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Patent applications should be published online right away so they can get roasted by the whole internet. This follows the principal of Cunningham's Law "the be

Patent applications should be published online right away so they can get roasted by the whole internet. This follows the principal of Cunningham's Law "the best way to get the right answer on the internet is not to ask a question; it's to post the wrong answer." Generally strong IP rules tend to favor the less wealthy, weaker IP rules tend to favor those with the most capital. That's why billionaire Mark Cuban is funding things like this article. When people say things like "just out execute in the marketplace" what they are really saying is just pour millions into the project. Not everyone has millions and one of the foundational principals of US society is that a poor person with a good idea should be able to get rich. How rich and what they should do to qualify for the patent is worthy of debate. For example patent holders should have to be a "practicing entity" (aka a real business) working to deliver the innovation to the market. The patent system should be better not gone.

opportune 5y ago
Really disagree with this. The existence of patents is a significant hamper on entrepreneurship. There are a lot of business spaces where you simply cannot touch because billion and trillion dollar companies have deep patent portfolios they’ll fight with. Think things like hardware and devices. Even garbage like using a fingerprint to authenticate with you bank. As a small timer, the patent system is just a way to extract a tax from other people or sell your patent to a big business that’ll use it to bully people like I mentioned. Plenty of businesses have been founded on out executing giants, and won. Sure they had to maybe carve out a niche or have an edge at first (nothing says you cannot have trade secrets without patents).
mschuster91 5y ago
> Generally strong IP rules tend to favor the less wealthy, weaker IP rules tend to favor those with the most capital. No. If you as a startup need to account for a significant amount of money to validate your entire company's activities for patent violations - including basic UI/UX improvements such as "one-click shopping" [1] - the situation becomes ridiculous and oppressive in itself. Not to mention that a patent holder unwilling to license their patent can keep progress from society, such as in the infamous Qualcomm saga. Or, assuming you want to build an innovative, high-performant set-top box (which is incredibly easy to do so using something like a Raspberry Pi)... you need to deal with buying licenses for a bunch of video standard patents for that. All of this is utter bullshit that only benefits the very rich and powerful, and stifles competition (and no, "free usage" exemptions don't count because you still have the fear of lawsuits above your head should your product be more successful than expected). IMHO: As soon as you want anything to become a standard recognized by major international bodies, you should have to give up all the patents. Everything that is required to follow a government-mandated standard (which especially anything involving RF communication is) should be freely available to read and implement for everyone - looking at you, DIN. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1-Click https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1-Click [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FTC_v_Qualcomm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FTC_v_Qualcomm

opportune 5y ago

Really disagree with this. The existence of patents is a significant hamper on entrepreneurship. There are a lot of business spaces where you simply cannot touch because billion and trillion dollar companies have deep patent portfolios they’ll fight with. Think things like hardware and devices. Even garbage like using a fingerprint to authenticate with you bank. As a small timer, the patent system is just a way to extract a tax from other people or sell your patent to a big business that’ll use it to bully people like I mentioned. Plenty of businesses have been founded on out executing giants, and won. Sure they had to maybe carve out a niche or have an edge at first (nothing says you cannot have trade secrets without patents).

mschuster91 5y ago

> Generally strong IP rules tend to favor the less wealthy, weaker IP rules tend to favor those with the most capital. No. If you as a startup need to account for a significant amount of money to validate your entire company's activities for patent violations - including basic UI/UX improvements such as "one-click shopping" [1] - the situation becomes ridiculous and oppressive in itself. Not to mention that a patent holder unwilling to license their patent can keep progress from society, such as in the infamous Qualcomm saga. Or, assuming you want to build an innovative, high-performant set-top box (which is incredibly easy to do so using something like a Raspberry Pi)... you need to deal with buying licenses for a bunch of video standard patents for that. All of this is utter bullshit that only benefits the very rich and powerful, and stifles competition (and no, "free usage" exemptions don't count because you still have the fear of lawsuits above your head should your product be more successful than expected). IMHO: As soon as you want anything to become a standard recognized by major international bodies, you should have to give up all the patents. Everything that is required to follow a government-mandated standard (which especially anything involving RF communication is) should be freely available to read and implement for everyone - looking at you, DIN. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1-Click https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1-Click [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FTC_v_Qualcomm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FTC_v_Qualcomm