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The basis of patent system is a desire to further innovation and not, as you seem to believe, on recognizing inherent value of being paid for having ideas. If

by kjksf 15y ago

The basis of patent system is a desire to further innovation and not, as you seem to believe, on recognizing inherent value of being paid for having ideas. If you have an idea and do nothing with it, society is not better off. If you can prevent other people who had the same idea as you from making products based on them just by describing the idea on a piece of paper and getting government's stamp that you were the first one to come to them with it, then the society is worse off. The scenario you described is an unintended consequence, or a perversion, of how patent system is supposed to work.

anamax 15y ago
I note that you're ducking the question of why something that is clearly relevant to a useful product is not a good idea simply because the wrong person has a patent. > If you have an idea and do nothing with it, society is not better off. Define nothing. If I write a textbook that other folks use to do something, most people would claim that my textbook made society better off. Do you disagree? Note that patents are disclosure.... > The scenario you described is an unintended consequence, or a perversion, of how patent system is supposed to work. Oh really? The patent literature says that patents are a trade - a limited term monopoly for disclosure of an idea. You seem to think that patents are protection for folks making stuff.
anamax 15y ago
> If you can prevent other people who had the same idea as you from making products based on them just by describing the idea on a piece of paper and getting government's stamp that you were the first one to come to them with it, then the society is worse off. So? Every law has cases where it comes to the "wrong" result. More to the point, the overwhelming number of "non-practicing" inventors just want to get paid. You seem to think that they shouldn't get paid. Note that inventors sell to trolls because trolls are better able to get paid. If you weren't so opposed to inventors getting paid, we could look at ways for inventors to get paid without getting trolls involved.
- jbooth 15y ago
  Kind of late here, but I think the point with software patents is that the majority of cases tend towards the "wrong" result, basically every case except for maybe novel encryption/compression algorithms.
  - anamax 15y ago
    > I think the point with software patents is that the majority of cases tend towards the "wrong" result That's the claim, but there hasn't been much supporting evidence other than "that doesn't deserve a patent". The vast majoritiy of the "that was obvious" claims are pure hindsight. (Yes, some software patents have been overturned because of prior art, just as happens in other fields.) I particularly like the "that's just math" (which is often claimed wrt RSA). You never hear someone says "that's just chemistry" wrt chemical application patents. (You can't patent chemistry any more than you can patent math.)

by kjksf 15y ago

anamax 15y ago

I note that you're ducking the question of why something that is clearly relevant to a useful product is not a good idea simply because the wrong person has a patent. > If you have an idea and do nothing with it, society is not better off. Define nothing. If I write a textbook that other folks use to do something, most people would claim that my textbook made society better off. Do you disagree? Note that patents are disclosure.... > The scenario you described is an unintended consequence, or a perversion, of how patent system is supposed to work. Oh really? The patent literature says that patents are a trade - a limited term monopoly for disclosure of an idea. You seem to think that patents are protection for folks making stuff.

anamax 15y ago

> If you can prevent other people who had the same idea as you from making products based on them just by describing the idea on a piece of paper and getting government's stamp that you were the first one to come to them with it, then the society is worse off. So? Every law has cases where it comes to the "wrong" result. More to the point, the overwhelming number of "non-practicing" inventors just want to get paid. You seem to think that they shouldn't get paid. Note that inventors sell to trolls because trolls are better able to get paid. If you weren't so opposed to inventors getting paid, we could look at ways for inventors to get paid without getting trolls involved.

jbooth 15y ago
Kind of late here, but I think the point with software patents is that the majority of cases tend towards the "wrong" result, basically every case except for maybe novel encryption/compression algorithms.
- anamax 15y ago
  > I think the point with software patents is that the majority of cases tend towards the "wrong" result That's the claim, but there hasn't been much supporting evidence other than "that doesn't deserve a patent". The vast majoritiy of the "that was obvious" claims are pure hindsight. (Yes, some software patents have been overturned because of prior art, just as happens in other fields.) I particularly like the "that's just math" (which is often claimed wrt RSA). You never hear someone says "that's just chemistry" wrt chemical application patents. (You can't patent chemistry any more than you can patent math.)