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Patents in other industries negatively affected innovation for decades. 3d printers are a prime example where recently expired patents resulted in real progress
by searchableguy 6y ago
Patents in other industries negatively affected innovation for decades. 3d printers are a prime example where recently expired patents resulted in real progress.
Those patents will affect open source which no other industry has adopted to the extent software has. Even hardware is being open sourced now as a cultural influence.
Can you point me to any other industry where small teams or individuals can build and learn the same cutting edge tech used at big companies without a big fat license and accepting legal jargon? Is lack of that a bad thing for the society as a whole? No idea is in isolation so it doesn't make sense to give exclusive rights to a single entity.
Do you wanna fight Oracle? Of course, you do just like Google.
Current situation won't give you the real picture of the impact because many companies choose not to patent software when they can.
Investors can also see lack of patents as reduced barrier to entering the market and diversify more.
- mensetmanusman 6y agoIt is interesting that consumer 3D printers boomed after the major foundational patents died, but it might be an accident of history as well, because low cost manufacturing and low cost computation helped make 3D printers affordable for consumers. 3D printers were used by industry for many years prior to the expiration, esp. in aerospace and the military.
- srean 6y agoCodecs and compression are another biggie. Much code gets rewritten to work around scorched earth.