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I think patents are a big impediment to innovation. And I think they are morally wrong. Why do I lose my right to do something because you write that thing do

I think patents are a big impediment to innovation. And I think they are morally wrong. Why do I lose my right to do something because you write that thing down before I do? Coming up with an idea is only a very small part of the battle. Making a viable product is much harder but also not the biggest problem. The biggest challenge often is getting people to buy a thing. And we already have significant incentives in place for that. There are things that we need that take a great deal of investment to discover and that cannot be protected with trade secrets. But if the innovation is of significant value, presumably one can make a profit from it and get to market faster than the competition, so there is reward for innovating. People that need an innovation can also create a bounty or reward for making it happen. And we have seen a lot effort in response to things like the x prize and darpa's grand challenge. So I don't see how the alleged benefits of patents justify the curtailment of individual rights.

api 17y ago
The problem is that money trickles down from the point of transaction, and the volume of the trickle is determined by your leverage. So what you're saying is that the people who get people to buy a thing should make almost all the money, followed by the people who make viable products, followed by the people who do the research and development and come up with the ideas coming in dead last. The problem is: in this model, the people who come in dead last are the ones who keep the innovation pipeline full. I don't like the present patent system, but without something like it the only people who make any money are those in marketing.
- troystribling 17y ago
  You could argue that whether a patent is awarded for an invention should have a dependency on the capital required to produce the innovation. Innovation, distribution and marketing for software has become so inexpensive that patents are seen as an impediment to innovation. While for innovations requiring more capital this may not be the case.
  - api 17y ago
    So if one person goes through a long and complex expensive process to yield a complex solution to a problem, and then I do a bit of work and spend far less capital and come up with a simpler and less expensive solution, I should get paid less? That reminds me of when they used to pay programmers by the K-loc of code they wrote. Inventions that are simpler, cheaper, and require less capital are worth more for that reason. One of the things that bothers me about some patent opponents is that their argument amounts to a devaluation of intelligence vs. brute force or slow plodding advancement. There really are "eureka" moments, and intelligence does matter. It is possible with intelligence to occasionally happen upon a brief compact insight that radically advances some art, and it is those brief compact insights that are worth the most.
    - troystribling 17y ago
      If capital is used a metric in the invention an invention that used less capital could be viewed as a different invention.
ErrantX 17y ago
> Why do I lose my right to do something because you write that thing down before I do? The inherent problem with patents and (to a lesser extent) copyright is that they attempt to fix one problem and as a side affect enforce this too. Playing devils advocate for a moment; a society without patents is unfairly weighted (in terms of invention) towards BigCo. i.e. you get a lot more innovation but only those with big cash can do something with it - and not necessarily by paying the inventor. Under current law things are potentially unfairly balanced to the patent holder. I realise that in practicality it is still weighted towards BigCo anyway because they can fund lawsuits etc. There is, surely, a balance between the two extremes (I don't believe we have it at the moment). As it happens I think we need to be careful considering the broad concept of patents. We are all familiar and, probably, all opposed to the idea of Software Patents in their current form (or at all). However making software is reasonably trivial - and getting a patent is, thought relatively costly, not too difficult. This is not entirely the case in other industries; which makes a slight difference (in the sense that the investment for software development is generally lower for an individual inventor)
- stretchwithme 17y ago
  but is the cost of developing software lower than simply coming up with an idea? You say that no patents would favor big companies. But without intellectual property, wouldn't it be EASIER for anyone to compete with the big companies?

api 17y ago

The problem is that money trickles down from the point of transaction, and the volume of the trickle is determined by your leverage. So what you're saying is that the people who get people to buy a thing should make almost all the money, followed by the people who make viable products, followed by the people who do the research and development and come up with the ideas coming in dead last. The problem is: in this model, the people who come in dead last are the ones who keep the innovation pipeline full. I don't like the present patent system, but without something like it the only people who make any money are those in marketing.

troystribling 17y ago
You could argue that whether a patent is awarded for an invention should have a dependency on the capital required to produce the innovation. Innovation, distribution and marketing for software has become so inexpensive that patents are seen as an impediment to innovation. While for innovations requiring more capital this may not be the case.
- api 17y ago
  So if one person goes through a long and complex expensive process to yield a complex solution to a problem, and then I do a bit of work and spend far less capital and come up with a simpler and less expensive solution, I should get paid less? That reminds me of when they used to pay programmers by the K-loc of code they wrote. Inventions that are simpler, cheaper, and require less capital are worth more for that reason. One of the things that bothers me about some patent opponents is that their argument amounts to a devaluation of intelligence vs. brute force or slow plodding advancement. There really are "eureka" moments, and intelligence does matter. It is possible with intelligence to occasionally happen upon a brief compact insight that radically advances some art, and it is those brief compact insights that are worth the most.
  - troystribling 17y ago
    If capital is used a metric in the invention an invention that used less capital could be viewed as a different invention.

ErrantX 17y ago

> Why do I lose my right to do something because you write that thing down before I do? The inherent problem with patents and (to a lesser extent) copyright is that they attempt to fix one problem and as a side affect enforce this too. Playing devils advocate for a moment; a society without patents is unfairly weighted (in terms of invention) towards BigCo. i.e. you get a lot more innovation but only those with big cash can do something with it - and not necessarily by paying the inventor. Under current law things are potentially unfairly balanced to the patent holder. I realise that in practicality it is still weighted towards BigCo anyway because they can fund lawsuits etc. There is, surely, a balance between the two extremes (I don't believe we have it at the moment). As it happens I think we need to be careful considering the broad concept of patents. We are all familiar and, probably, all opposed to the idea of Software Patents in their current form (or at all). However making software is reasonably trivial - and getting a patent is, thought relatively costly, not too difficult. This is not entirely the case in other industries; which makes a slight difference (in the sense that the investment for software development is generally lower for an individual inventor)

stretchwithme 17y ago
but is the cost of developing software lower than simply coming up with an idea? You say that no patents would favor big companies. But without intellectual property, wouldn't it be EASIER for anyone to compete with the big companies?