7 ms·

e-ink displays and 3d printing have both convinced me that patents do more harm than good these days.

by atrus 5y ago

fortran77 5y ago
3D printers -- both resin and filament-- are everywhere and cheap today. And there are many great affordable devices with e-Ink--I have several Amazon ebook readers that I use every day. I'm not sure I was harmed by any patent. Many of the things we talk about on Hacker News are covered by patents. Why do you want to shred a piece of the U.S. Constitution (assuming you're talking about U.S. patents) over eInk?
- Miraste 5y ago
  I believe that was GP's point - 3D printers are cheap and ubiquitous because a patent on them expired in 2009. Before that they were expensive and had little tooling or support: useless outside large corporations, despite all the technology involved existing for years and years. I don't know the patent situation of e-ink but patent law was incredibly counterproductive in the case of 3D printing.
  - robinsoh 5y ago
    > patent law was incredibly counterproductive in the case of 3D printing. I don't work in the 3d printing industry so I don't have enough knowledge to know that with any level of confidence. It sounds plausible but not sure if it is true. That's why, I am curious whether you do, ie: do you work in the 3d printing industry? How confident are you that the recent proliferation was due to an expiration of a counterproductive patent (which one?) rather than just technologies, volume, demand, industrial production finally coming together and becoming mass market? Has there been any actual detailed analysis or study proving this? The reason I ask is not because I am opposed to the claim, rather I often see unsubstantiated claims like this go unchallenged for a long time. In the case of E Ink, I even saw someone blog that statement and they cited an HN comment about E Ink patents that I had challenged and the poster never responded, and then someone cited that very blog post in another HN comments so it became a circle of references where all the dots on the circle are unsubstantiated.
    - monocasa 5y ago
      The lynch pin FDM patent was 5,121,329 which expired in 2009; there were similar later patents in the space around SLA printing that expired in the five years following that. There's been plenty of analysis both from industry and academia that it was indeed holding back the proliferation of 3D printing technology. Being in a adjacent field of other robotic control that utilized 3d printing for our own prototyping before and after the proliferation I can also confirm the patent licensing being a major impediment to proliferation of the technology. We had high enough margins that we could spend $100k on a 3d printer before 2009. But the field has been revolutionized since then from the democratization and even our own processes changed heavily once we could have a bank of printers rather than just one. Sort of like the change of a a company sharing a mainframe with a guy dedicated to keeping it going versus ubiquitous microcomputers.
    - Miraste 5y ago
      I'm not in the industry, just a hobbyist, but this is well established. There are dozens of companies making printers, filament, models, tutorials, software, and innovations that legally couldn't exist while this patent was active. Universities, makerspaces, and small to medium sized businesses (and hobbyists) didn't have access to the tech because of it. Here is the patent in question: https://patents.google.com/patent/US5121329A/en https://patents.google.com/patent/US5121329A/en And here's a short explanation of the impact: https://creax.com/insights/the-influence-of-patents-on-3d-printing-evolution/ https://creax.com/insights/the-influence-of-patents-on-3d-pr...
      - robinsoh 5y ago
        > And here's a short explanation of the impact: https://creax.com/insights/the-influence-of-patents-on-3d-pr https://creax.com/insights/the-influence-of-patents-on-3d-pr... I read the article and came away unsatisfied. I was hoping to see a clear analysis like "here's an inventor who was blocked from producing his product by a patent infringement lawsuit" and here's a series of patent infringement lawsuits that blocked inventors from innovating. Instead I felt the main points were broken due to contradictory statements in the article. They started with: "Commercialising these kits was actually an infringement on Stratasys’ patent but Stratasys did not stop this from happening." Which contradicts: "Everything changed by the end of 2009, the expiration date of the famous Stratasys’ patent after 20 years." I see that Reprap was commercialized in 2006 prior to the patent expiring which clearly contradicts above as well. There's limited factual data in this article. Claims like "Everything changed" seem like strong claims that ought to be substantiated rather than defended using "feels right" kind of explanations.
  - Qwertious 5y ago
    3D printers aside (I don't know enough to comment), literally everyone I've seen who claims e-ink is held back by patents is either 1) speculating or 2) repeating hearsay and can't provide a source. Regardless of the issues with patents in general, in the specific context of e-ink it's an unsubstantiated myth until someone provides some hard evidence. E-ink patent speculation is especially problematic because everyone on HN agrees that patents are a problem, so it sounds truthy and people want to repeat it as an example of the evils of patents.
    - fortran77 5y ago
      Everytime "e-ink" comes up here in any context, we see people doing a hit-and-run post about patents, with nothing to back it up. I'm wondering what the real agenda is here. Is there some competitor trying to do some sort of astroturfing?
      - zokier 5y ago
        its just a meme, and people are bitter because they love the concept of cool eink gadgets that never materialized so they want to have some scapegoat.
      - dmwallin 5y ago
        What competitors?
      - Teever 5y ago
        Is it every time? It is something that I've only noticed about e-ink posts in the last two months or so. Prior to that I've always wondered why they were so expensive. The posts that I've seen regarding e-ink and patents seem to be very persuasive.
        Qwertious 5y ago
        >The posts that I've seen regarding e-ink and patents seem to be very persuasive. Have you seen any comment that provides actual evidence of causality between e-ink's failure to take off and patent encumberment?
  - zokier 5y ago
    But things turned out pretty well in the end? That is the whole point of patents: they expire. You say the tech existing for years and years, but few years is very short time, even 20 years is not that long time. Just need a bit of patience.
AshamedCaptain 5y ago
WHAT patents. ALL these technologies are about 40 years old. There are even mentions in this thread of the Game Boy / Color since they use very similar stuff. There are few if any patents involved here -- the problem is that there is just no demand. The moment you show someone the flashy backlighted screen he will go for it 100% of the time and ditch everything else (think: there's a reason people "upgrade" their GameBoyAdvance's to a backlight). Perhaps if you made a storefront directly illuminated by heavy sunlight...
- monocasa 5y ago
  The gameboy (and GBC) screens are very different. They're normal LCD screens with a reflective and scattering layer behind them instead of a backlight. E-ink's technology doesn't apply to them.
  - AshamedCaptain 5y ago
    Sorry for the confusion, I (as well as the rest of the people who mention it) mean (reflective) LCD overall (since the article is also incorrectly using "e-Ink" ).
    - monocasa 5y ago
      Ah, ok. That probably would have been clear to me if I had given your statements the benefit of the strongest argument you could be making. My bad, that's totally on me.
  - zokier 5y ago
    The primary e ink patents also have already expired, they are from late 90s: https://patents.google.com/patent/US5930026 https://patents.google.com/patent/US5930026
    - monocasa 5y ago
      That is _a_ patent, which is expired, but not the only patent, or the lynchpin of IP keeping people from independently making e-ink style screens. I generally have rule about being courteous to our fellow HNers and not doing something that could be cited as evidence of willful infringement (and triple damages), but I'll forgo it in this one case with the disclaimer I'll have around it in order to help dispel the rumors going around here that somehow patents aren't at issue. There are also other patents. = = = = = = A C T I V E P A T E N T = = = = = = Do not look at this patent if you work in the space of computer display technology. https://patents.google.com/patent/US9075280B2/en https://patents.google.com/patent/US9075280B2/en = = = = = = A C T I V E P A T E N T = = = = = =
robinsoh 5y ago
> e-ink displays and 3d printing have both convinced me that patents do more harm than good these days. I work in the display industry. Not for E Ink. But I have no idea what you're talking about. I see this claim about patents on e-ink repeated again and again. I don't know much about 3d printing so I can't confirm. But each time I've seen this patent claim about e-ink, I ask the poster/commenter what specific patent or patents or data they're talking about and thus far every single time they either go silent or get defensive or in rare occasions acknowledge they didn't know about it and just "felt" it was the case. So could you help me out and explain what data convinced you? You can see my comment history to see all my attempts to try to get at what is the actual truth. FYI, in my experience in the display industry, the main driver of price at scale is the asymptotic cost of components and materials like TFT backplanes, glue, passive layers, coatings, Indium Tin Oxide. Low volumes are what all of E Inks displays except the ones made for Amazon. That matches up with what I see in the prices.
- mensetmanusman 5y ago
  Are you in the US? Is there a display industry in the US for getting backplanes?
- dmwallin 5y ago
  This gets into a chicken and egg argument. You are arguing that the level of demand is leading to the current price point, while complainers about E Ink argue that anti competitive practices lead to higher prices which results in a lower demand. In a competitive market, both are actually true. The fact that there aren't really any major competitors to E Ink in that market indicates however that there probably is some sort of moat (whether it is IP, or otherwise)and that prices are likely higher than they would be in a more competitive market. There are a lot of signs that there is latent demand in the market and lowered prices would lead to an increase in total market volume.
  - robinsoh 5y ago
    > The fact that there aren't really any major competitors to E Ink in that market indicates however that there probably is some sort of moat (whether it is IP, or otherwise)and that prices are likely higher than they would be in a more competitive market. I don't know what exactly you mean in the context of the display industry. What do you mean there aren't any major competitors to E Ink? There's tonnes of display products from lots of different vendors. Are you talking about the electrophoretic display industry specifically? If so, then even there there's competitors like ClearInk but its a niche space with low volumes. FYI, the volumes that E Ink reaches even for what is considered "high volume" by them would be considered unacceptably low volume by LCD manufacturers. Ask yourself a simple question. Are you as a VC going to invest a billion into scaling up an electrophoretic display tech startup that may take 10-30 years or would you rather pump that same money into another internet services? Even Amazon pumped billions into Liquavista and then pulled the plug on it after not being able to scale within the time frame Jeff had given them. > that prices are likely higher than they would be in a more competitive market. But how are you substantiating that? Do you have awareness of the costs of materials for electrophoretic panels? Are you aware of yield rates? I actually work in the display industry and I have no actual data on that and I would never be able to estimate even order of magnitude cost without knowing those key numbers. So how are you doing making that price estimation? Your claim is equivalent of looking at a sports car market and saying Ferraris would be cheaper if there were more competitors. I hope my explanation is clear enough to convince you of the fundamental flaws in the arguments being made claiming there is "some sort of moat".
Qwertious 5y ago
E-ink displays being held back by patents is a myth. Please either provide a source or edit your comment.
- epakai 5y ago
  Why? The patent space around e ink is dominated by e ink corp over the last two decades. They're working on better driving methods, color displays, and new material compositions. Anybody entering this field is looking at licensing (expensive if current e ink prices are anything to go by) or navigating all of these recent patents to produce something competitive (good refresh rates, high contrast or color). Starting in 2002 they've done lots just based on these citations of an early patent: https://patents.google.com/patent/US5930026#citedBy https://patents.google.com/patent/US5930026#citedBy
  - Qwertious 5y ago
    >Anybody entering this field is looking at licensing (expensive if current e ink prices are anything to go by) No, that's a result of low economy of scale. LCDs have a massive market, whereas e.g. big e-ink screens have such a small market they're hand-fitted. You're presupposing your conclusion. I'm not disputing patents exist. I'm disputing whether they have a noticeable detrimental effect on the e-ink market. I mean, ARM has a licensing fee (of 1c per CPU), but nobody sane would blame that fee for x86 beating ARM in the desktop world. >The patent space around e ink is dominated by e ink corp over the last two decades. I'm not sure what your point here is. Yes, they're putting a ton of money into e-ink R&D. They're patenting everything they come up with, because that's how you monetize your R&D so it's not immediately copied by your competitors without seeing a cent of benefit. There are companies who have developed alternatives, such as Mirasol. That never took off, despite not needing any e-ink patents. This suggests that e-ink is sufficiently better than all alternatives that it's worth the patent cost - either because those alternatives were impractical, or because the patent fees for e-ink just weren't particularly cumbersome in the first place and the real problem lies elsewhere. Which brings us back to the central issue: Do you have any evidence that patents are actually causing problems in the real world, besides "patents exist, problems exist, one must be causing the other"?
aeyes 5y ago
This article has a lot of information about the Pixel Qi patents in the last section: https://goodereader.com/blog/electronic-readers/the-rise-and-fall-of-pixel-qi-how-it-shaped-the-e-reader-revolution https://goodereader.com/blog/electronic-readers/the-rise-and... Money Quote: "The Pixel QI license was picked up by John Gilmore, activist, philanthropist, and founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. He has released the patents under the Defensive Patent License."
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
make3 5y ago
patents give motivation to companies to invest in research. without patents you possibly would have neither of those things.

e-ink displays and 3d printing have both convinced me that patents do more harm than good these days.

by atrus 5y ago

e-ink displays and 3d printing have both convinced me that patents do more harm than good these days.

3D printers -- both resin and filament-- are everywhere and cheap today. And there are many great affordable devices with e-Ink--I have several Amazon ebook readers that I use every day. I'm not sure I was harmed by any patent. Many of the things we talk about on Hacker News are covered by patents. Why do you want to shred a piece of the U.S. Constitution (assuming you're talking about U.S. patents) over eInk?

Miraste 5y ago
I believe that was GP's point - 3D printers are cheap and ubiquitous because a patent on them expired in 2009. Before that they were expensive and had little tooling or support: useless outside large corporations, despite all the technology involved existing for years and years. I don't know the patent situation of e-ink but patent law was incredibly counterproductive in the case of 3D printing.
- robinsoh 5y ago
  > patent law was incredibly counterproductive in the case of 3D printing. I don't work in the 3d printing industry so I don't have enough knowledge to know that with any level of confidence. It sounds plausible but not sure if it is true. That's why, I am curious whether you do, ie: do you work in the 3d printing industry? How confident are you that the recent proliferation was due to an expiration of a counterproductive patent (which one?) rather than just technologies, volume, demand, industrial production finally coming together and becoming mass market? Has there been any actual detailed analysis or study proving this? The reason I ask is not because I am opposed to the claim, rather I often see unsubstantiated claims like this go unchallenged for a long time. In the case of E Ink, I even saw someone blog that statement and they cited an HN comment about E Ink patents that I had challenged and the poster never responded, and then someone cited that very blog post in another HN comments so it became a circle of references where all the dots on the circle are unsubstantiated.
  - monocasa 5y ago
    The lynch pin FDM patent was 5,121,329 which expired in 2009; there were similar later patents in the space around SLA printing that expired in the five years following that. There's been plenty of analysis both from industry and academia that it was indeed holding back the proliferation of 3D printing technology. Being in a adjacent field of other robotic control that utilized 3d printing for our own prototyping before and after the proliferation I can also confirm the patent licensing being a major impediment to proliferation of the technology. We had high enough margins that we could spend $100k on a 3d printer before 2009. But the field has been revolutionized since then from the democratization and even our own processes changed heavily once we could have a bank of printers rather than just one. Sort of like the change of a a company sharing a mainframe with a guy dedicated to keeping it going versus ubiquitous microcomputers.
  - Miraste 5y ago
    I'm not in the industry, just a hobbyist, but this is well established. There are dozens of companies making printers, filament, models, tutorials, software, and innovations that legally couldn't exist while this patent was active. Universities, makerspaces, and small to medium sized businesses (and hobbyists) didn't have access to the tech because of it. Here is the patent in question: https://patents.google.com/patent/US5121329A/en https://patents.google.com/patent/US5121329A/en And here's a short explanation of the impact: https://creax.com/insights/the-influence-of-patents-on-3d-printing-evolution/ https://creax.com/insights/the-influence-of-patents-on-3d-pr...
    - robinsoh 5y ago
      > And here's a short explanation of the impact: https://creax.com/insights/the-influence-of-patents-on-3d-pr https://creax.com/insights/the-influence-of-patents-on-3d-pr... I read the article and came away unsatisfied. I was hoping to see a clear analysis like "here's an inventor who was blocked from producing his product by a patent infringement lawsuit" and here's a series of patent infringement lawsuits that blocked inventors from innovating. Instead I felt the main points were broken due to contradictory statements in the article. They started with: "Commercialising these kits was actually an infringement on Stratasys’ patent but Stratasys did not stop this from happening." Which contradicts: "Everything changed by the end of 2009, the expiration date of the famous Stratasys’ patent after 20 years." I see that Reprap was commercialized in 2006 prior to the patent expiring which clearly contradicts above as well. There's limited factual data in this article. Claims like "Everything changed" seem like strong claims that ought to be substantiated rather than defended using "feels right" kind of explanations.
- Qwertious 5y ago
  3D printers aside (I don't know enough to comment), literally everyone I've seen who claims e-ink is held back by patents is either 1) speculating or 2) repeating hearsay and can't provide a source. Regardless of the issues with patents in general, in the specific context of e-ink it's an unsubstantiated myth until someone provides some hard evidence. E-ink patent speculation is especially problematic because everyone on HN agrees that patents are a problem, so it sounds truthy and people want to repeat it as an example of the evils of patents.
  - fortran77 5y ago
    Everytime "e-ink" comes up here in any context, we see people doing a hit-and-run post about patents, with nothing to back it up. I'm wondering what the real agenda is here. Is there some competitor trying to do some sort of astroturfing?
    - zokier 5y ago
      its just a meme, and people are bitter because they love the concept of cool eink gadgets that never materialized so they want to have some scapegoat.
    - dmwallin 5y ago
      What competitors?
    - Teever 5y ago
      Is it every time? It is something that I've only noticed about e-ink posts in the last two months or so. Prior to that I've always wondered why they were so expensive. The posts that I've seen regarding e-ink and patents seem to be very persuasive.
      - Qwertious 5y ago
        >The posts that I've seen regarding e-ink and patents seem to be very persuasive. Have you seen any comment that provides actual evidence of causality between e-ink's failure to take off and patent encumberment?
- zokier 5y ago
  But things turned out pretty well in the end? That is the whole point of patents: they expire. You say the tech existing for years and years, but few years is very short time, even 20 years is not that long time. Just need a bit of patience.

AshamedCaptain 5y ago

WHAT patents. ALL these technologies are about 40 years old. There are even mentions in this thread of the Game Boy / Color since they use very similar stuff. There are few if any patents involved here -- the problem is that there is just no demand. The moment you show someone the flashy backlighted screen he will go for it 100% of the time and ditch everything else (think: there's a reason people "upgrade" their GameBoyAdvance's to a backlight). Perhaps if you made a storefront directly illuminated by heavy sunlight...

monocasa 5y ago
The gameboy (and GBC) screens are very different. They're normal LCD screens with a reflective and scattering layer behind them instead of a backlight. E-ink's technology doesn't apply to them.
- AshamedCaptain 5y ago
  Sorry for the confusion, I (as well as the rest of the people who mention it) mean (reflective) LCD overall (since the article is also incorrectly using "e-Ink" ).
  - monocasa 5y ago
    Ah, ok. That probably would have been clear to me if I had given your statements the benefit of the strongest argument you could be making. My bad, that's totally on me.
- zokier 5y ago
  The primary e ink patents also have already expired, they are from late 90s: https://patents.google.com/patent/US5930026 https://patents.google.com/patent/US5930026
  - monocasa 5y ago
    That is _a_ patent, which is expired, but not the only patent, or the lynchpin of IP keeping people from independently making e-ink style screens. I generally have rule about being courteous to our fellow HNers and not doing something that could be cited as evidence of willful infringement (and triple damages), but I'll forgo it in this one case with the disclaimer I'll have around it in order to help dispel the rumors going around here that somehow patents aren't at issue. There are also other patents. = = = = = = A C T I V E P A T E N T = = = = = = Do not look at this patent if you work in the space of computer display technology. https://patents.google.com/patent/US9075280B2/en https://patents.google.com/patent/US9075280B2/en = = = = = = A C T I V E P A T E N T = = = = = =

robinsoh 5y ago

> e-ink displays and 3d printing have both convinced me that patents do more harm than good these days. I work in the display industry. Not for E Ink. But I have no idea what you're talking about. I see this claim about patents on e-ink repeated again and again. I don't know much about 3d printing so I can't confirm. But each time I've seen this patent claim about e-ink, I ask the poster/commenter what specific patent or patents or data they're talking about and thus far every single time they either go silent or get defensive or in rare occasions acknowledge they didn't know about it and just "felt" it was the case. So could you help me out and explain what data convinced you? You can see my comment history to see all my attempts to try to get at what is the actual truth. FYI, in my experience in the display industry, the main driver of price at scale is the asymptotic cost of components and materials like TFT backplanes, glue, passive layers, coatings, Indium Tin Oxide. Low volumes are what all of E Inks displays except the ones made for Amazon. That matches up with what I see in the prices.

mensetmanusman 5y ago
Are you in the US? Is there a display industry in the US for getting backplanes?
dmwallin 5y ago
This gets into a chicken and egg argument. You are arguing that the level of demand is leading to the current price point, while complainers about E Ink argue that anti competitive practices lead to higher prices which results in a lower demand. In a competitive market, both are actually true. The fact that there aren't really any major competitors to E Ink in that market indicates however that there probably is some sort of moat (whether it is IP, or otherwise)and that prices are likely higher than they would be in a more competitive market. There are a lot of signs that there is latent demand in the market and lowered prices would lead to an increase in total market volume.
- robinsoh 5y ago
  > The fact that there aren't really any major competitors to E Ink in that market indicates however that there probably is some sort of moat (whether it is IP, or otherwise)and that prices are likely higher than they would be in a more competitive market. I don't know what exactly you mean in the context of the display industry. What do you mean there aren't any major competitors to E Ink? There's tonnes of display products from lots of different vendors. Are you talking about the electrophoretic display industry specifically? If so, then even there there's competitors like ClearInk but its a niche space with low volumes. FYI, the volumes that E Ink reaches even for what is considered "high volume" by them would be considered unacceptably low volume by LCD manufacturers. Ask yourself a simple question. Are you as a VC going to invest a billion into scaling up an electrophoretic display tech startup that may take 10-30 years or would you rather pump that same money into another internet services? Even Amazon pumped billions into Liquavista and then pulled the plug on it after not being able to scale within the time frame Jeff had given them. > that prices are likely higher than they would be in a more competitive market. But how are you substantiating that? Do you have awareness of the costs of materials for electrophoretic panels? Are you aware of yield rates? I actually work in the display industry and I have no actual data on that and I would never be able to estimate even order of magnitude cost without knowing those key numbers. So how are you doing making that price estimation? Your claim is equivalent of looking at a sports car market and saying Ferraris would be cheaper if there were more competitors. I hope my explanation is clear enough to convince you of the fundamental flaws in the arguments being made claiming there is "some sort of moat".

Qwertious 5y ago

E-ink displays being held back by patents is a myth. Please either provide a source or edit your comment.

epakai 5y ago
Why? The patent space around e ink is dominated by e ink corp over the last two decades. They're working on better driving methods, color displays, and new material compositions. Anybody entering this field is looking at licensing (expensive if current e ink prices are anything to go by) or navigating all of these recent patents to produce something competitive (good refresh rates, high contrast or color). Starting in 2002 they've done lots just based on these citations of an early patent: https://patents.google.com/patent/US5930026#citedBy https://patents.google.com/patent/US5930026#citedBy
- Qwertious 5y ago
  >Anybody entering this field is looking at licensing (expensive if current e ink prices are anything to go by) No, that's a result of low economy of scale. LCDs have a massive market, whereas e.g. big e-ink screens have such a small market they're hand-fitted. You're presupposing your conclusion. I'm not disputing patents exist. I'm disputing whether they have a noticeable detrimental effect on the e-ink market. I mean, ARM has a licensing fee (of 1c per CPU), but nobody sane would blame that fee for x86 beating ARM in the desktop world. >The patent space around e ink is dominated by e ink corp over the last two decades. I'm not sure what your point here is. Yes, they're putting a ton of money into e-ink R&D. They're patenting everything they come up with, because that's how you monetize your R&D so it's not immediately copied by your competitors without seeing a cent of benefit. There are companies who have developed alternatives, such as Mirasol. That never took off, despite not needing any e-ink patents. This suggests that e-ink is sufficiently better than all alternatives that it's worth the patent cost - either because those alternatives were impractical, or because the patent fees for e-ink just weren't particularly cumbersome in the first place and the real problem lies elsewhere. Which brings us back to the central issue: Do you have any evidence that patents are actually causing problems in the real world, besides "patents exist, problems exist, one must be causing the other"?

aeyes 5y ago

This article has a lot of information about the Pixel Qi patents in the last section: https://goodereader.com/blog/electronic-readers/the-rise-and-fall-of-pixel-qi-how-it-shaped-the-e-reader-revolution https://goodereader.com/blog/electronic-readers/the-rise-and... Money Quote: "The Pixel QI license was picked up by John Gilmore, activist, philanthropist, and founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. He has released the patents under the Defensive Patent License."

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

make3 5y ago

patents give motivation to companies to invest in research. without patents you possibly would have neither of those things.