer cheaper medicine and literally millions die. Or you have a situation where a non-lethal arrow is patented, someone independently comes up with the same idea, documents it and sells it, does to want to patent it and then gets sued to an inch of their life. Then you have an independently document invention, and no innovation. The argument doesn't stack up.

mamon 11y ago
Open Source accomplish exactly the opposite of what patents are for: instead of encouraging innovation by providing financial incentive (from temporary monopoly on selling said innovation) it discourages it because it basically ensures that you'll never make any money on your invention. Maybe I'm missing something but there aren't many examples of truly innovative open source software - most of OSS projects even describe themselves as "Open Source alternative to [insert innovative commercial product here]"
- chris_wot 11y ago
  Email isn't patented, not it the web, nor is TCP/IP, nor is any one of dozens of non-patented inventions you use on a daily basis. If TCP/IP was patented, do you think you'd see the Internet as we know it today? Would NetFlix, or Wikipedia or even Google would exist in the form it is now? I don't think so. edit: removed the "that's ridiculous" comment. I'm sorry, you aren't ridiculous, nor is your comment. That showed you a great deal of disrespect, and I was out of line. I hope you can accept this apology. My disagreement with your argument should never have led to disrespectful comments. (I just hit the up vote arrow) I think some of my other comments have this language in them. That's unfortunate, it's just this is just the first one I noticed.
Qwertious 11y ago
Actually, open-source is the exact opposite of what patents are intended to do - patents discourage trade secrets that die with their inventors by giving their holders a right to timed exclusivity (regardless of whether other people know how to copy them or not), in exchange for publicly documenting said trade secrets. Open-source is essentially just a tool for collaborating on software more easily (ignoring the Free Software side for a sec), but which requires giving up propriety over the software.
- chris_wot 11y ago
  Can you give any example of a trade secret that cannot be reinvented had it not been for patents? Patents are hundreds of years old. In the fifteenth century markets and science was very different to what it is today. There is an argument that patents were helpful before the world evolved to freer markets. I mean, patents were invented around the time of feudalism, and nobody now considers THAT to be a good idea. An example used for the case of patents is James Watt's steam engine, an amazing invention. But in my view it is an example of an invention where innovation was deliberately stymied; sure he improved upon it greatly, but then again he prevented any number of other capable people from doing so and caused a monopoly. And ironically he could not have patented his invention had he not taken the original non-patented ideas of Thomas Savery and Thomas Newcomen, who originally worked out the general principle. In fact, you only have to look at the most important invention IMO the world ever produced to see that patents would have stopped innovation entirely - the printing press, which predates patents by a century. Without the printing press, almost no modern innovation would have been possible. There were vast numbers of printing presses produced that allowed much more rapid dissemination of ideas and ushered in the current age. Had a patent been allowed on this innovation, then the modern day would look much, much more different. Even religion would have been different. No, patents may discourage trade secrets, but you assume that they are the only mechanism for doing so, and you dismiss the fact that they aren't necessary to prevent someone else from discovering that trade secret.