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> The idea is worthless without execution. As someone who's spent a ton of time in research labs and has gone halfway through the patent process a couple times

by saulrh 11y ago

> The idea is worthless without execution. As someone who's spent a ton of time in research labs and has gone halfway through the patent process a couple times - no, no it isn't. A lot of people think this and fail to recognize how hard it is to come up with something legitimately new and verify that it works. Ideation and prototyping are fundamentally different skills than formalization and "execution" and demanding t the same person does both is wasting multiple separate talents.

gregmac 11y ago
> fail to recognize how hard it is to come up with something legitimately new The vast majority of process and software patents seem to not actually be new though, and the patent system explicitly doesn't reward 'new' in the general sense, it rewards 'new to the patent system' (aka first to file) > and verify that it works. In most patent troll litigation, the holder of the patent hasn't verified or actually built anything. In my opinion, research labs should be rewarded for their work finding genuinely 'new' things. That includes benefiting from another entity building or developing what they found. It doesn't include sitting on the patent waiting for someone else to 'discover' or simply do the same thing, wait for them to profit for a few years, then sue.
- saulrh 11y ago
  I agree with what you've said here: inventing things that are actually new is difficult and the people that don't invent things that are actually new shouldn't be rewarded. Patent trolls are a thing, and people patenting boring junk is also a thing. The things is, saying things like "only execution matters" goes too far in the other direction, and, like you said, cuts out research labs and similar endeavors.
AnthonyMouse 11y ago
> As someone who's spent a ton of time in research labs and has gone halfway through the patent process a couple times - no, no it isn't. "Worthless" is an exaggeration. The fair point is that implementing the idea (and all of the supporting infrastructure necessary to do it) is generally much more work than coming up with it to begin with. So you spend 250 hours to come up with an invention and somebody else spends the same 250 hours to come up with the same invention but also spends 5000 more hours to implement it and then the patent system says you can go to them and say "that's mine" and claim all the profits. That result is clearly an injustice.
- saulrh 11y ago
  On the other hand, if you don't have the resources or skills to implement, but do have the (different, and often rare!) skills necessary to ideate, it'd be just as clear an injustice if you couldn't get anything for your inventions, or if you were incredibly good at inventing but were forced to waste 99.9% of your time executing using engineering skills that might as well have been outsourced to India. The system needs to support garage-workshop inventors and academic theoreticians just as much as it needs to support Intel. > So you spend 250 hours to come up with an invention and somebody else spends the same 250 hours to come up with the same invention but also spends 5000 more hours to implement it and then the patent system says you can go to them and say "that's mine" and claim all the profits. The problem here is the "all the profits" part, because that's just as extreme in the opposite direction. How about a solution where the 250-hour inventor gets a portion of the profits proportional to the time and effort put into it by each party, say a perfectly linear 250/(250+5000)? Then the inventor doesn't get much profit out of it, but because he spent less time on it he can theoretically do this repeatedly and make a reasonable amount of money. Which is, really, how the modern patent system would work if patent grants were done optimal, which is admittedly impossible.
  - AnthonyMouse 11y ago
    > On the other hand, if you don't have the resources or skills to implement, but do have the (different, and often rare!) skills necessary to ideate, it'd be just as clear an injustice if you couldn't get anything for your inventions, or if you were incredibly good at inventing but were forced to waste 99.9% of your time executing using engineering skills that might as well have been outsourced to India. It wouldn't. The primary cause of the injustice is that someone can spend thousands of hours implementing something before they find out someone else can claim the rights to it. The would-be inventor would know there is no patent waiting for them from the start. If the only ideas you're capable of having require more resources to implement than you have then you would go work for someone with those resources and collect a salary. Which is what happens in the overwhelming majority of cases regardless of patents. > The system needs to support garage-workshop inventors and academic theoreticians just as much as it needs to support Intel. Which it doesn't, and can't. The garage-workshop inventor doesn't have the resources to litigate a patent. At best they can sell it to someone who does for pennies on the dollar and thereby get ripped off, which is why hardly anybody does that. Most inventors in practice either implement and sell their invention themselves or are the employees of someone who does. Or do grant-funded research which the public paid for and should therefore get. > The problem here is the "all the profits" part, because that's just as extreme in the opposite direction. How about a solution where the 250-hour inventor gets a portion of the profits proportional to the time and effort put into it by each party, say a perfectly linear 250/(250+5000)? Then you end up rewarding incompetence and inefficiency. The slower and more wasteful an inventor is the more they get paid. And you're creating a huge incentive to lie about things that are hard to prove. How does anybody else know how long it took you to do something?

by saulrh 11y ago

gregmac 11y ago

> fail to recognize how hard it is to come up with something legitimately new The vast majority of process and software patents seem to not actually be new though, and the patent system explicitly doesn't reward 'new' in the general sense, it rewards 'new to the patent system' (aka first to file) > and verify that it works. In most patent troll litigation, the holder of the patent hasn't verified or actually built anything. In my opinion, research labs should be rewarded for their work finding genuinely 'new' things. That includes benefiting from another entity building or developing what they found. It doesn't include sitting on the patent waiting for someone else to 'discover' or simply do the same thing, wait for them to profit for a few years, then sue.

saulrh 11y ago
I agree with what you've said here: inventing things that are actually new is difficult and the people that don't invent things that are actually new shouldn't be rewarded. Patent trolls are a thing, and people patenting boring junk is also a thing. The things is, saying things like "only execution matters" goes too far in the other direction, and, like you said, cuts out research labs and similar endeavors.

AnthonyMouse 11y ago

> As someone who's spent a ton of time in research labs and has gone halfway through the patent process a couple times - no, no it isn't. "Worthless" is an exaggeration. The fair point is that implementing the idea (and all of the supporting infrastructure necessary to do it) is generally much more work than coming up with it to begin with. So you spend 250 hours to come up with an invention and somebody else spends the same 250 hours to come up with the same invention but also spends 5000 more hours to implement it and then the patent system says you can go to them and say "that's mine" and claim all the profits. That result is clearly an injustice.

saulrh 11y ago
On the other hand, if you don't have the resources or skills to implement, but do have the (different, and often rare!) skills necessary to ideate, it'd be just as clear an injustice if you couldn't get anything for your inventions, or if you were incredibly good at inventing but were forced to waste 99.9% of your time executing using engineering skills that might as well have been outsourced to India. The system needs to support garage-workshop inventors and academic theoreticians just as much as it needs to support Intel. > So you spend 250 hours to come up with an invention and somebody else spends the same 250 hours to come up with the same invention but also spends 5000 more hours to implement it and then the patent system says you can go to them and say "that's mine" and claim all the profits. The problem here is the "all the profits" part, because that's just as extreme in the opposite direction. How about a solution where the 250-hour inventor gets a portion of the profits proportional to the time and effort put into it by each party, say a perfectly linear 250/(250+5000)? Then the inventor doesn't get much profit out of it, but because he spent less time on it he can theoretically do this repeatedly and make a reasonable amount of money. Which is, really, how the modern patent system would work if patent grants were done optimal, which is admittedly impossible.
- AnthonyMouse 11y ago
  > On the other hand, if you don't have the resources or skills to implement, but do have the (different, and often rare!) skills necessary to ideate, it'd be just as clear an injustice if you couldn't get anything for your inventions, or if you were incredibly good at inventing but were forced to waste 99.9% of your time executing using engineering skills that might as well have been outsourced to India. It wouldn't. The primary cause of the injustice is that someone can spend thousands of hours implementing something before they find out someone else can claim the rights to it. The would-be inventor would know there is no patent waiting for them from the start. If the only ideas you're capable of having require more resources to implement than you have then you would go work for someone with those resources and collect a salary. Which is what happens in the overwhelming majority of cases regardless of patents. > The system needs to support garage-workshop inventors and academic theoreticians just as much as it needs to support Intel. Which it doesn't, and can't. The garage-workshop inventor doesn't have the resources to litigate a patent. At best they can sell it to someone who does for pennies on the dollar and thereby get ripped off, which is why hardly anybody does that. Most inventors in practice either implement and sell their invention themselves or are the employees of someone who does. Or do grant-funded research which the public paid for and should therefore get. > The problem here is the "all the profits" part, because that's just as extreme in the opposite direction. How about a solution where the 250-hour inventor gets a portion of the profits proportional to the time and effort put into it by each party, say a perfectly linear 250/(250+5000)? Then you end up rewarding incompetence and inefficiency. The slower and more wasteful an inventor is the more they get paid. And you're creating a huge incentive to lie about things that are hard to prove. How does anybody else know how long it took you to do something?