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HN never fails to amazes me this is one of the best community where people from all backgrounds can take part in discussion And I wish all the best

ahmedalsudani 5y ago
Looking forward to the day a patent troll comments on a discussion
- ethbr0 5y ago
  People take enough cheap shots at adtech folks, when they offer their perspective. I assume the patent troll approach would be that they're returning value to their investors, while following the law as it stands.
  - treeman79 5y ago
    Was in adtech for awhile. Glad to be out of it. Lots of neat problems to solve. But yeah it was super creepy
  - silexia 5y ago
    I hope the entire patent system is simply dissolved. Patents are an artificial restriction on free trade that prevents competition and put profits in the pockets of the greedy undeserving.
    - worik 5y ago
      Patents have their uses. Trade secrets are worse. We should not through out the baby with the bathwater....
      - krastanov 5y ago
        Are trade secrets really worse? My (uninformed, anecdotal, unsubstantiated) intuition is that reverse engineering, or even just the knowledge that something is possible, ensures that trade secrets are no barrier to progress. While patents definitely seem like a barrier.
        tintor 5y ago
        If company is providing a service instead of selling products then reverse engineering is much much harder or not possible at all. Example: Are you going to reverse self-driving code from a vehicle giving you are ride? Or a server behind an API?
        krastanov 5y ago
        No, but knowing a solution exists makes finding the solution orders of magnitude easier.
      - hellbannedguy 5y ago
        I used to think Patents had their uses. I looked into just the fees to file a patent, and it's for middle class, upper class folks, institutions, and companies. The poor guy tinkering around in his wood shed is not filing patents. Maybe not throwing out all patents us a good idea? I don't know, but an American citizen (low income) all fees shouid be eliminated. I would like to see a limit on patents anyone can file, or a graduated fee structure? 1 patent free. (low income. $300 everyone else) 2 patent $500 3 patent $500,000 4 patent $1,000,000,000 This would at least limit those guys patenting round corners?
    - elcomet 5y ago
      But don't you believe it encourages innovation ? That's the main argument in favor of patents
      - nrdvana 5y ago
        I think it stalls more innovation than it encourages, and generally prevents new entry into a technology space, because the existing players have all the patents that a new player would need to get started. The fewer players you have in a technology space, the less innovation there will be, because “necessity is the mother of invention” and people don’t generally start working on an idea unless they are exposed to the problems of that field. In theory, a non-player could start a research shop and then sell the results of their research in the form of a patent, and this happens sometimes, but just as often the industry decides they don’t want to pay, and leaves the idea dead until the patent expires. My pet example is the mosquito laser. They invented it at MIT, and showed that it could effectively shoot down mosquitos that pass between posts. The hardware costs were a bit high, but would come down drastically if someone mass-produced custom chips for it. But, the overall idea is patented, and currently held by a “think tank” licensing company, and no product has emerged. I can only assume that it is because their licensing demands are too high. I’d be happy to start my own company to build mosquito lasers, but I’m sure that their licensing costs would kill any profit from it, so I don’t. And so the world is left with no mosquito lasers for more than a decade. If you want another extreme example, the 3D printer craze was kicked off by the expiration of a patent on the FDM process: https://www.fabbaloo.com/blog/2020/3/2/the-challenge-and-opportunity-of-3d-printing-patent-684116b2 https://www.fabbaloo.com/blog/2020/3/2/the-challenge-and-opp... The innovation in the 3D printer space probably lost 10 years due to that patent. One possible solution to the problem, without throwing out the entire patent system, would be to create a mandatory licensing system with fixed rates. For example, if you know that your design is about 60% patented, and there is a law that says 20% of your profits have to be given to the patent holder, then you might be able to go ahead and make the product and still turn a reasonable profit. The patent holders would get paid something and the products would continue being innovated without these stupid wait-17-years delays. Also it would put less severe stake on the patents, so people could just argue out the details in court about who gets how much money without worrying that it was going to bankrupt a company or kill the product line.
    - ClumsyPilot 5y ago
      "Patents are an artificial restriction on free trade" So is copyright, without them both the concept of IP dissapears. Patents at least have to be usefull, and documented publically for future use. Copyright of code by comparison is an abomination, it does something to your smartphone and data, you have no right to inspect it or change it.
  - ajb 5y ago
    That works both ways - the IP folks have their own echo chamber. I remember reading one article on an IP blog which mentioned that of course IP laywers know much more about what would help innovation than engineers.
- speedgoose 5y ago
  It happens. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26759051 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26759051
- 1vuio0pswjnm7 5y ago
  Largest "patent troll" in history was brainchild of and founded by former Microsoft CTO. The person who coined the term "patent troll" helped him start the company. He came from Intel. The saddest part of the idea of "trolling" as a "business" is that it has spread into other areas, outside IT. "Patent trolling" is easy to spot when the patents are software patents as so many software patent are low quality. However, the patent quality problem is not nearly as acute in other industries. There are in fact legitimate small inventors who must approach large companies, and that situation predates the hardware and software industries, but it was software and hardware people that created this idea of the "patent troll". If there was a "bad" situation that existed before Intellectual Ventures was founded, no solution was offered by those who were negatively affected. Rather, the approach taken was "If you can't beat `em, join `em." One could argue, as a result, the situation went from bad to worse.
  - rot13xor 5y ago
    If the patents are legitimate it seems like a business model similar to debt collectors or "cash now for annuity" companies. A small company might have a winnable case of damages but doesn't have the resources or risk appetite to take the case to trial. It's a rational decision to sell off the claim to another company for X% of the expected value and let them take risk of enforcing the claim.
    - gpm 5y ago
      Taking a look around this thread should make it clear that even if patents are legitimate, many patent trolls are not. They are frequently going after entities that are not actually infringing, or threatening people with obviously invalid patents, because the legal system makes it cheaper to pay the troll than go to court, even if you will win. (But you probably have a point that if patents are legitimate than an otherwise ethical patent troll would also be legitimate)
      - hvis 5y ago
        > But you probably have a point that if patents are legitimate than an otherwise ethical patent troll would also be legitimate I'm not sure it's possible to be an "ethical" patent troll. It is a structure explicitly chosen to minimize any collateral in case their patents are thrown out in court, claims are invalidated, and they have to pay to for the counterpart's expenses (and which point the company is simply dissolved, with little to no damage to the owners). If somebody is so sure their patents are valid, let them form a "real" company which utilizes said patents to bring in revenue, and let that company go to court with competitors and bear the risk of having to pay for frivolous lawsuits. Not that I think that that software should ever be patentable, of course.
- DrNuke 5y ago
  Well, they come in different shapes and tunes: without talking hackers or espionage, you also have “investors” kindly asking for details of your software. In fact, in many fields (and mine, materials informatics), you can file a patent for the end product of your software (novel alloys, in my case) while keeping your code entirely private. How could they troll you then? Patents make their own industry as well.

ahmedalsudani 5y ago

Looking forward to the day a patent troll comments on a discussion

ethbr0 5y ago
People take enough cheap shots at adtech folks, when they offer their perspective. I assume the patent troll approach would be that they're returning value to their investors, while following the law as it stands.
- treeman79 5y ago
  Was in adtech for awhile. Glad to be out of it. Lots of neat problems to solve. But yeah it was super creepy
- silexia 5y ago
  I hope the entire patent system is simply dissolved. Patents are an artificial restriction on free trade that prevents competition and put profits in the pockets of the greedy undeserving.
  - worik 5y ago
    Patents have their uses. Trade secrets are worse. We should not through out the baby with the bathwater....
    - krastanov 5y ago
      Are trade secrets really worse? My (uninformed, anecdotal, unsubstantiated) intuition is that reverse engineering, or even just the knowledge that something is possible, ensures that trade secrets are no barrier to progress. While patents definitely seem like a barrier.
      - tintor 5y ago
        If company is providing a service instead of selling products then reverse engineering is much much harder or not possible at all. Example: Are you going to reverse self-driving code from a vehicle giving you are ride? Or a server behind an API?
        krastanov 5y ago
        No, but knowing a solution exists makes finding the solution orders of magnitude easier.
    - hellbannedguy 5y ago
      I used to think Patents had their uses. I looked into just the fees to file a patent, and it's for middle class, upper class folks, institutions, and companies. The poor guy tinkering around in his wood shed is not filing patents. Maybe not throwing out all patents us a good idea? I don't know, but an American citizen (low income) all fees shouid be eliminated. I would like to see a limit on patents anyone can file, or a graduated fee structure? 1 patent free. (low income. $300 everyone else) 2 patent $500 3 patent $500,000 4 patent $1,000,000,000 This would at least limit those guys patenting round corners?
  - elcomet 5y ago
    But don't you believe it encourages innovation ? That's the main argument in favor of patents
    - nrdvana 5y ago
      I think it stalls more innovation than it encourages, and generally prevents new entry into a technology space, because the existing players have all the patents that a new player would need to get started. The fewer players you have in a technology space, the less innovation there will be, because “necessity is the mother of invention” and people don’t generally start working on an idea unless they are exposed to the problems of that field. In theory, a non-player could start a research shop and then sell the results of their research in the form of a patent, and this happens sometimes, but just as often the industry decides they don’t want to pay, and leaves the idea dead until the patent expires. My pet example is the mosquito laser. They invented it at MIT, and showed that it could effectively shoot down mosquitos that pass between posts. The hardware costs were a bit high, but would come down drastically if someone mass-produced custom chips for it. But, the overall idea is patented, and currently held by a “think tank” licensing company, and no product has emerged. I can only assume that it is because their licensing demands are too high. I’d be happy to start my own company to build mosquito lasers, but I’m sure that their licensing costs would kill any profit from it, so I don’t. And so the world is left with no mosquito lasers for more than a decade. If you want another extreme example, the 3D printer craze was kicked off by the expiration of a patent on the FDM process: https://www.fabbaloo.com/blog/2020/3/2/the-challenge-and-opportunity-of-3d-printing-patent-684116b2 https://www.fabbaloo.com/blog/2020/3/2/the-challenge-and-opp... The innovation in the 3D printer space probably lost 10 years due to that patent. One possible solution to the problem, without throwing out the entire patent system, would be to create a mandatory licensing system with fixed rates. For example, if you know that your design is about 60% patented, and there is a law that says 20% of your profits have to be given to the patent holder, then you might be able to go ahead and make the product and still turn a reasonable profit. The patent holders would get paid something and the products would continue being innovated without these stupid wait-17-years delays. Also it would put less severe stake on the patents, so people could just argue out the details in court about who gets how much money without worrying that it was going to bankrupt a company or kill the product line.
  - ClumsyPilot 5y ago
    "Patents are an artificial restriction on free trade" So is copyright, without them both the concept of IP dissapears. Patents at least have to be usefull, and documented publically for future use. Copyright of code by comparison is an abomination, it does something to your smartphone and data, you have no right to inspect it or change it.
- ajb 5y ago
  That works both ways - the IP folks have their own echo chamber. I remember reading one article on an IP blog which mentioned that of course IP laywers know much more about what would help innovation than engineers.
speedgoose 5y ago
It happens. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26759051 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26759051
1vuio0pswjnm7 5y ago
Largest "patent troll" in history was brainchild of and founded by former Microsoft CTO. The person who coined the term "patent troll" helped him start the company. He came from Intel. The saddest part of the idea of "trolling" as a "business" is that it has spread into other areas, outside IT. "Patent trolling" is easy to spot when the patents are software patents as so many software patent are low quality. However, the patent quality problem is not nearly as acute in other industries. There are in fact legitimate small inventors who must approach large companies, and that situation predates the hardware and software industries, but it was software and hardware people that created this idea of the "patent troll". If there was a "bad" situation that existed before Intellectual Ventures was founded, no solution was offered by those who were negatively affected. Rather, the approach taken was "If you can't beat `em, join `em." One could argue, as a result, the situation went from bad to worse.
- rot13xor 5y ago
  If the patents are legitimate it seems like a business model similar to debt collectors or "cash now for annuity" companies. A small company might have a winnable case of damages but doesn't have the resources or risk appetite to take the case to trial. It's a rational decision to sell off the claim to another company for X% of the expected value and let them take risk of enforcing the claim.
  - gpm 5y ago
    Taking a look around this thread should make it clear that even if patents are legitimate, many patent trolls are not. They are frequently going after entities that are not actually infringing, or threatening people with obviously invalid patents, because the legal system makes it cheaper to pay the troll than go to court, even if you will win. (But you probably have a point that if patents are legitimate than an otherwise ethical patent troll would also be legitimate)
    - hvis 5y ago
      > But you probably have a point that if patents are legitimate than an otherwise ethical patent troll would also be legitimate I'm not sure it's possible to be an "ethical" patent troll. It is a structure explicitly chosen to minimize any collateral in case their patents are thrown out in court, claims are invalidated, and they have to pay to for the counterpart's expenses (and which point the company is simply dissolved, with little to no damage to the owners). If somebody is so sure their patents are valid, let them form a "real" company which utilizes said patents to bring in revenue, and let that company go to court with competitors and bear the risk of having to pay for frivolous lawsuits. Not that I think that that software should ever be patentable, of course.
DrNuke 5y ago
Well, they come in different shapes and tunes: without talking hackers or espionage, you also have “investors” kindly asking for details of your software. In fact, in many fields (and mine, materials informatics), you can file a patent for the end product of your software (novel alloys, in my case) while keeping your code entirely private. How could they troll you then? Patents make their own industry as well.