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> will try and force it on jurisdictions by various means of legislation Have they said this is their strategy? There are IP licensors (like ARM and the Fraun

> will try and force it on jurisdictions by various means of legislation Have they said this is their strategy? There are IP licensors (like ARM and the Fraunhofer Society) that sell licences to their IP without trying to force jurisdictions to adopt their technology. > Incumbents will resist choosing to continue with current public domain technology This would depend on the pricing of the IP licences and the competition within the market. If the licences are cheap enough and the market competitive enough that using this tech would provide an advantage, then incumbents would license it.

colechristensen 5y ago
ARM sells... "intellectual property" that I might try to come up with a distinguishing definition from the IP of "one clever idea I want a monopoly on for a while". A lot of IP boils down to an idea that you could describe in an elevator and a few good engineers could turn into a product in a few hours to a year. ARM sells things that represent... thousands? hundreds of thousands? of engineer-years. You can't just whip that up in a short time, it totally makes sense to pay someone else for their trouble to make something... but if you wanted to and had a billion dollars to spare, sure you could do it yourself. The problem with "I thought of it first" IP protections is the phenomenon of simultaneous discovery. A whole lot of ideas just have their time come, and tend to have multiple people working on them and coming to similar results in short periods. Making this a race and letting the winner sell out to groups that either want to extract rent out of the idea or to hide it in a safe to prevent competition for 30 years is not conducive to progress.
- WalterBright 5y ago
  I patented a couple things just for the lulz, but in general I'm opposed to patents. I should have patented a couple others just because I kind of resent others claiming they invented it years later. But I can't complain too much, as I've also invented things that I later discovered I was late to the party.
  - c_o_n_v_e_x 5y ago
    Were you ever approached to have your lulz patents licensed?
    - WalterBright 5y ago
      The people who paid for all the patent paperwork owned the patents, and they licensed them, but I don't think anything ever came of them. One was a method of texting that didn't require looking at the phone, the other was a way to display lo-res graphics data without pixelation.
      - TeMPOraL 5y ago
        > One was a method of texting that didn't require looking at the phone Oh that's easy, every phone before iPhone could do it - you need a) a physical keyboard, and b) a soft real-time OS. Tactile feedback of physical buttons + stable UI configuration with learnable delays = you could learn to operate the phone without taking it out of your pocket. :) Joking aside, what was your invention? Could you link to the patent?
        WalterBright 5y ago
        Patent 7831208 Wireless mobile phone having encoded data entry facilities Patent 7812993 Lossy method for compressing images and video Patent 7711748 Method and apparatus for simplified access to online services Patent 7028033 Method and apparatus for simplified access to online services Patent 6897977 Lossy method for compressing pictures and video Patent 6850782 Wireless device with vibrational communication capabilities Patent 6657647 Controlling the order in which content is displayed in a browser Patent 6418323 Wireless mobile phone with Morse code and related capabilities AFAIK, none of these have been made use of. Though every time I see banding and blockiness in video, I think "they should implement triangles!"
        TeMPOraL 5y ago
        Thanks! I've skimmed the ones related to vibrations/Morse code, I'll look at the rest later. At the risk of forever poisoning myself for related work, I guess. Whose bright idea was with that "you look at it, and you and everyone you know is now liable for 3x more damages for accidental infringement" law?...

colechristensen 5y ago

ARM sells... "intellectual property" that I might try to come up with a distinguishing definition from the IP of "one clever idea I want a monopoly on for a while". A lot of IP boils down to an idea that you could describe in an elevator and a few good engineers could turn into a product in a few hours to a year. ARM sells things that represent... thousands? hundreds of thousands? of engineer-years. You can't just whip that up in a short time, it totally makes sense to pay someone else for their trouble to make something... but if you wanted to and had a billion dollars to spare, sure you could do it yourself. The problem with "I thought of it first" IP protections is the phenomenon of simultaneous discovery. A whole lot of ideas just have their time come, and tend to have multiple people working on them and coming to similar results in short periods. Making this a race and letting the winner sell out to groups that either want to extract rent out of the idea or to hide it in a safe to prevent competition for 30 years is not conducive to progress.

WalterBright 5y ago
I patented a couple things just for the lulz, but in general I'm opposed to patents. I should have patented a couple others just because I kind of resent others claiming they invented it years later. But I can't complain too much, as I've also invented things that I later discovered I was late to the party.
- c_o_n_v_e_x 5y ago
  Were you ever approached to have your lulz patents licensed?
  - WalterBright 5y ago
    The people who paid for all the patent paperwork owned the patents, and they licensed them, but I don't think anything ever came of them. One was a method of texting that didn't require looking at the phone, the other was a way to display lo-res graphics data without pixelation.
    - TeMPOraL 5y ago
      > One was a method of texting that didn't require looking at the phone Oh that's easy, every phone before iPhone could do it - you need a) a physical keyboard, and b) a soft real-time OS. Tactile feedback of physical buttons + stable UI configuration with learnable delays = you could learn to operate the phone without taking it out of your pocket. :) Joking aside, what was your invention? Could you link to the patent?
      - WalterBright 5y ago
        Patent 7831208 Wireless mobile phone having encoded data entry facilities Patent 7812993 Lossy method for compressing images and video Patent 7711748 Method and apparatus for simplified access to online services Patent 7028033 Method and apparatus for simplified access to online services Patent 6897977 Lossy method for compressing pictures and video Patent 6850782 Wireless device with vibrational communication capabilities Patent 6657647 Controlling the order in which content is displayed in a browser Patent 6418323 Wireless mobile phone with Morse code and related capabilities AFAIK, none of these have been made use of. Though every time I see banding and blockiness in video, I think "they should implement triangles!"
        TeMPOraL 5y ago
        Thanks! I've skimmed the ones related to vibrations/Morse code, I'll look at the rest later. At the risk of forever poisoning myself for related work, I guess. Whose bright idea was with that "you look at it, and you and everyone you know is now liable for 3x more damages for accidental infringement" law?...