5 ms·

Sad the US doesn't do anything against patents or at least software patents. I don't think patents do any good in respect to the development of mankind.

EggsOnToast 9y ago
Those are both really broad statements. Developing innovative software costs money as does developing an innovative product or technology. The point of patents isn't to incentivize implementation it's to incentivize innovation.
- gt_ 9y ago
  Whether OP peanut it or not, patents “incentivize” innovation with a terribly simplistic model of what that involves. The difference between “innovation” and “implementation” is like the difference between a business and it’s business plan. The motivation to regulate it is obvious but the results remain difficult to defend in light of the associated problems introduced.
  - EggsOnToast 9y ago
    I don't agree. I think that while it can be difficult to defend every instance of a patent or a particular implementation of patent law, this doesn't mean that every patent is bad or that the concept of patents is bad and needs to be outright abandoned which is what the OP was discussing. America's patent system may not be perfect but this doesn't mean it's outright unproductive. This holds especially true when evaluated based on raw innovation. America's tech sector speaks for itself but is far from unique, America's pharmaceutical industry also comes to mind. Although widely criticized, and rightly so, the American industry produces nearly a third of the world's new molecular entities.
    - slyfocks 9y ago
      Patents are far from the only factor affecting innovation, yet you seem to conclude that patents are good based on level of innovation in the US. A logically similar argument (“fallacy of the single cause”) would be: Hawaii has a relatively low rate of gun violence yet their gun ownership is high, ergo gun ownership must be fine. Of course some patents are good, but as market concentration increases in the US, IP has become abused by entrenched oligopolistic corporations. Most recent reputable studies find that the US patent system has probably been a net negative on innovation of late [1]. [1] https://www.economist.com/node/21660559 https://www.economist.com/node/21660559
scottlocklin 9y ago
Patents were originally invented to prevent knowledge loss due to trade secrets.
- thaumasiotes 9y ago
  If this is the justification for patents, what's the justification for simultaneously granting legal protection to trade secrets?
ggg9990 9y ago
Most modern pharmaceuticals would not exist without patents.
- mayneack 9y ago
  Why do you say that? Just because most modern pharmaceuticals were created with patents, doesn't mean that they wouldn't exist without patents.
  - ggg9990 9y ago
    Because trade secrets are virtually impossible in non-biologic drugs, the entire funding ecosystem around pharmaceuticals is driven by patents.
    - mayneack 9y ago
      5 minutes of googling suggests that Penicillin was not patented and the mass production was later patented by the USDA (not some private pharma company). The entire modern funding ecosystem being patent based just means it's the most profitable business model, not that it's the only way to produce pharmaceuticals. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penicillin#Mass_production https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penicillin#Mass_production https://patents.google.com/patent/US2442141 https://patents.google.com/patent/US2442141
      - jjeaff 9y ago
        Some drugs likely would be discovered through non profit efforts. But it seems reasonable to believe that we would be quite a bit farther behind overall without the profit motive.
      - ggg9990 9y ago
        Of course it’s not the only way to produce pharmaceuticals, as pharmaceuticals are thousands of years old. But without patents the number of new drugs pharmaceuticals over the last 50 years would be probably 1-5% of it actually was.
toomanybeersies 9y ago
I'm not strictly opposed to software patents, I do think that the threshold for what deserves a patent is far too low in the USA though. Regardless, patents in general are a net good for mankind. It incentivises innovation, as the inventor gets a monopoly for a limited time on new inventions. What's the point in inventing anything if some other company (likely with more resources than you) can just come along and steal your ideas?
- I_am_tiberius 9y ago
  > I do think that the threshold for what deserves a patent is far too low in the USA though. A first big step forward would be to increase the threshold. The current situation is ridiculous, - I think everyone agrees on that. > Regardless, patents in general are a net good for mankind. It incentivises innovation, as the inventor gets a monopoly for a limited time on new inventions. I cannot entirely disagree on that, - at least from today's perspective. However, what did people think about open source software 30 years ago? They would have said something similar as you did, - which is that companies would not have the motivation to invest time and money. What do people think today?
  - jjeaff 9y ago
    Open source is not necessarily a profitable endeavour. Their are some exceptions, but presumably there would be a lot more open source options out there if it were more profitable.
- trophycase 9y ago
  Chefs and restaurants don't file patents on recipes AFAIK and they still manage. Didi basically copied Uber and the tech is still far inferior
  - toomanybeersies 9y ago
    You're comparing apples and oranges. Imagine this case now: I own a small company, Foo & Sons. I invent a new form of widget, that's 10% more efficient than other widgets. I can patent my new widget, and now I have exclusive right to manufacture these widgets in my factory for $1 a piece, selling them for $2 a piece. Now, a big company, Widgets'R'Us, is capable of manufacturing these widgets for $0.50 each, as they have economies of scale. Without patent protection, they could make my widgets, and sell them for $1.50 each, putting me out of business. However, because of the patent, they'd have to pay me a fee if they wanted to make my widgets. I can now decide whether or not these royalties are more valuable tham making and selling widgets from my factory.
kabdib 9y ago
I once spent several months reading a certain set of patents. This was sanctioned by the lawyers of the company I was working for then. A few comments: - Patents are supposed to "teach" things. Yet in every place I've worked, employees are prohibited or at least actively discouraged from reading patents, because of liability concerns. So they fail at teaching because knowledge of what's in a patent is actually dangerous. - The first month or so of reading those patents was basically about learning a whole new language. The terminology, twisted descriptions and deliberate obfuscation again makes the "teaching" aspect of patents utterly useless. No one in their right mind says, "I'm going to go learn some new stuff, so I'm off to read a bunch of patents." Nobody does that. Patents don't teach, they're a land grab, and are about as hostile to the actual "Progress of Science and useful Arts" as a sucking chest wound.
- maxwell 9y ago
  Any additional info on liability concerns? I had a patent issued last year as sole inventor (software, but a legit invention), and I actually just found a patent doc at a company I'm working with earlier today (they have the patent number in their web app's footer). I was planning to scan through the diagrams. To me patent text is strange compiled pseudo-legalese, but I have found some learning in the diagrams.
  - kabdib 9y ago
    Infringe a patent, and the holder of the patent can be awarded damages. We're familiar with that. Knowingly infringing a patent can bring triple damages. You can bet that the USPTO granted someone a patent on the linked list, or a common variant of a hash table (don't get me started on how the USPTO determines prior art -- they don't use common literature, they seem to just search the patent database). So if you accidentally read a patent on said linked list / hash table and use it in a product and you're sued for infringement, damages go up quite a bit. That's one reason companies discourage engineers from reading patents. Back in the 1980s someone had a patent on "Network standard byte order". Didn't matter the order you chose (big or little endian, or inside-out like the PDP-11, or whatever). As long as it was a stable and common byte order used on the network, you infringed. The "inventor" was a friend of a friend, and reportedly he said, when the patent was granted, "I can't believe they gave that to me." Yeah, patents are utterly busted.

EggsOnToast 9y ago

Those are both really broad statements. Developing innovative software costs money as does developing an innovative product or technology. The point of patents isn't to incentivize implementation it's to incentivize innovation.

gt_ 9y ago
Whether OP peanut it or not, patents “incentivize” innovation with a terribly simplistic model of what that involves. The difference between “innovation” and “implementation” is like the difference between a business and it’s business plan. The motivation to regulate it is obvious but the results remain difficult to defend in light of the associated problems introduced.
- EggsOnToast 9y ago
  I don't agree. I think that while it can be difficult to defend every instance of a patent or a particular implementation of patent law, this doesn't mean that every patent is bad or that the concept of patents is bad and needs to be outright abandoned which is what the OP was discussing. America's patent system may not be perfect but this doesn't mean it's outright unproductive. This holds especially true when evaluated based on raw innovation. America's tech sector speaks for itself but is far from unique, America's pharmaceutical industry also comes to mind. Although widely criticized, and rightly so, the American industry produces nearly a third of the world's new molecular entities.
  - slyfocks 9y ago
    Patents are far from the only factor affecting innovation, yet you seem to conclude that patents are good based on level of innovation in the US. A logically similar argument (“fallacy of the single cause”) would be: Hawaii has a relatively low rate of gun violence yet their gun ownership is high, ergo gun ownership must be fine. Of course some patents are good, but as market concentration increases in the US, IP has become abused by entrenched oligopolistic corporations. Most recent reputable studies find that the US patent system has probably been a net negative on innovation of late [1]. [1] https://www.economist.com/node/21660559 https://www.economist.com/node/21660559

scottlocklin 9y ago

Patents were originally invented to prevent knowledge loss due to trade secrets.

thaumasiotes 9y ago
If this is the justification for patents, what's the justification for simultaneously granting legal protection to trade secrets?

ggg9990 9y ago

Most modern pharmaceuticals would not exist without patents.

mayneack 9y ago
Why do you say that? Just because most modern pharmaceuticals were created with patents, doesn't mean that they wouldn't exist without patents.
- ggg9990 9y ago
  Because trade secrets are virtually impossible in non-biologic drugs, the entire funding ecosystem around pharmaceuticals is driven by patents.
  - mayneack 9y ago
    5 minutes of googling suggests that Penicillin was not patented and the mass production was later patented by the USDA (not some private pharma company). The entire modern funding ecosystem being patent based just means it's the most profitable business model, not that it's the only way to produce pharmaceuticals. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penicillin#Mass_production https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penicillin#Mass_production https://patents.google.com/patent/US2442141 https://patents.google.com/patent/US2442141
    - jjeaff 9y ago
      Some drugs likely would be discovered through non profit efforts. But it seems reasonable to believe that we would be quite a bit farther behind overall without the profit motive.
    - ggg9990 9y ago
      Of course it’s not the only way to produce pharmaceuticals, as pharmaceuticals are thousands of years old. But without patents the number of new drugs pharmaceuticals over the last 50 years would be probably 1-5% of it actually was.

toomanybeersies 9y ago

I'm not strictly opposed to software patents, I do think that the threshold for what deserves a patent is far too low in the USA though. Regardless, patents in general are a net good for mankind. It incentivises innovation, as the inventor gets a monopoly for a limited time on new inventions. What's the point in inventing anything if some other company (likely with more resources than you) can just come along and steal your ideas?

I_am_tiberius 9y ago
> I do think that the threshold for what deserves a patent is far too low in the USA though. A first big step forward would be to increase the threshold. The current situation is ridiculous, - I think everyone agrees on that. > Regardless, patents in general are a net good for mankind. It incentivises innovation, as the inventor gets a monopoly for a limited time on new inventions. I cannot entirely disagree on that, - at least from today's perspective. However, what did people think about open source software 30 years ago? They would have said something similar as you did, - which is that companies would not have the motivation to invest time and money. What do people think today?
- jjeaff 9y ago
  Open source is not necessarily a profitable endeavour. Their are some exceptions, but presumably there would be a lot more open source options out there if it were more profitable.
trophycase 9y ago
Chefs and restaurants don't file patents on recipes AFAIK and they still manage. Didi basically copied Uber and the tech is still far inferior
- toomanybeersies 9y ago
  You're comparing apples and oranges. Imagine this case now: I own a small company, Foo & Sons. I invent a new form of widget, that's 10% more efficient than other widgets. I can patent my new widget, and now I have exclusive right to manufacture these widgets in my factory for $1 a piece, selling them for $2 a piece. Now, a big company, Widgets'R'Us, is capable of manufacturing these widgets for $0.50 each, as they have economies of scale. Without patent protection, they could make my widgets, and sell them for $1.50 each, putting me out of business. However, because of the patent, they'd have to pay me a fee if they wanted to make my widgets. I can now decide whether or not these royalties are more valuable tham making and selling widgets from my factory.

kabdib 9y ago

I once spent several months reading a certain set of patents. This was sanctioned by the lawyers of the company I was working for then. A few comments: - Patents are supposed to "teach" things. Yet in every place I've worked, employees are prohibited or at least actively discouraged from reading patents, because of liability concerns. So they fail at teaching because knowledge of what's in a patent is actually dangerous. - The first month or so of reading those patents was basically about learning a whole new language. The terminology, twisted descriptions and deliberate obfuscation again makes the "teaching" aspect of patents utterly useless. No one in their right mind says, "I'm going to go learn some new stuff, so I'm off to read a bunch of patents." Nobody does that. Patents don't teach, they're a land grab, and are about as hostile to the actual "Progress of Science and useful Arts" as a sucking chest wound.

maxwell 9y ago
Any additional info on liability concerns? I had a patent issued last year as sole inventor (software, but a legit invention), and I actually just found a patent doc at a company I'm working with earlier today (they have the patent number in their web app's footer). I was planning to scan through the diagrams. To me patent text is strange compiled pseudo-legalese, but I have found some learning in the diagrams.
- kabdib 9y ago
  Infringe a patent, and the holder of the patent can be awarded damages. We're familiar with that. Knowingly infringing a patent can bring triple damages. You can bet that the USPTO granted someone a patent on the linked list, or a common variant of a hash table (don't get me started on how the USPTO determines prior art -- they don't use common literature, they seem to just search the patent database). So if you accidentally read a patent on said linked list / hash table and use it in a product and you're sued for infringement, damages go up quite a bit. That's one reason companies discourage engineers from reading patents. Back in the 1980s someone had a patent on "Network standard byte order". Didn't matter the order you chose (big or little endian, or inside-out like the PDP-11, or whatever). As long as it was a stable and common byte order used on the network, you infringed. The "inventor" was a friend of a friend, and reportedly he said, when the patent was granted, "I can't believe they gave that to me." Yeah, patents are utterly busted.