3 ms·
My immediate naive reaction is that a world where everything is perpetually protected as a trade secret might be a worse one than we have now. Though certainly
by nocoiner 4y ago
My immediate naive reaction is that a world where everything is perpetually protected as a trade secret might be a worse one than we have now. Though certainly our current system has plenty of faults.
- dns_snek 4y agoHow do trade secrets in any way relate to patents, especially in this case? Any feature or design of a consumer product is by definition not a trade secret because it's known to the public. A world where everything is "protected" as a trade secret would be preferable since trade secrets can be lawfully reverse engineered. They are only useful for things that you can meaningfully keep secret which is a tiny subset of ideas that are currently protected by patents, especially in egregious cases of patent trolling.
- Doxin 4y agoThe problem we currently seem to be having is companies patenting things you can't possibly protect as a trade secret. Having one volume control for multiple devices is entirely obvious as soon as you run into the problem it solves.
- bborud 4y agoThis supposes that figuring out how something is done is a bottleneck today. It isn't. It also supposes that figuring out how stuff is done is a bigger hurdle than the problems patents present to innovators. It isn't. For patents to make sense we also have to ignore how they are used. Patents are used as mine fields around incumbents to keep challengers out. They are also used by parasitic companies who don't actually make anything as a legal form of extortion. Yes, it is indeed naive to ignore reality and buy into the fantasy that patents contribute to society or in any way level the playing field. They do neither.