5 ms·

Aren't patents, per the constitution, to promote the progress of science? How can they act to do the opposite?

setr 5y ago
The primary mechanism patents provide is the open publishing and explanation of the technologies/mechanisms/etc involved. The goal is to extract research from the depths of company archives and promote iteration on existing technologies without outright cloning them. In return, you get a guaranteed monopoly on your technology for X years, and protection from theft after your open-publishing. This system has failed in a number of ways. 1. The rate of technological evolution was significantly slower, and a time-limited monopoly was less impactful, in previous history. The industrial revolution covers some 100 year period. The digital revolution covers about 40. Things get obsoleted much faster these days, to the point that a 20-year monopoly is literally the whole lifetime of the technology 2. Patents have been granted too easily for too little (largely because there’s no repercussion for filing, and re-filing, dumb patents) allowing for extremely broad interpretations, and a single technology incorporating hundreds of different patents (eg h265) 3. Because there’s so many of them, and they’re often so vaguely defined, I’m fairly certain almost no one actually reads them to learn how to implement something, or improve on the design. I’m also fairly certain that reading patents is a great way to “poison” yourself — if it can be shown you read the parent at some point, and then violated it, it’s a trivial lawsuit.
- erik_seaberg 5y ago
  When we create a monopoly through regulation, we should also regulate the prices the monopoly can charge, because any market without competition is broken.
pydry 5y ago
Because while the justification was more efficient innovation, their actual intended purpose was to create another form of property that could be capitalized.
bserge 5y ago
I guess if you patent something and then never use and/or sell it, it will just sit there, protected by law, like a valuable piece of land full of weeds and shrubs in the middle of a city.
- nwah1 5y ago
  Land titles and patents both have similar characteristics and both could be taxed by value to discourage idle use. The key for both is that the government is providing exclusive security of tenure over some natural opportunity in order to facilitate production. But if people take the opportunity but don't do anything with it, whether for speculation or laziness, they are excluding others. That would only be acceptable if they have paid the community for that right to do so.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
eatbitseveryday 5y ago
Publishing open-access academic papers or providing royalty free patents is progress. Otherwise, patents are to protect profits companies must recoup for their R&D spending.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
audit 5y ago
patents in US law, give monopoly to license the patented disclosure. 20 years in case of utility patents. Meaning that the patent holder is the only one that can license the patented disclosure. Furthemore, in US, the patent never needs to be materiliazed by the patent holder, at all. They never have to write software that they patent, never have to build a machine/machine part they patented. Not in 3 years after the patent is granted, not in 15 years after the patent is granted. Otherwise, all these patent trolls had to actually build the things they claim. If a patent is directed (applies to), so called 'Judicial Exceptions' -- it cannot be granted. However, in many instances the inventors (and their patent lawyers) become very creative as to avoid being directed to these 'Judicial Exceptions'. >"... n addition to the terms "laws of nature," "natural phenomena," and "abstract ideas," judicially recognized exceptions have been described using various other terms, including "physical phenomena," "products of nature," "scientific principles," "systems that depend on human intelligence alone," "disembodied concepts," "mental processes," and "disembodied mathematical algorithms and formulas." It should be noted that there are no bright lines between the types of exceptions, and that many of the concepts identified by the courts as exceptions can fall under several exceptions. For example, mathematical formulas are considered to be a judicial exception as they express a scientific truth, but have been labelled by the courts as both abstract ideas and laws of nature. Likewise, "products of nature" are considered to be an exception because they tie up the use of naturally occurring things, but have been labelled as both laws of nature and natural phenomena. Thus, it is sufficient for this analysis for the examiner to identify that the claimed concept (the specific claim limitation(s) that the examiner believes may recite an exception) aligns with at least one judicial exception. ..." [1] So to answer your question, patents in the way they are granted today, evade the judicial expceptions standards, and, therefore, enable unreasonably burden on businesses and individuals to compete with the unfairly granted monopolies on the inventions. [1] https://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/mpep/s2106.html#ch2100_d29a1b_139db_e0 https://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/mpep/s2106.html#ch2100...

setr 5y ago

The primary mechanism patents provide is the open publishing and explanation of the technologies/mechanisms/etc involved. The goal is to extract research from the depths of company archives and promote iteration on existing technologies without outright cloning them. In return, you get a guaranteed monopoly on your technology for X years, and protection from theft after your open-publishing. This system has failed in a number of ways. 1. The rate of technological evolution was significantly slower, and a time-limited monopoly was less impactful, in previous history. The industrial revolution covers some 100 year period. The digital revolution covers about 40. Things get obsoleted much faster these days, to the point that a 20-year monopoly is literally the whole lifetime of the technology 2. Patents have been granted too easily for too little (largely because there’s no repercussion for filing, and re-filing, dumb patents) allowing for extremely broad interpretations, and a single technology incorporating hundreds of different patents (eg h265) 3. Because there’s so many of them, and they’re often so vaguely defined, I’m fairly certain almost no one actually reads them to learn how to implement something, or improve on the design. I’m also fairly certain that reading patents is a great way to “poison” yourself — if it can be shown you read the parent at some point, and then violated it, it’s a trivial lawsuit.

erik_seaberg 5y ago
When we create a monopoly through regulation, we should also regulate the prices the monopoly can charge, because any market without competition is broken.

pydry 5y ago

Because while the justification was more efficient innovation, their actual intended purpose was to create another form of property that could be capitalized.

bserge 5y ago

I guess if you patent something and then never use and/or sell it, it will just sit there, protected by law, like a valuable piece of land full of weeds and shrubs in the middle of a city.

nwah1 5y ago
Land titles and patents both have similar characteristics and both could be taxed by value to discourage idle use. The key for both is that the government is providing exclusive security of tenure over some natural opportunity in order to facilitate production. But if people take the opportunity but don't do anything with it, whether for speculation or laziness, they are excluding others. That would only be acceptable if they have paid the community for that right to do so.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

eatbitseveryday 5y ago

Publishing open-access academic papers or providing royalty free patents is progress. Otherwise, patents are to protect profits companies must recoup for their R&D spending.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

audit 5y ago

patents in US law, give monopoly to license the patented disclosure. 20 years in case of utility patents. Meaning that the patent holder is the only one that can license the patented disclosure. Furthemore, in US, the patent never needs to be materiliazed by the patent holder, at all. They never have to write software that they patent, never have to build a machine/machine part they patented. Not in 3 years after the patent is granted, not in 15 years after the patent is granted. Otherwise, all these patent trolls had to actually build the things they claim. If a patent is directed (applies to), so called 'Judicial Exceptions' -- it cannot be granted. However, in many instances the inventors (and their patent lawyers) become very creative as to avoid being directed to these 'Judicial Exceptions'. >"... n addition to the terms "laws of nature," "natural phenomena," and "abstract ideas," judicially recognized exceptions have been described using various other terms, including "physical phenomena," "products of nature," "scientific principles," "systems that depend on human intelligence alone," "disembodied concepts," "mental processes," and "disembodied mathematical algorithms and formulas." It should be noted that there are no bright lines between the types of exceptions, and that many of the concepts identified by the courts as exceptions can fall under several exceptions. For example, mathematical formulas are considered to be a judicial exception as they express a scientific truth, but have been labelled by the courts as both abstract ideas and laws of nature. Likewise, "products of nature" are considered to be an exception because they tie up the use of naturally occurring things, but have been labelled as both laws of nature and natural phenomena. Thus, it is sufficient for this analysis for the examiner to identify that the claimed concept (the specific claim limitation(s) that the examiner believes may recite an exception) aligns with at least one judicial exception. ..." [1] So to answer your question, patents in the way they are granted today, evade the judicial expceptions standards, and, therefore, enable unreasonably burden on businesses and individuals to compete with the unfairly granted monopolies on the inventions. [1] https://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/mpep/s2106.html#ch2100_d29a1b_139db_e0 https://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/mpep/s2106.html#ch2100...