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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 mate

by epakai 6y 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 6y 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"?

by epakai 6y ago

Qwertious 6y 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"?