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As a child I learned that technological progress takes the form of inventions and comes from intellectual heroes called inventors. Manufacture, distribution, ma
by closeparen 5y ago
As a child I learned that technological progress takes the form of inventions and comes from intellectual heroes called inventors. Manufacture, distribution, marketing, business, etc. were all just details that would inevitably get worked out by one or another of the sharks in that grubby game. And the sharks would constantly be trying to screw the inventor out of his due. As a child I would have looked at someone who enforces patents for a living as a kind of hero.
Once I reached the tech industry it was a total 180, ideas are worthless, the heroes are the engineers who can scale them and the founders who can make businesses out of them. But patent law didn’t get the memo, it’s still based on my elementary-school worldview.
- freejazz 5y agoInventors regularly sign over their inventions to the businesses that they work for, such that the businessmen are able to make business models out of them that the engineers will scale. To be honest, I don't think you know much of how the patent system works to substantiate your comment.
- thrashh 5y agoNot to mention, inventions occur in manufacturing, distribution, marketing, and business too. Just because someone doesn’t have an understanding of how things work is not a justification to be dismissive.
- closeparen 5y agoI thought it was clear from my comment that I'm criticizing the viewpoint I received in 4th grade, i.e. I no longer believe in it. Crucially, the inventors in those hero stories were always lone wolf eccentric garage/basement guys. Corporate R&D labs did not appear.