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To be fair, the idea of patenting a lot of what we call "tech" these days is probably clustered for the same idea: most people wouldn't think of patenting softw

To be fair, the idea of patenting a lot of what we call "tech" these days is probably clustered for the same idea: most people wouldn't think of patenting software unless they're at or around companies that glorify patent recipients and incentivizing more. Still "idea spillover". But for real, that's probably as close as they can get to studying this with easily obtainable, easily quantifiable data.

mncharity 7y ago
> that's probably as close as they can get to studying this with easily obtainable, easily quantifiable data The abstract (I didn't try scihub, but the paper isn't available from his berkeley page either) worryingly blurs "inventors", patent creation, and "[US] macroeconomic benefits". Approaches to patents vary greatly with industry and business plan. Both of which vary with region. And their correspondence to national benefit is even more diverse. Number of researchers might serve as a useful cross-check. BLS Occupational Employment Statistics has categories like "Medical Scientists". But what portion of software innovation is done by "Computer and Information Research Scientists"? What portion is patented? One might easily imagine innovators shifting from dispersed general industry, to concentrated regions and companies emphasizing patents, with an associated increase in patent productivity, but net innovation and economic loss. Number of IP lawyers per million population needs a lot of correction to serve as a proxy for the economic benefits of innovation. At a time when we're in a big trade war, in no small part from trying to impose our industrial policy, I wonder if software engineering as a profession is fulfilling an obligation to clearly communicate its experience of just how sensitive impacts are to all the knobs and dials of patent law and policy, and how easily it goes severely net negative. When I encounter economists assuming a general connection between patents and societal innovation across very dissimilar industries, I wonder which of us is failing the other.

mncharity 7y ago

> that's probably as close as they can get to studying this with easily obtainable, easily quantifiable data The abstract (I didn't try scihub, but the paper isn't available from his berkeley page either) worryingly blurs "inventors", patent creation, and "[US] macroeconomic benefits". Approaches to patents vary greatly with industry and business plan. Both of which vary with region. And their correspondence to national benefit is even more diverse. Number of researchers might serve as a useful cross-check. BLS Occupational Employment Statistics has categories like "Medical Scientists". But what portion of software innovation is done by "Computer and Information Research Scientists"? What portion is patented? One might easily imagine innovators shifting from dispersed general industry, to concentrated regions and companies emphasizing patents, with an associated increase in patent productivity, but net innovation and economic loss. Number of IP lawyers per million population needs a lot of correction to serve as a proxy for the economic benefits of innovation. At a time when we're in a big trade war, in no small part from trying to impose our industrial policy, I wonder if software engineering as a profession is fulfilling an obligation to clearly communicate its experience of just how sensitive impacts are to all the knobs and dials of patent law and policy, and how easily it goes severely net negative. When I encounter economists assuming a general connection between patents and societal innovation across very dissimilar industries, I wonder which of us is failing the other.