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> (We should also not forget or excuse Chinese IP theft which has enabled Huawei to produce competitive products in the first place...) I certainly can, becaus

> (We should also not forget or excuse Chinese IP theft which has enabled Huawei to produce competitive products in the first place...) I certainly can, because it would be hypocritical to be against Microsoft using IP rights as a bludgeon on Linux, Qualcomm on Apple, Oracle on Google, and then be upset with Huawei on anything but stealing trade secrets. Patents have not helped the common man for at least a hundred years as companies have paid for dubious patents to bludgeon smaller competitors with. Copyrights have strangled the arts since Steamboat Willie and have prevented the public from deciding what stories they want to share. Trademarks and Trade Secrets, however, seem mostly fine, as knowing the real origin of a product is a greater good for the public than letting copycats grift them, and being clever doing something should be rewarded but once it can be replicated, the competition heats up and again helps the general public with better quality goods and services.

GauntletWizard 7y ago
Stealing trade secrets is precisely what people are mad about, so your whole point is moot.
- ISV_Damocles 7y ago
  That's why I separated it out. The post I replied to made a blanket statement about IP law in general, which I think is currently very flawed and certain actions that Huawei and others have done with respect to patents I have no issues with.
bsder 7y ago
> I certainly can, because it would be hypocritical to be against Microsoft using IP rights as a bludgeon on Linux, Qualcomm on Apple, Oracle on Google, and then be upset with Huawei on anything but stealing trade secrets. There is a difference between developing technology and getting into a patent war vs wholesale copying of a product so completely that you actually duplicate the BUGS. Yeah, Huawei did that and Cisco, rightfully, went after them and won. Of course, it didn't do a lot of good after the fact.
- ISV_Damocles 7y ago
  Copying a product to reproduce bugs as well is exactly what WINE is all about. When bugs are part of your interface for others to integrate with, then I don't believe they should be considered off limits to copy. Otherwise an incumbent company could intentionally put in bugs, sue competitors to prevent them from implementing them, and effectively take over an existing standard.
  - bsder 7y ago
    Huawei didn't copy to "interoperate", they literally fabbed the PCB's so that they were electrically identical to the Cisco PCBs (I believe they actually stole the gerbers), installed stolen code, and had both hardware and software bugs that were identical. And then sold the resulting "product" to end customers. This was so identical that you could type syntactically incorrect commands and get buggy, broken behavior which pinpointed the exact internal release of code which had been stolen as Cisco had already fixed the bugs. Sorry, that's theft, even if you disagree with IP protection.
olliej 7y ago
You mean like the guy who invented the super soaker? Or the guy who invented the aero press? Or that time sears ripped off an inventor - and patents ensured they had to pay? [1] Or that other time when they misrepresented the value of a patent [2] - in that case the absence of the patent would mean there was nothing to have stolen. Seriously, patents only really became terrible in the late 80s and 90s when the US gov. started allowing patents on what were functionally just concepts rather than actual inventions saying how something worked, and allowing patents on obvious uses of computers by virtue of "on a computer". Patents on mechanical inventions are literally the only way for the "common man" to be able to make money off an invention. Without the patent rights: * you have to be able to raise the capital to produce the device (corporations and the already rich have that - amazon was kept afloat solely because Bezos was already a billionaire). * You have to price your device to pay off the capital expenditure, in addition to all the other costs * You have to do that while also undercutting businesses that already have the manufacturing capacity to replicate your invention. In the absence of patent protection on your invention you have little likelihood of recovering your investment as an individual. Think of it this way: copyright says that copying something without/in contravention of a license is not legal, and so you can be sued. That allows things like linux to succeed - you can't make a product that uses it without contributing back. Patents are the same thing for inventions - someone doesn't get to copy your work (the act and work of inventing) without your consent. [1] https://thehustle.co/sears-patent-infringement https://thehustle.co/sears-patent-infringement [2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/business/1989/09/18/sears-wrench-inventor-settle-20-year-old-lawsuit/06cde550-0109-45f5-ae47-99b6e419ca9b/?utm_term=.0956f0b1b681 https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/business/1989/09/18/s...

GauntletWizard 7y ago

Stealing trade secrets is precisely what people are mad about, so your whole point is moot.

ISV_Damocles 7y ago
That's why I separated it out. The post I replied to made a blanket statement about IP law in general, which I think is currently very flawed and certain actions that Huawei and others have done with respect to patents I have no issues with.

bsder 7y ago

> I certainly can, because it would be hypocritical to be against Microsoft using IP rights as a bludgeon on Linux, Qualcomm on Apple, Oracle on Google, and then be upset with Huawei on anything but stealing trade secrets. There is a difference between developing technology and getting into a patent war vs wholesale copying of a product so completely that you actually duplicate the BUGS. Yeah, Huawei did that and Cisco, rightfully, went after them and won. Of course, it didn't do a lot of good after the fact.

ISV_Damocles 7y ago
Copying a product to reproduce bugs as well is exactly what WINE is all about. When bugs are part of your interface for others to integrate with, then I don't believe they should be considered off limits to copy. Otherwise an incumbent company could intentionally put in bugs, sue competitors to prevent them from implementing them, and effectively take over an existing standard.
- bsder 7y ago
  Huawei didn't copy to "interoperate", they literally fabbed the PCB's so that they were electrically identical to the Cisco PCBs (I believe they actually stole the gerbers), installed stolen code, and had both hardware and software bugs that were identical. And then sold the resulting "product" to end customers. This was so identical that you could type syntactically incorrect commands and get buggy, broken behavior which pinpointed the exact internal release of code which had been stolen as Cisco had already fixed the bugs. Sorry, that's theft, even if you disagree with IP protection.

olliej 7y ago

You mean like the guy who invented the super soaker? Or the guy who invented the aero press? Or that time sears ripped off an inventor - and patents ensured they had to pay? [1] Or that other time when they misrepresented the value of a patent [2] - in that case the absence of the patent would mean there was nothing to have stolen. Seriously, patents only really became terrible in the late 80s and 90s when the US gov. started allowing patents on what were functionally just concepts rather than actual inventions saying how something worked, and allowing patents on obvious uses of computers by virtue of "on a computer". Patents on mechanical inventions are literally the only way for the "common man" to be able to make money off an invention. Without the patent rights: * you have to be able to raise the capital to produce the device (corporations and the already rich have that - amazon was kept afloat solely because Bezos was already a billionaire). * You have to price your device to pay off the capital expenditure, in addition to all the other costs * You have to do that while also undercutting businesses that already have the manufacturing capacity to replicate your invention. In the absence of patent protection on your invention you have little likelihood of recovering your investment as an individual. Think of it this way: copyright says that copying something without/in contravention of a license is not legal, and so you can be sued. That allows things like linux to succeed - you can't make a product that uses it without contributing back. Patents are the same thing for inventions - someone doesn't get to copy your work (the act and work of inventing) without your consent. [1] https://thehustle.co/sears-patent-infringement https://thehustle.co/sears-patent-infringement [2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/business/1989/09/18/sears-wrench-inventor-settle-20-year-old-lawsuit/06cde550-0109-45f5-ae47-99b6e419ca9b/?utm_term=.0956f0b1b681 https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/business/1989/09/18/s...