3 ms·
Patents become obvious the second they're out. This is exactly why they exist. But coming up with the stuff in the first place is what's hard. I worked in vide
by d--b 3y ago
Patents become obvious the second they're out. This is exactly why they exist. But coming up with the stuff in the first place is what's hard.
I worked in video coding back in the day, I can assure you that there are stuff in the HEVC codec that are pretty far from obvious.
AlphaGo is pretty high up there too if you ask me.
Whether patenting software is useful or not is a different debate...
- kevincox 3y agoI completely agree. Patents should be contrasted with trade secrets as that is their main "competitor". Is it useful to the general public to be shown the details of a new technology, but have it's use restricted for 20 years? Or is it more useful to prevent blocking of technology but these are going to be kept as trade secrets instead? From my point of view patents are probably harmful here. Having people be inspired and come up with alternative (or rediscover the same) implementations is probably going to lead to much better for the public than actually learning exactly how the original company did it in exchange for 20y of exclusivity (and all of the pain that enforcing the exclusivity brings). Remember that unlike copyright patents are not about encouraging the creation of work or innovation. They are a trade of information to the public for a period of exclusivity. For software that tradeoff seems far to far in the inventors favor.
- quickthrower2 3y agoI think network effects are already so far in favour of software companies that the patents are not really needed. Look at how AWS resells free software via it’s services for example. And anyone can copy them! And they are. But they are still the biggest by a long shot.
- teruakohatu 3y ago> AlphaGo What about AlphaGo? The Reinforcement Learning methods? The Monte Carlo tree search? The Deep Learning? DeepMind didn't invent any of these things but applied them in a novel way. If everything was software patented, AlphaGo may not have existed.
- d--b 3y agoAgain not saying I am for patents. Just answering the original question. Did AlphaGo bring anything new to the table? Hell yeah.
- teruakohatu 3y ago> Did AlphaGo bring anything new to the table? Hell yeah. It is incredible software and deserves the Turning Prize, no question. But what new patentable tech did they invent?
- d--b 3y agoPatentable tech doesn't have to be from the ground up. If you design something that solves a problem that wasn't solvable prior to your invention - regardless of the tech it is based on - it definitely qualifies for a patent.
- teruakohatu 3y ago> Patentable tech doesn't have to be from the ground up. If you design something that solves a problem that wasn't solvable prior to your invention - regardless of the tech it is based on - it definitely qualifies for a patent. I asked twice what specific patentable tech they invented and you declined to answer. It is a straw man to suggest I was arguing against about any specific thing being patentable.
- d--b 3y agoI thought it was clear it was the whole architecture, piping deep neural nets and monte carlo search together and using reinforcement learning on the whole thing is not something that had been done before. That guy: https://patents.google.com/patent/EP3459018A1/en?oq=EP3459018A1 https://patents.google.com/patent/EP3459018A1/en?oq=EP345901...