5 ms·

I always feel that patents or at least the way patents work is really bad for humanity as a whole and hindering our progress. On the other hand there has to be

I always feel that patents or at least the way patents work is really bad for humanity as a whole and hindering our progress. On the other hand there has to be some way for inventors to benefit, are there any good alternatives?

philipov 9y ago
Don't allow corporations to own patents. Limit their ownership to individual humans.
- NeonVice 9y ago
  How exactly would that work when I work for a corporation who is paying me to invent? If I am successful in my invention, then I just take my invention and run. This would stifle research investment.
  - walterbell 9y ago
    Shared ownership? Both parties take risks.
  - monocasa 9y ago
    This is how it works in Germany. Patents aren't transferable in Germany, even from employee to employer, but you can licence them to your employer.
rayiner 9y ago
Have you ever worked in a field where patents are an important part of the market structure? Telecom, pharma, etc.? I spent my engineering career in telecom, and patents are a key part of the model. Those industries don't have the equivalent of a Google or an Apple that can bankroll expensive R&D on the back of massive consumer revenue. They're no unicorns or network effects where you can take a 20% cut on every app that gets sold to your captive user base. Instead, companies pay teams of very expensive PhDs to develop things like error correction systems for modems. They patent those things, use the patents to either extract licensing revenue or, more importantly, keep out free riders who didn't contribute to developing the technology. Then it's all obsolete in five years and they do it all over again. Markets are good, and patents, as imperfect as they are, provide an infrastructure for integrating expensive R&D efforts (which don't result in tangible property), into markets, in a way that avoids free-riding. And it also results in market structures that are sane. I can just go buy a Broadcom Wi-Fi chip. Broadcom can recoup its investment by just selling me a chip, and count on patents to keep out free-riders. Their business model doesn't require them to make a whole consumer end-product like a phone, or tie their hardware to advertising, to be viable. In the absence of patents, you get trade secrets and vertical integration. Apple doesn't care about patents because it doesn't sell you chip designs or even a chip, it sells you an iPhone. Google doesn't care about patents because it doesn't sell VP9 or Blink--those are just a means for furthering its advertising business. Take a step back and think about the business models you want to see more of. Do we need more Apples and Samsungs, which want to sell you a complete end-user product tied to their ecosystem? Or do we want more ARMs, which are happy to just sell you a chip or even an IP core? Wouldn't it be nice to bring back Netscape? Where you could just exchange money for a web browser, instead of going to google.com and it bugging you to download Google's web browser for "free?"
- monocasa 9y ago
  > Those industries don't have the equivalent of a Google or an Apple that can bankroll expensive R&D on the back of massive consumer revenue What are you talking about? The biggest players in the telecom market report some of the largest profit in the country, both in real terms and as a percentage of revenue. They're just so entrenched that they view any R&D as a cost center if they can't use it to keep others or of the market.
  - rayiner 9y ago
    If you look at a pure telecom company like Verizon, they're at $13.6 billion in profits (for 2017) on $125 billion in revenue. Apple is at $50 billion in profits on $229 billion in revenue (for 2017). So Apple's margin is almost double. Also, "consumer revenue" is the key word. The biggest R&D players in telecom don't sell to consumers. Intel and Qualcomm sell chips (and ARM just sells you IP). They don't make the chip in house and sell you a complete phone. At the same time, a company like Verizon or Comcast that sells to consumers isn't vertically integrated and doesn't do its own R&D. They buy all their equipment from other companies that do the R&D. You don't have vertically-integrated company that uses consumer revenue to bankroll the R&D. You have specialization and market transactions mediated by, among other things, patents. Contrast web technology, where there’s no patents and no markets. Nobody sells browser engines. There is no specialization. It’s all driven by Apple, Microsoft, and Google, who invest in the R&D to further their consumer-facing platforms.
    - monocasa 9y ago
      Verizon (and most telecoms for that matter) plays games by being hundreds if not thousands of tiny partnerships, which obfuscates their profit.
      - rayiner 9y ago
        Verizon is a holding company. It's structured as a holding company with numerous subsidiaries because it's got physical property all over the country, and is subject to literally thousands of different regulatory regimes: federal, 50 states, thousands of city and county utility boards. But its profit figures are reported on a consolidated basis. (And if you have hard evidence to the contrary, man do you have a valuable lawsuit on your hands.)
_rpd 9y ago
Require mandatory licensing of all patents on 'fair and reasonable' terms (as decided by some sort of market). Require that inventors get a share of the licensing fees (non-transferable until valued by the market).
BraveNewCurency 9y ago
The point of patents is to entice innovators to PUBLISH their inventions. A patent should be about some process that is so complex that nobody else has figured how to do it before (i.e. some secret trick). When it's published, humanity is better off by publishing it now (even if it's locked up for a little while) so people can investigate related solutions (some of which might not infringe). But the patent office is allowing patents on obvious things, so the public gets no value in their publication. (Actually negative value, since people have to waste time reading them and companies are afraid to develop products).

philipov 9y ago

Don't allow corporations to own patents. Limit their ownership to individual humans.

NeonVice 9y ago
How exactly would that work when I work for a corporation who is paying me to invent? If I am successful in my invention, then I just take my invention and run. This would stifle research investment.
- walterbell 9y ago
  Shared ownership? Both parties take risks.
- monocasa 9y ago
  This is how it works in Germany. Patents aren't transferable in Germany, even from employee to employer, but you can licence them to your employer.

rayiner 9y ago

Have you ever worked in a field where patents are an important part of the market structure? Telecom, pharma, etc.? I spent my engineering career in telecom, and patents are a key part of the model. Those industries don't have the equivalent of a Google or an Apple that can bankroll expensive R&D on the back of massive consumer revenue. They're no unicorns or network effects where you can take a 20% cut on every app that gets sold to your captive user base. Instead, companies pay teams of very expensive PhDs to develop things like error correction systems for modems. They patent those things, use the patents to either extract licensing revenue or, more importantly, keep out free riders who didn't contribute to developing the technology. Then it's all obsolete in five years and they do it all over again. Markets are good, and patents, as imperfect as they are, provide an infrastructure for integrating expensive R&D efforts (which don't result in tangible property), into markets, in a way that avoids free-riding. And it also results in market structures that are sane. I can just go buy a Broadcom Wi-Fi chip. Broadcom can recoup its investment by just selling me a chip, and count on patents to keep out free-riders. Their business model doesn't require them to make a whole consumer end-product like a phone, or tie their hardware to advertising, to be viable. In the absence of patents, you get trade secrets and vertical integration. Apple doesn't care about patents because it doesn't sell you chip designs or even a chip, it sells you an iPhone. Google doesn't care about patents because it doesn't sell VP9 or Blink--those are just a means for furthering its advertising business. Take a step back and think about the business models you want to see more of. Do we need more Apples and Samsungs, which want to sell you a complete end-user product tied to their ecosystem? Or do we want more ARMs, which are happy to just sell you a chip or even an IP core? Wouldn't it be nice to bring back Netscape? Where you could just exchange money for a web browser, instead of going to google.com and it bugging you to download Google's web browser for "free?"

monocasa 9y ago
> Those industries don't have the equivalent of a Google or an Apple that can bankroll expensive R&D on the back of massive consumer revenue What are you talking about? The biggest players in the telecom market report some of the largest profit in the country, both in real terms and as a percentage of revenue. They're just so entrenched that they view any R&D as a cost center if they can't use it to keep others or of the market.
- rayiner 9y ago
  If you look at a pure telecom company like Verizon, they're at $13.6 billion in profits (for 2017) on $125 billion in revenue. Apple is at $50 billion in profits on $229 billion in revenue (for 2017). So Apple's margin is almost double. Also, "consumer revenue" is the key word. The biggest R&D players in telecom don't sell to consumers. Intel and Qualcomm sell chips (and ARM just sells you IP). They don't make the chip in house and sell you a complete phone. At the same time, a company like Verizon or Comcast that sells to consumers isn't vertically integrated and doesn't do its own R&D. They buy all their equipment from other companies that do the R&D. You don't have vertically-integrated company that uses consumer revenue to bankroll the R&D. You have specialization and market transactions mediated by, among other things, patents. Contrast web technology, where there’s no patents and no markets. Nobody sells browser engines. There is no specialization. It’s all driven by Apple, Microsoft, and Google, who invest in the R&D to further their consumer-facing platforms.
  - monocasa 9y ago
    Verizon (and most telecoms for that matter) plays games by being hundreds if not thousands of tiny partnerships, which obfuscates their profit.
    - rayiner 9y ago
      Verizon is a holding company. It's structured as a holding company with numerous subsidiaries because it's got physical property all over the country, and is subject to literally thousands of different regulatory regimes: federal, 50 states, thousands of city and county utility boards. But its profit figures are reported on a consolidated basis. (And if you have hard evidence to the contrary, man do you have a valuable lawsuit on your hands.)

_rpd 9y ago

Require mandatory licensing of all patents on 'fair and reasonable' terms (as decided by some sort of market). Require that inventors get a share of the licensing fees (non-transferable until valued by the market).

BraveNewCurency 9y ago

The point of patents is to entice innovators to PUBLISH their inventions. A patent should be about some process that is so complex that nobody else has figured how to do it before (i.e. some secret trick). When it's published, humanity is better off by publishing it now (even if it's locked up for a little while) so people can investigate related solutions (some of which might not infringe). But the patent office is allowing patents on obvious things, so the public gets no value in their publication. (Actually negative value, since people have to waste time reading them and companies are afraid to develop products).