5 ms·

Why don't they just charge a $1,000,000 filing fee for a patent? Anything worth less seems hardly worth the trouble to society.

wyxuan 7y ago
Yeah but there are so many patents needed for the most mundane aspects of products. Plus it's prohibitively expensive for individual people who invent
- quadrangle 7y ago
  Patents aren't needed for people to invent things.
  - colejohnson66 7y ago
    No. But they allow the little guy to take on the big guy for stealing their invention. Look at Robert Kearns[0]. He invented the intermittent windshield wiper and demoed it to the “Big Three.” They then took his idea and implemented it themselves. So he sued them and won. Maybe removing patents would spur innovation, but what then do you do when you’re the little guy? [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Kearns https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Kearns
    - quadrangle 7y ago
      Without patents, the little guy can actually do innovative stuff with all the technology we're surrounded with. Patents are primarily used by the big players to maintain their power. Inequities in wealth and power are serious problems. Patents are a horrible method to deal with them though. If you set out to have a goal of supporting little-guy innovators, we'd do best to institute things like UBI and universal health care. That whole windshield wiper story isn't too far from patent-trolling situations. Big companies get sued all the time by "inventors" who got patents on things that the companies would have come up with on their own anyway. The overall net effect of patents is harm for the public interest.
      - zzo38computer 7y ago
        I also want to abolish patents. (And I do not patent things myself, since, that would make it difficult to use. And, I am the "little guy".)
vallismortis 7y ago
That would put patents solely into the hands of already-established corporations and the already-wealthy, making them inaccessible to anyone else.

wyxuan 7y ago

Yeah but there are so many patents needed for the most mundane aspects of products. Plus it's prohibitively expensive for individual people who invent

quadrangle 7y ago
Patents aren't needed for people to invent things.
- colejohnson66 7y ago
  No. But they allow the little guy to take on the big guy for stealing their invention. Look at Robert Kearns[0]. He invented the intermittent windshield wiper and demoed it to the “Big Three.” They then took his idea and implemented it themselves. So he sued them and won. Maybe removing patents would spur innovation, but what then do you do when you’re the little guy? [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Kearns https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Kearns
  - quadrangle 7y ago
    Without patents, the little guy can actually do innovative stuff with all the technology we're surrounded with. Patents are primarily used by the big players to maintain their power. Inequities in wealth and power are serious problems. Patents are a horrible method to deal with them though. If you set out to have a goal of supporting little-guy innovators, we'd do best to institute things like UBI and universal health care. That whole windshield wiper story isn't too far from patent-trolling situations. Big companies get sued all the time by "inventors" who got patents on things that the companies would have come up with on their own anyway. The overall net effect of patents is harm for the public interest.
    - zzo38computer 7y ago
      I also want to abolish patents. (And I do not patent things myself, since, that would make it difficult to use. And, I am the "little guy".)

vallismortis 7y ago

That would put patents solely into the hands of already-established corporations and the already-wealthy, making them inaccessible to anyone else.