3 ms·
I don't think patents are wrong in all fields. They seem to work when you're required to claim a specific, high-effort solution that the industry wouldn't have
by prodigal_erik 16y ago
I don't think patents are wrong in all fields. They seem to work when you're required to claim a specific, high-effort solution that the industry wouldn't have found without you. They fail when you're allowed to claim an entire problem by being the first to write down the features all solutions have in common. With software, USPTO is enabling a land rush into a new discipline that doesn't yet have enough written prior art to make any useful work safe, and their bar for "novel and non-obvious" is absurdly low.
- yason 16y agoPatents can help innovation but only in the rare cases where it's actually worth to license the patent in order to still make serious money _now_. But even specific patented solutions often seem to be a hindrance in overall development. As an example, when reading the history of steam engines, I recall several occasions where development simply halted until some patent expired. Nobody got any wealthier either but when the thing fell into public domain, innovation rushed forward. And this was in the 1800's, and pretty much a prime example of what the patent system was cooked up for: a mechanical, specified engineering invention... Yet it failed, already then.