3 ms·

"Stupid patents" is a pleonasm. Never have I seen a compelling argument for patents.

kleer001 9y ago
... in the modern world. As they were first conceived I can understand. But, like in all things, entropy has been at play.
Nomentatus 9y ago
We certainly don't have proof, but there's a helluva historical correlation between patent enforcement (or existence) and countries with strong economic growth, particularly in technology sectors. That has to be referred to as evidence - since evidence which cannot be misleading, i.e. "incontrovertible evidence" is actually proof. Moreover, histories of technology often show simultaneous invention, and in such cases, the obscure and unsuccessful efforts very strongly tend to appear in areas where patent law is not efficient or respected, and therefore investment for development of inventions is lacking. Without his patent, James Watt could not have and would not have (finally, after a long effort) found a sufficiently rich partner who could fund the development and production of his new kind of steam engine. Note too that even if patents weren't globally efficient (which I strongly believe they are), they nonetheless attract inventors to your country and so are locally efficient (a prisoner's dilemma that only coordination through treaties would defeat.) This doesn't mean that present patent law is ideal, or that the historical context hasn't at least partly vanished, however: very complex technologies (which we're now awash in) create situations in which it may be more valuable to cease to produce smartphones and instead use patents to hold a gun to the head of others and merely extract rent from those still producing them (sneezeMicrosoft.) Since you aren't producing phones, others can't retaliate by refusing to license their patents - you no longer need their patents. When more than one (or perhaps a thousand) IP holders want to extract rent from the same item, obviously this can introduce great inefficiencies. Few patents are truly essential (outside FRAND standards, a different situation) but many are costly to get around. One way or another, sooner or later, we may have to deal with this situation. I wish I knew just how.
- digi_owl 9y ago
  Funny, i would have figured it was the other way round. The nations that ignore patents, and perhaps also copyright, are the ones that bloom the fastest. Best i recall the steam engine saw rapid improvements only after the Watts patent(s) ran out. And in a different example, Smith and Wesson sat on refinements for the Colt revolver for 20 years.
  - neltnerb 9y ago
    Developing economies with outside technologies they can copy should do better by ignoring patents, while economies at the bleeding edge should encourage more invention and disclosure through having them respected. Didn't the US ignore patents when it was England that was the superpower? I wasn't there, but: https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130228/01324622146/yes-us-industrial-revolution-was-built-piracy-fraud.shtml https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130228/01324622146/yes-u... If you can get all the advantages of well-documented and reduced-to-practice inventions disclosed publicly without much disadvantage from your own citizens failing to disclose their own inventions, then ignoring patents seems like a great idea. This isn't to say that I think the US patent system actually works, I think it's all a terrifically counterproductive mess 95% of the time. But there's historical evidence that whether your country benefits from patent adherence depends on how advanced your economy is relative to others. Once China starts generating lots of good new inventions, now that they're bleeding-edge-adjacent, they're going to see increasing value in enforcing IP rights. It will protect their industry from competing with infringing imports from other countries with lower manufacturing costs, same as here, which is a bigger deal as their domestic consumption increases.
  - neltnerb 9y ago
    Actually, perhaps worth noting that the parent comment is talking about a correlation between robust economic growth and patent enforcement. The causality could be reversed -- once economic growth is large enough that the country is at the bleeding edge of technology, then it cares about enforcing patents because it's lobbied to by its companies.
  - Nomentatus 9y ago

... in the modern world. As they were first conceived I can understand. But, like in all things, entropy has been at play.

Nomentatus 9y ago

We certainly don't have proof, but there's a helluva historical correlation between patent enforcement (or existence) and countries with strong economic growth, particularly in technology sectors. That has to be referred to as evidence - since evidence which cannot be misleading, i.e. "incontrovertible evidence" is actually proof. Moreover, histories of technology often show simultaneous invention, and in such cases, the obscure and unsuccessful efforts very strongly tend to appear in areas where patent law is not efficient or respected, and therefore investment for development of inventions is lacking. Without his patent, James Watt could not have and would not have (finally, after a long effort) found a sufficiently rich partner who could fund the development and production of his new kind of steam engine. Note too that even if patents weren't globally efficient (which I strongly believe they are), they nonetheless attract inventors to your country and so are locally efficient (a prisoner's dilemma that only coordination through treaties would defeat.) This doesn't mean that present patent law is ideal, or that the historical context hasn't at least partly vanished, however: very complex technologies (which we're now awash in) create situations in which it may be more valuable to cease to produce smartphones and instead use patents to hold a gun to the head of others and merely extract rent from those still producing them (sneezeMicrosoft.) Since you aren't producing phones, others can't retaliate by refusing to license their patents - you no longer need their patents. When more than one (or perhaps a thousand) IP holders want to extract rent from the same item, obviously this can introduce great inefficiencies. Few patents are truly essential (outside FRAND standards, a different situation) but many are costly to get around. One way or another, sooner or later, we may have to deal with this situation. I wish I knew just how.

digi_owl 9y ago
Funny, i would have figured it was the other way round. The nations that ignore patents, and perhaps also copyright, are the ones that bloom the fastest. Best i recall the steam engine saw rapid improvements only after the Watts patent(s) ran out. And in a different example, Smith and Wesson sat on refinements for the Colt revolver for 20 years.
- neltnerb 9y ago
  Developing economies with outside technologies they can copy should do better by ignoring patents, while economies at the bleeding edge should encourage more invention and disclosure through having them respected. Didn't the US ignore patents when it was England that was the superpower? I wasn't there, but: https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130228/01324622146/yes-us-industrial-revolution-was-built-piracy-fraud.shtml https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130228/01324622146/yes-u... If you can get all the advantages of well-documented and reduced-to-practice inventions disclosed publicly without much disadvantage from your own citizens failing to disclose their own inventions, then ignoring patents seems like a great idea. This isn't to say that I think the US patent system actually works, I think it's all a terrifically counterproductive mess 95% of the time. But there's historical evidence that whether your country benefits from patent adherence depends on how advanced your economy is relative to others. Once China starts generating lots of good new inventions, now that they're bleeding-edge-adjacent, they're going to see increasing value in enforcing IP rights. It will protect their industry from competing with infringing imports from other countries with lower manufacturing costs, same as here, which is a bigger deal as their domestic consumption increases.
- neltnerb 9y ago
  Actually, perhaps worth noting that the parent comment is talking about a correlation between robust economic growth and patent enforcement. The causality could be reversed -- once economic growth is large enough that the country is at the bleeding edge of technology, then it cares about enforcing patents because it's lobbied to by its companies.
- Nomentatus 9y ago