4 ms·

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 pocket

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.

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.