4 ms·

In your proposed world, shouldn't we simply get rid of patents entirely? The person who made the flash freezer, for example, was just one person. If he couldn'

In your proposed world, shouldn't we simply get rid of patents entirely? The person who made the flash freezer, for example, was just one person. If he couldn't protect his patent, despite definitively changing the face of global food preparation, why should IBM have any intellectual property?

newaccount74 4y ago
I don't know if abolishing patents altogether would improve innovation. But I'm pretty sure that patents on obvious things hinder innovation, rather than help it. I'm not familiar with the invention of flash freezing. Did the inventor just patent the idea of freezing food fast? That sounds like a pretty obvious idea that should not be patentable. Why give someone a monopoly on quick freezing? Or did the inventor patent a non-obvious mechanical device that is capable of quickly freezing food? Giving the inventor a short term monopoly on that device in exchange for publishing the blueprints sounds like a reasonable deal.
- pclmulqdq 4y ago
  What is obvious? In the case of flash freezing, hasn't the market shown that the idea of quickly freezing food (to preserve the food without producing large ice crystals) was novel when he invented it? We have been able to freeze food for hundreds of years, and nobody was doing it that way until 1924. That sounds like a non-obvious novel idea to me.
- kmacdough 4y ago
  Yeah, there's a lot of bad patents, especially in the tech sphere, where the patent office & judges lack expertise to evaluate both what's in use and what's obvious. E.g. when someone almost successfully patented the concept of a e-"shopping cart" after it was in widespread use (also it's painfully obvious). Sources: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/01/how-newegg-crushed-the-shopping-cart-patent-and-saved-online-retail/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/01/how-newegg-crush...
- headhasthoughts 4y ago
  The latter. Under your proposed ideal, he wouldn't be able to defend such a thing, as he was an individual.
GuardianCaveman 4y ago
I wanted to know too. It seems he was inspired by fish being naturally preserved in the arctic by wind and cold and how it was still tasted good later. "After years of work on his own process, Birdseye invented a system that packed dressed fish, meat, or vegetables into waxed-cardboard cartons, which were flash-frozen under high pressure"

newaccount74 4y ago

I don't know if abolishing patents altogether would improve innovation. But I'm pretty sure that patents on obvious things hinder innovation, rather than help it. I'm not familiar with the invention of flash freezing. Did the inventor just patent the idea of freezing food fast? That sounds like a pretty obvious idea that should not be patentable. Why give someone a monopoly on quick freezing? Or did the inventor patent a non-obvious mechanical device that is capable of quickly freezing food? Giving the inventor a short term monopoly on that device in exchange for publishing the blueprints sounds like a reasonable deal.

pclmulqdq 4y ago
What is obvious? In the case of flash freezing, hasn't the market shown that the idea of quickly freezing food (to preserve the food without producing large ice crystals) was novel when he invented it? We have been able to freeze food for hundreds of years, and nobody was doing it that way until 1924. That sounds like a non-obvious novel idea to me.
kmacdough 4y ago
Yeah, there's a lot of bad patents, especially in the tech sphere, where the patent office & judges lack expertise to evaluate both what's in use and what's obvious. E.g. when someone almost successfully patented the concept of a e-"shopping cart" after it was in widespread use (also it's painfully obvious). Sources: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/01/how-newegg-crushed-the-shopping-cart-patent-and-saved-online-retail/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/01/how-newegg-crush...
headhasthoughts 4y ago
The latter. Under your proposed ideal, he wouldn't be able to defend such a thing, as he was an individual.

GuardianCaveman 4y ago

I wanted to know too. It seems he was inspired by fish being naturally preserved in the arctic by wind and cold and how it was still tasted good later. "After years of work on his own process, Birdseye invented a system that packed dressed fish, meat, or vegetables into waxed-cardboard cartons, which were flash-frozen under high pressure"