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You know, this is exactly why we should not have software patents. Company A invested nothing in the R&D, they simply did it first. The reason for patents is

You know, this is exactly why we should not have software patents. Company A invested nothing in the R&D, they simply did it first. The reason for patents is to promote the public good by giving inventors who discover a reason to release the details of their invention, rather than to keep it secret. But this isn't happening with software. Instead, things progress and something is needed. But, rather than an open standard being developed which everyone can use, the first one who patents it wins. Everyone else is hurt and the patent is sold to a troll who then abuses it.

chongli 10y ago
What you've described is not restricted to software patents. It happens with everything else, too. I have yet to hear a compelling case for patents in any industry, let alone software. The truth of the matter is that ideas are cheap; the hard part is capitalization.
- SpaceManiac 10y ago
  Your problem still seems to be with the sloppiness of the patent system, not patents themselves. Patents are meant to protect inventions, not ideas, and novel inventions are worth something.
  - jfoutz 10y ago
    Here's a concrete flaw. The inventor must disclose the method. If you read the patent, and infringe, you're subject to triple damages. So there's a strong incentive to not read about how other people solve problems. Which pretty much defeats the purpose of promoting useful arts. Furthermore, non-patent readers wind up infringing anyway. I would argue that someone completely unaware of the patent, coming up with the exact same system means that it is in fact obvious, and not really novel.
    - rtpg 10y ago
      Without patents, there are no incentives for publicly stating your methodology. Patents increase the sharing of information, they do not reduce it. The second point is covered by prior art.
      - jfoutz 10y ago
        > Without patents, there are no incentives for publicly stating your methodology. That can't be true. There are about 50,000 new phds a year, all of their dissertations are public. Those are all required to be novel, right? so clearly, it's not the only incentive. There are many incentives, recognition, fame, and funding to name a few. > Patents increase the sharing of information, they do not reduce it. Ok, sure, but reading the patent creates a minefield for any future work. Was it your idea or did you read it in a book? Some people can answer this question remarkably well, remembering the source for every concept they employ. If on the other hand, you're not good at this, reading patents is very dangerous. Triple damages encourages not reading patents. > The second point is covered by prior art. No, an infringing idea after publication of a patent is by definition not prior art. It can be a completely independent discovery, but it's still infringing. Again, independent discovery seems to indicate, to me anyway, it's obvious.
      - chongli 10y ago
        Without patents, there are no incentives for publicly stating your methodology. Not true at all. Huge amounts of mathematical research, scientific research, fashion design, and culinary innovation are shared with the public every day without absolutely no patent protection. When was the last time you read a story in a newspaper about a patent filing? How useful was the information in that patent to anybody?
      - DougBTX 10y ago
        > Patents increase the sharing of information Do you know of anyone who has had a software development problem, searched a patent database, found a solution in the database, then implemented that solution? I know that I never have, if people actually do that I'd be interested to know what sort of problems they are working on.
    - Paul-ish 10y ago
      Although I disagree with most software patents, I don't think you're last assertion is correct. There is some hindsight bias going on here. What is obvious in 2031 may not be obvious in 2016. Just think how much the technology landscape has changed in the last 15 years.
  - chongli 10y ago
    The "sloppiness" as you call it is inherent to patents. There is no objective test for obviousness or novelty. Heck, the very idea that something could be "non-obvious" is absurd. Every idea is obvious once all of the other ideas pointing to it are known. This is how knowledge works. Patents attempt to codify this by cataloguing the entire structure of all human invention into an enormous database of "prior art", all for the purpose of determining whether or not somebody has the exclusive right to collect economic rents for a few years. This is ludicrous!
    - thaumasiotes 10y ago
      > Heck, the very idea that something could be "non-obvious" is absurd. Every idea is obvious once all of the other ideas pointing to it are known. This is how knowledge works. This is not even slightly true. Try studying some math.
      - chongli 10y ago
        This is especially true in math. Have you not heard the phrase "the proof is left as an exercise to the reader"?
- will_brown 10y ago
  >The truth of the matter is that ideas are cheap; the hard part is capitalization. First the law expressly forbids a patent on ideas. As to the second half of your sentence, I am not sure if you meant execution is the hard part of having an invention or literally having capital to bring an invention market is the hard part. If you meant the later, I agree. Moreover, I think that is one of the strongest reasons for patents in most industries. The Movie Flash of Genius provides a good example to highlight my point why patents are good and level the playing field for the little guy. Professor and part-time inventor invents the intermittent wipers for cars and brings his technology to Detroit only to have the existing car manufacturers simply steal his idea. Kearns never intended to manufacturer the wiper much less manufacture cars to install his wiper, rather just license his awesome invention...that fits the definition of troll, but was he a patent troll? What if he did want to manufacture it, but simply didn't have the capital to begin mass production on the Detroit scale...would that make him any more or less a troll because of his subjective intent? Finally, if he did have the capital to actually take his wiper to market, in a world without patents why would he invest in bringing the invention to market when the big car manufacturers or existing wiper manufacturers are simply going to eat his lunch? The whole concept of Apple, the most valuable company in the World, calling anyone a patent troll is crazy and basically the same corporate strategy the big car manufacturers used against Kearns, claiming his invention was obvious and just combinations of known prior art. Yet Apple and the big corps escape being consigned to being patent trolls themselves despite the fact that they hold more patents that are either complete bs or purposely withheld from the stream of commerce (like oil companies buying up alternative energy patents to keep them from coming to market). Like when Apple defensively extracted nearly $2 Billion from Samsung for violation of their rectangle with curved edges patent (which was subsequently over turned). Apple is sitting on over $200B in cash, they could have licensed or bought this patent, just as Ford and the others could have done with Kearn's wiper. But lets get serious, these are the same companies that determine if faulty parts should be replaced by comparing the cost of a recall compared to the projected cost of anticipated wrongful death claims. These big companies make the same calculated risk in stealing other people's intellectual property versus paying for it. Perhaps the great irony of Apple's unwillingness to pay for someone else's invention, it forced Apple to innovate and ultimately produce a competing technology that didn't violate the patent. Moreover, this patent actually fostered innovation for a competing product, and while Apple and others may claim Apple's innovation isn't as good as the patented invention, it shows Apple's true colors where they aren't really claiming the patent is stifling innovation so much as stifling their ability to simply violate someone's better invention without paying for it.
- nnq 10y ago
  > The truth of the matter is that ideas are cheap They are cheap because we let them be cheap. There should be markets for ideas just as they are for goods! We're at at a very "socialist paleolitic" stage when it comes to the "economic system for ideas"...
  - thaumasiotes 10y ago
    No, they're cheap because they are extremely abundant. They'll still be cheap in any "idea market".
    - nnq 10y ago
      Water is abundant. Plenty of it on this planet. Should be extremely cheap... if you think of "water in general". But start to divide it based on what composition it has, where it is, how much it costs to transform quality Q1 water to quality Q5 water and so on. Then you can get to placing bets on wheter there will be enough water at place P1 and time T1 etc. Then, at the consumer level, you have bottled water with different packaging, aesthetic values and trustworthiness associated with it etc. And you can suddenly sell 0.5l of water for $10 even if the planet is full of it :) I imagine one day we'll have the same for "ideas", but more complex. We'll have "idea casinos" betting on implementation successes of various ideas. Meta-casinos betting on the casinos net profit. Derivatives-of-derivatives-of-derivates... if you want to use stock-market terms ...you get the point. Things can be cheap in a "country-side market" based purely on selling things "mixed up", unsorted and unrated. Attach ratings and bets and estimates to them and... it's a whole new an much cooler game to play :)
- nateconq 10y ago
  Is getting rid of patents really the best option? Wouldn't tougher requirements on non-producing patent holders be a better way to go?
  - chii 10y ago
    what counts as non-producing? Perhaps a better gate - where your patents has to be _actually_ innovative, as determined by peer review.
  - jshevek 10y ago
    > Wouldn't tougher requirements on non-producing patent holders be a better way to go? That would be inadequate in my opinion. No doubt some NPE are particularly vile, but producers abuse patents, too. Producers like to manipulate the narrative by focusing attention on NPEs and pretending that NPE are the cause of all patent abuse, even while the producers themselves are abusing patents.

chongli 10y ago

What you've described is not restricted to software patents. It happens with everything else, too. I have yet to hear a compelling case for patents in any industry, let alone software. The truth of the matter is that ideas are cheap; the hard part is capitalization.

SpaceManiac 10y ago
Your problem still seems to be with the sloppiness of the patent system, not patents themselves. Patents are meant to protect inventions, not ideas, and novel inventions are worth something.
- jfoutz 10y ago
  Here's a concrete flaw. The inventor must disclose the method. If you read the patent, and infringe, you're subject to triple damages. So there's a strong incentive to not read about how other people solve problems. Which pretty much defeats the purpose of promoting useful arts. Furthermore, non-patent readers wind up infringing anyway. I would argue that someone completely unaware of the patent, coming up with the exact same system means that it is in fact obvious, and not really novel.
  - rtpg 10y ago
    Without patents, there are no incentives for publicly stating your methodology. Patents increase the sharing of information, they do not reduce it. The second point is covered by prior art.
    - jfoutz 10y ago
      > Without patents, there are no incentives for publicly stating your methodology. That can't be true. There are about 50,000 new phds a year, all of their dissertations are public. Those are all required to be novel, right? so clearly, it's not the only incentive. There are many incentives, recognition, fame, and funding to name a few. > Patents increase the sharing of information, they do not reduce it. Ok, sure, but reading the patent creates a minefield for any future work. Was it your idea or did you read it in a book? Some people can answer this question remarkably well, remembering the source for every concept they employ. If on the other hand, you're not good at this, reading patents is very dangerous. Triple damages encourages not reading patents. > The second point is covered by prior art. No, an infringing idea after publication of a patent is by definition not prior art. It can be a completely independent discovery, but it's still infringing. Again, independent discovery seems to indicate, to me anyway, it's obvious.
    - chongli 10y ago
      Without patents, there are no incentives for publicly stating your methodology. Not true at all. Huge amounts of mathematical research, scientific research, fashion design, and culinary innovation are shared with the public every day without absolutely no patent protection. When was the last time you read a story in a newspaper about a patent filing? How useful was the information in that patent to anybody?
    - DougBTX 10y ago
      > Patents increase the sharing of information Do you know of anyone who has had a software development problem, searched a patent database, found a solution in the database, then implemented that solution? I know that I never have, if people actually do that I'd be interested to know what sort of problems they are working on.
  - Paul-ish 10y ago
    Although I disagree with most software patents, I don't think you're last assertion is correct. There is some hindsight bias going on here. What is obvious in 2031 may not be obvious in 2016. Just think how much the technology landscape has changed in the last 15 years.
- chongli 10y ago
  The "sloppiness" as you call it is inherent to patents. There is no objective test for obviousness or novelty. Heck, the very idea that something could be "non-obvious" is absurd. Every idea is obvious once all of the other ideas pointing to it are known. This is how knowledge works. Patents attempt to codify this by cataloguing the entire structure of all human invention into an enormous database of "prior art", all for the purpose of determining whether or not somebody has the exclusive right to collect economic rents for a few years. This is ludicrous!
  - thaumasiotes 10y ago
    > Heck, the very idea that something could be "non-obvious" is absurd. Every idea is obvious once all of the other ideas pointing to it are known. This is how knowledge works. This is not even slightly true. Try studying some math.
    - chongli 10y ago
      This is especially true in math. Have you not heard the phrase "the proof is left as an exercise to the reader"?
will_brown 10y ago
>The truth of the matter is that ideas are cheap; the hard part is capitalization. First the law expressly forbids a patent on ideas. As to the second half of your sentence, I am not sure if you meant execution is the hard part of having an invention or literally having capital to bring an invention market is the hard part. If you meant the later, I agree. Moreover, I think that is one of the strongest reasons for patents in most industries. The Movie Flash of Genius provides a good example to highlight my point why patents are good and level the playing field for the little guy. Professor and part-time inventor invents the intermittent wipers for cars and brings his technology to Detroit only to have the existing car manufacturers simply steal his idea. Kearns never intended to manufacturer the wiper much less manufacture cars to install his wiper, rather just license his awesome invention...that fits the definition of troll, but was he a patent troll? What if he did want to manufacture it, but simply didn't have the capital to begin mass production on the Detroit scale...would that make him any more or less a troll because of his subjective intent? Finally, if he did have the capital to actually take his wiper to market, in a world without patents why would he invest in bringing the invention to market when the big car manufacturers or existing wiper manufacturers are simply going to eat his lunch? The whole concept of Apple, the most valuable company in the World, calling anyone a patent troll is crazy and basically the same corporate strategy the big car manufacturers used against Kearns, claiming his invention was obvious and just combinations of known prior art. Yet Apple and the big corps escape being consigned to being patent trolls themselves despite the fact that they hold more patents that are either complete bs or purposely withheld from the stream of commerce (like oil companies buying up alternative energy patents to keep them from coming to market). Like when Apple defensively extracted nearly $2 Billion from Samsung for violation of their rectangle with curved edges patent (which was subsequently over turned). Apple is sitting on over $200B in cash, they could have licensed or bought this patent, just as Ford and the others could have done with Kearn's wiper. But lets get serious, these are the same companies that determine if faulty parts should be replaced by comparing the cost of a recall compared to the projected cost of anticipated wrongful death claims. These big companies make the same calculated risk in stealing other people's intellectual property versus paying for it. Perhaps the great irony of Apple's unwillingness to pay for someone else's invention, it forced Apple to innovate and ultimately produce a competing technology that didn't violate the patent. Moreover, this patent actually fostered innovation for a competing product, and while Apple and others may claim Apple's innovation isn't as good as the patented invention, it shows Apple's true colors where they aren't really claiming the patent is stifling innovation so much as stifling their ability to simply violate someone's better invention without paying for it.
nnq 10y ago
> The truth of the matter is that ideas are cheap They are cheap because we let them be cheap. There should be markets for ideas just as they are for goods! We're at at a very "socialist paleolitic" stage when it comes to the "economic system for ideas"...
- thaumasiotes 10y ago
  No, they're cheap because they are extremely abundant. They'll still be cheap in any "idea market".
  - nnq 10y ago
    Water is abundant. Plenty of it on this planet. Should be extremely cheap... if you think of "water in general". But start to divide it based on what composition it has, where it is, how much it costs to transform quality Q1 water to quality Q5 water and so on. Then you can get to placing bets on wheter there will be enough water at place P1 and time T1 etc. Then, at the consumer level, you have bottled water with different packaging, aesthetic values and trustworthiness associated with it etc. And you can suddenly sell 0.5l of water for $10 even if the planet is full of it :) I imagine one day we'll have the same for "ideas", but more complex. We'll have "idea casinos" betting on implementation successes of various ideas. Meta-casinos betting on the casinos net profit. Derivatives-of-derivatives-of-derivates... if you want to use stock-market terms ...you get the point. Things can be cheap in a "country-side market" based purely on selling things "mixed up", unsorted and unrated. Attach ratings and bets and estimates to them and... it's a whole new an much cooler game to play :)
nateconq 10y ago
Is getting rid of patents really the best option? Wouldn't tougher requirements on non-producing patent holders be a better way to go?
- chii 10y ago
  what counts as non-producing? Perhaps a better gate - where your patents has to be _actually_ innovative, as determined by peer review.
- jshevek 10y ago
  > Wouldn't tougher requirements on non-producing patent holders be a better way to go? That would be inadequate in my opinion. No doubt some NPE are particularly vile, but producers abuse patents, too. Producers like to manipulate the narrative by focusing attention on NPEs and pretending that NPE are the cause of all patent abuse, even while the producers themselves are abusing patents.