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Right, protecting an investment in R&D is a protection racket. There has to be some reasonable line between incentivizing investment and "everyone had a right

Right, protecting an investment in R&D is a protection racket. There has to be some reasonable line between incentivizing investment and "everyone had a right to everyone else's ideas".

raverbashing 8y ago
Agreed for more involved research, but for software, patents are a scam.
- int_19h 8y ago
  it is often said that software is just math, and math is not patentable. But any mechanical contraption is ultimately just physics at work, and physics is just math as well. So, what's the difference?
- mehrdadn 8y ago
  There is nothing about software that makes patenting it inherently any worse than patenting hardware. The problem is rampant misuse/abuse/poor implementation.
picsao 8y ago
And that reasonable line looks like a mouse face 140 years after introduction. Rent seeking knows no reason and boundaries.
Maarten88 8y ago
The article argues otherwise and backs it up with a plausible story from history, with two other stories (Switzerland and China) added above in the comments. At least it seems plausible that the current way of "incentivizing investment" is not working, and we might even be better off completely without it.
mickronome 8y ago
If it is necessary with defensive patents for a new company to enter the market with an obviously not - in a quite literal sense - copied product, then it probably is something comparable to a racket. If it is also the case that patent holders purposely withold the very trade secrets that is the bargaining chips that gets you a patent according to the spirit of the law, then if it isn't a racket, it's still immoral and needs to stop being allowed. So many patents these days are completely devoid of the secrets they are supposed to both protect, and publish. Little is thus gained for the public good, and much is lost. It strikes me as odd that patents has such a strong support in the US, as generally there seems to be the case that the government isn't wanted where it's not absolutely needed, and I find it hard to see how one could argue that patents are so integral to society that they should fall in that category according to the metrics that seems to be used for other commonly government controlled areas.
coldtea 8y ago
>Right, protecting an investment in R&D is a protection racket. It is, when most "R&D" is trivial compared to the revenues you command, and is stealing off earlier ideas, government subsidies, and so on, anyway... Besides, you said it yourself: "protecting". It obviously is a protection racket, and is an artificial limitation imposed on the market by legal dictum. Artificial because, unlike e.g. police protection against mere theft or contract law, this one, as history shows, is not necessary for the market to operate and grow.
andybak 8y ago
> There has to be some reasonable line between incentivizing investment and "everyone had a right to everyone else's ideas". You're meant to pick two extreme positions and imply the reasonable compromise is midway between them. Instead you chose one extreme and one reasonable sounding position.
- kaffeemitsahne 8y ago
  Honestly not sure if you mean the first or second is the reasonable one.
  - ben_w 8y ago
    Speaking for myself, everyone does have a right to everyone else's ideas, even in patent systems. Patents are supposed to be a temporary monopoly to encourage investment, but quite a lot of investment happens anyway even when patents are not bothered with. Not all, certainly, and I cannot quantify how much as a fraction. However, I can give the anecdote of a former friend who worked in audio needing to get a patent on something (encryption I think) to get industry certification for their products. Their patent was modified by the lawyers from something novel to something which already existed, but the patent was granted anyway and nobody really cared because the patent was only applied for to get the certification.
crdoconnor 8y ago
>There has to be some reasonable line between incentivizing investment and "everyone had a right to everyone else's ideas". Isn't this just argument to moderation? Moreover, patent portfolios that inhibit competition through the threat of a lawsuit are disincentivizing investment and competition.
jandrese 8y ago
Maybe, but in the software sphere you have the situation where the most obvious solution to a host of problems have been patented by various companies and it's not feasible to do a patent search on every algorithm you implement. Especially since many of the patents are quite broad and cover entire fields of technology. This is also why patent trolls are such a nuisance, since defensive patents don't work on entities that don't produce anything.

Right, protecting an investment in R&D is a protection racket. There has to be some reasonable line between incentivizing investment and "everyone had a right to everyone else's ideas".

raverbashing 8y ago

Agreed for more involved research, but for software, patents are a scam.

int_19h 8y ago
it is often said that software is just math, and math is not patentable. But any mechanical contraption is ultimately just physics at work, and physics is just math as well. So, what's the difference?
mehrdadn 8y ago
There is nothing about software that makes patenting it inherently any worse than patenting hardware. The problem is rampant misuse/abuse/poor implementation.

picsao 8y ago

And that reasonable line looks like a mouse face 140 years after introduction. Rent seeking knows no reason and boundaries.

Maarten88 8y ago

The article argues otherwise and backs it up with a plausible story from history, with two other stories (Switzerland and China) added above in the comments. At least it seems plausible that the current way of "incentivizing investment" is not working, and we might even be better off completely without it.

mickronome 8y ago

If it is necessary with defensive patents for a new company to enter the market with an obviously not - in a quite literal sense - copied product, then it probably is something comparable to a racket. If it is also the case that patent holders purposely withold the very trade secrets that is the bargaining chips that gets you a patent according to the spirit of the law, then if it isn't a racket, it's still immoral and needs to stop being allowed. So many patents these days are completely devoid of the secrets they are supposed to both protect, and publish. Little is thus gained for the public good, and much is lost. It strikes me as odd that patents has such a strong support in the US, as generally there seems to be the case that the government isn't wanted where it's not absolutely needed, and I find it hard to see how one could argue that patents are so integral to society that they should fall in that category according to the metrics that seems to be used for other commonly government controlled areas.

coldtea 8y ago

>Right, protecting an investment in R&D is a protection racket. It is, when most "R&D" is trivial compared to the revenues you command, and is stealing off earlier ideas, government subsidies, and so on, anyway... Besides, you said it yourself: "protecting". It obviously is a protection racket, and is an artificial limitation imposed on the market by legal dictum. Artificial because, unlike e.g. police protection against mere theft or contract law, this one, as history shows, is not necessary for the market to operate and grow.

andybak 8y ago

> There has to be some reasonable line between incentivizing investment and "everyone had a right to everyone else's ideas". You're meant to pick two extreme positions and imply the reasonable compromise is midway between them. Instead you chose one extreme and one reasonable sounding position.

kaffeemitsahne 8y ago
Honestly not sure if you mean the first or second is the reasonable one.
- ben_w 8y ago
  Speaking for myself, everyone does have a right to everyone else's ideas, even in patent systems. Patents are supposed to be a temporary monopoly to encourage investment, but quite a lot of investment happens anyway even when patents are not bothered with. Not all, certainly, and I cannot quantify how much as a fraction. However, I can give the anecdote of a former friend who worked in audio needing to get a patent on something (encryption I think) to get industry certification for their products. Their patent was modified by the lawyers from something novel to something which already existed, but the patent was granted anyway and nobody really cared because the patent was only applied for to get the certification.

crdoconnor 8y ago

>There has to be some reasonable line between incentivizing investment and "everyone had a right to everyone else's ideas". Isn't this just argument to moderation? Moreover, patent portfolios that inhibit competition through the threat of a lawsuit are disincentivizing investment and competition.

jandrese 8y ago

Maybe, but in the software sphere you have the situation where the most obvious solution to a host of problems have been patented by various companies and it's not feasible to do a patent search on every algorithm you implement. Especially since many of the patents are quite broad and cover entire fields of technology. This is also why patent trolls are such a nuisance, since defensive patents don't work on entities that don't produce anything.