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I mostly read patents about chemistry, materials, and electronics. I find a lot of older patents to be straightforward and informative. Occasionally I will run

I mostly read patents about chemistry, materials, and electronics. I find a lot of older patents to be straightforward and informative. Occasionally I will run across a 21st century patent that is as readable, but they're a lot rarer now. If I had to estimate when the transition happened, I'd guess around the 1980s, maybe late 1970s. Weirdly, this is also about the time that academic publications appeared to decline in information-per-page and reproducibility-per-procedure. The societal disclosure-value of the patent seems to be dropping off over time, both because reverse engineering has improved and because the body of a typical patent is becoming less informative about how to construct a useful embodiment of the patented invention.

marcosdumay 8y ago
At the 70's - 80's our hyperoptimization cycle started. Before that society was focusing on expensive growth, since there was a lot of "empty space" created by the wars and recent science progress.
gowld 8y ago
That's because the PTO is granting garbage patents, even in the case of legitimately patentable inventions. It a main problem with patents today (along with the lifetime of a patent which was originally chosen during a much slower time for humanity's intellectual advancement).
- philipkglass 8y ago
  You inspired me to look for US patent grants by year, which brought me to this table: https://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/ac/ido/oeip/taf/us_stat.htm https://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/ac/ido/oeip/taf/us_stat.ht... In 1963 the USPTO granted patents to 54% of applications. In 2015 the rate was actually slightly lower (52%). But as "The Case Against Patents" notes, the total volume of applications has soared. I kind of expected to see some sort of upward inflection around 1980 (Bayh-Dole Act) but didn't spot one by eye. The growth rate just in this century is astonishing; there were "only" 288,811 applications in 1999. Total applications per year were below 500,000 as recently as 2009. They're now well over 600,000/year.

marcosdumay 8y ago

At the 70's - 80's our hyperoptimization cycle started. Before that society was focusing on expensive growth, since there was a lot of "empty space" created by the wars and recent science progress.

gowld 8y ago

That's because the PTO is granting garbage patents, even in the case of legitimately patentable inventions. It a main problem with patents today (along with the lifetime of a patent which was originally chosen during a much slower time for humanity's intellectual advancement).

philipkglass 8y ago
You inspired me to look for US patent grants by year, which brought me to this table: https://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/ac/ido/oeip/taf/us_stat.htm https://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/ac/ido/oeip/taf/us_stat.ht... In 1963 the USPTO granted patents to 54% of applications. In 2015 the rate was actually slightly lower (52%). But as "The Case Against Patents" notes, the total volume of applications has soared. I kind of expected to see some sort of upward inflection around 1980 (Bayh-Dole Act) but didn't spot one by eye. The growth rate just in this century is astonishing; there were "only" 288,811 applications in 1999. Total applications per year were below 500,000 as recently as 2009. They're now well over 600,000/year.