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> Intellectual property frankly makes no sense if you don’t worship money. Patents incentivize inventors to publicly disclose how their inventions work. They

> Intellectual property frankly makes no sense if you don’t worship money. Patents incentivize inventors to publicly disclose how their inventions work. They publicly disclose how their invention works and in exchange are given exclusive rights to it for a limited period of time. This is predicated on the idea that in the absence of such a system, inventors have strong incentives to not disclose how their inventions work, which ultimately slows the spread of knowledge and puts a damper on innovation. What parts of this do not make sense? How else would you solve the problem of incentives around disclosing how technologies work?

nynx 5y ago
I agree that was the original intention, but these days (and possibly the entire time) it just slows innovation by preventing people from using technologies.
- pfisherman 5y ago
  Yes, patents do hamper innovation. But this does not acknowledge or address the counterfactual of whether not having a patent system would hamper innovation to a greater extent. Without this the argument rests on an unstated assumption / magical thinking, which is not borne out by historical data. It’s like saying that traffic lights impede the flow of traffic (true), without acknowledging the fact that not having traffic lights would result in much greater congestion (also true).
randomhodler84 5y ago
Open source licensing incentivizes inventors to release their creations to the world to benefit humanity. Their copyright is protected and depending on the license that picked can control redistribution. Their work is protected against people passing their work off as their own, which is the intention of the patent idea. Patents do nothing like this, in fact, they cause inventors to invent around “protected ideas”. Technology history is littered with examples of inefficient implementations become standard to avoid patent infringement. We end up with negative-incentives with patented ideas. In technology, a patent is a sure way to ensure that an idea is never implemented. Nothing about patents, or the idea that an idea is exclusive and protection worth is worth salvaging. Patents do not achieve their stated goal. Closed source software is inherently untrustworthy. The incentive to disclose ideas protected against plagiarism can be achieved through both public trust in our free and open source ecosystem without the need to enforce state violence because some dude dreamed an idea once and wrote a paper.
- pfisherman 5y ago
  > Patents do not achieve their stated goal. This assertion is being made without evidence. Can you point to any modern technologically advanced civilizations / nations that do not have something like a patent system? How did those without well developed legal frameworks for intellectual property perform over time relative to others in measures of scientific output and economic development? What is the alternative? Wouldn’t open source have been the default prior to the invention of patent law? I am sorry, but if you are arguing for the abolition of the patent system, then you need to provide some alternative solution for the problem the patent system addresses along with some sort of data / evidence that your solution is not vastly inferior. Otherwise the argument is just not very persuasive.
  - hyperman1 5y ago
    The USA is a great counter example. In the 19th century it took all kinds of european inventions, did very bad IP enforcement, and built out based on rampant IP theft. The IP relation between China and USA today is basically the relation between the USA and Europe then. There is also Hollywood, the place where Edison could not get his film patents enforced, so every film maker ran to there. Rampant patent infringement made it great. Or inside Europe, there were cities complaining how the guild IP rules were not enforced on farms. People bought e.g. cheap low quality pots and pans on the farms, with no frivolities or no correct marks, and no money was paid to the guilds. For shame! This was without patents, with guilds being very protective of their knowledge, and inventions still spread without much trouble. Necessity is generally the mother of invention. Patents just slow things down to protect the established players.
ris 5y ago
Except that's not how patents are used in the 21st century. Patents are generally written to be as broad in scope as possible while disclosing as little as possible information on how to get said invention to work (if the grantee has actually figured out that part at all). Registering and successfully defending a patent is extremely expensive and patent lawsuits are usually won by the party with the most legal resources, so arguments that it protects small "garden shed" inventors are largely fantasy.
- imtringued 5y ago
  It's like we are fighting an invisible economic war. The question is, why is it worth throwing other people under the bus? Somehow everyone is convinced that it is worth it.

nynx 5y ago

I agree that was the original intention, but these days (and possibly the entire time) it just slows innovation by preventing people from using technologies.

pfisherman 5y ago
Yes, patents do hamper innovation. But this does not acknowledge or address the counterfactual of whether not having a patent system would hamper innovation to a greater extent. Without this the argument rests on an unstated assumption / magical thinking, which is not borne out by historical data. It’s like saying that traffic lights impede the flow of traffic (true), without acknowledging the fact that not having traffic lights would result in much greater congestion (also true).

randomhodler84 5y ago

Open source licensing incentivizes inventors to release their creations to the world to benefit humanity. Their copyright is protected and depending on the license that picked can control redistribution. Their work is protected against people passing their work off as their own, which is the intention of the patent idea. Patents do nothing like this, in fact, they cause inventors to invent around “protected ideas”. Technology history is littered with examples of inefficient implementations become standard to avoid patent infringement. We end up with negative-incentives with patented ideas. In technology, a patent is a sure way to ensure that an idea is never implemented. Nothing about patents, or the idea that an idea is exclusive and protection worth is worth salvaging. Patents do not achieve their stated goal. Closed source software is inherently untrustworthy. The incentive to disclose ideas protected against plagiarism can be achieved through both public trust in our free and open source ecosystem without the need to enforce state violence because some dude dreamed an idea once and wrote a paper.

pfisherman 5y ago
> Patents do not achieve their stated goal. This assertion is being made without evidence. Can you point to any modern technologically advanced civilizations / nations that do not have something like a patent system? How did those without well developed legal frameworks for intellectual property perform over time relative to others in measures of scientific output and economic development? What is the alternative? Wouldn’t open source have been the default prior to the invention of patent law? I am sorry, but if you are arguing for the abolition of the patent system, then you need to provide some alternative solution for the problem the patent system addresses along with some sort of data / evidence that your solution is not vastly inferior. Otherwise the argument is just not very persuasive.
- hyperman1 5y ago
  The USA is a great counter example. In the 19th century it took all kinds of european inventions, did very bad IP enforcement, and built out based on rampant IP theft. The IP relation between China and USA today is basically the relation between the USA and Europe then. There is also Hollywood, the place where Edison could not get his film patents enforced, so every film maker ran to there. Rampant patent infringement made it great. Or inside Europe, there were cities complaining how the guild IP rules were not enforced on farms. People bought e.g. cheap low quality pots and pans on the farms, with no frivolities or no correct marks, and no money was paid to the guilds. For shame! This was without patents, with guilds being very protective of their knowledge, and inventions still spread without much trouble. Necessity is generally the mother of invention. Patents just slow things down to protect the established players.

ris 5y ago

Except that's not how patents are used in the 21st century. Patents are generally written to be as broad in scope as possible while disclosing as little as possible information on how to get said invention to work (if the grantee has actually figured out that part at all). Registering and successfully defending a patent is extremely expensive and patent lawsuits are usually won by the party with the most legal resources, so arguments that it protects small "garden shed" inventors are largely fantasy.

imtringued 5y ago
It's like we are fighting an invisible economic war. The question is, why is it worth throwing other people under the bus? Somehow everyone is convinced that it is worth it.