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The lab has a patent though which a lows for disclosure while also profiting from it. Thus I am not totally convinced of your claims.
by bhouston 3y ago
The lab has a patent though which a lows for disclosure while also profiting from it. Thus I am not totally convinced of your claims.
- RhodesianHunter 3y ago[flagged]
- Filligree 3y ago[flagged]
- bhouston 3y agoThis is likely just one member of a family of related compounds that exhibit the similar properties. I am unsure how broad the patent is, but I suspect there will be a race to find other members of this family of related compounds. Some may be easier/cheaper to synthesize or have more stability/longevity. Some members of the family may even have larger rangers where they exhibit SC.
- mort96 3y ago[flagged]
- throw10920 3y agoThe pleading and emotional manipulation coming from your comments is incredible. Researchers do not owe the world the results of their research, except possibly in the case where their research clearly mitigates existential threats to all of humanity, like climate change - which clearly doesn't apply here.
- mort96 3y agoI think keeping progress back in a vital field is bad. Sue me.
- throw10920 3y agoThat doesn't excuse breaking the HN guidelines and trying to turn this place into your personal activism platform.
- jjallen 3y agoPeople would still make it and just say that they came up with a different way. it is not so easy to prove what someone else is doing behind closed doors.
- Retric 3y ago20 years isn’t that long. The point of patents is to quickly get secrets out into the public while still incentivizing people to make them known. In this case this tiny company doesn’t have the resources to optimize production and has failed for years. They might eventually receive outside funding and figure it out, but they could also fail without releasing their secrets as has happened a few times.
- mort96 3y ago[flagged]
- Retric 3y agoMany ways of getting around patents, and if they can’t companies still need to sell the stuff to profit here. So the world would get room temperature superconductors if it works. 20 years really isn’t that long and more importantly it doesn’t prevent doing research or building assembly lines or customers designing systems to use the stuff. Nobody could start building assembly lines today, so the difference isn’t even close to the full 20 years here. If LK-99 pains out they might profit from it for a decade or so while still actually manufacturing the stuff. But, the best case is companies perfecting their process and taking orders so they can start shipping on day 1 after it expires.
- dkqmduems 3y agoBy all means, close your eyes.
- codedokode 3y agoAs I understand, you don't have to disclose secrets when filing a patent. You can describe the process in general terms and omit important formulas, quantities of different materials etc.
- Retric 3y agoThe more you omit the less protection you receive. There’s many approaches to getting around patents and they generally work really well if you’re vague.
- patrickthebold 3y agoWhat would you suggest? Do you have any specific reforms to the laws regarding patents in mind? What would happen in those cases?
- mort96 3y agoI see very little value in patents in general, and I certainly don't think they should exist for things like fundamental research. Patents exist as a hack to make up for the fact that markets don't deal well with situations where investment from one entity benefits everyone. Patents ensure that only the company doing the research gets to benefit from it, robbing the world as a whole from the progress which could have stemmed from that research. Why can't we leave the markets to do their thing, and have an alternative mode of research whose funding doesn't depend on keeping the fruits of the research out of the hands of humanity? Why can't we leave companies to do whatever research they want, but put a bunch more money into public research institutions and research non-profits and the like? If you absolutely want to keep research funding private, I can think of other options as well. Instead of making the reward a government-backed monopoly over the use of an innovation, what if the reward was, say, a direct monetary reward through tax reductions, or maybe a system where the government could subsidize products with the innovation for some time period so that competitors have a disadvantage in the market. I'm sure someone smarter than me could think of other, better solutions. Point is, there are lots of options. Using state power to keep the innovation out of the hands of humanity seems like the worst of them.
- psychoslave 3y agowell, put a limit on how much profits you can make through patent. Like based on how much r&d was spent?
- HeyLaughingBoy 3y agoI'll just leave this here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_accounting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_accounting
- 3y ago
- golergka 3y agoThe same investors and executives who bankrolled development since the original synthesis of the material back in 99 without any guarantee of a result? Which would create future incentives for a lot of people to invest their money into a lot of high risk, high reward science that takes years to do? Really hard to see that as something negative.
- mort96 3y agoKeeping the benefits of possibly the most significant breakthrough in fundamental research this century out of the hands of humanity for 20 years. You find it hard to see that as something negative?
- golergka 3y agoOut of the hands? How so? Do you think they're going to lock it in a safe and not make it commercially available? Or are you under an impression that humanity does not benefit from inventions it pays inventors for?
- mort96 3y agoThey could make a product and sell that product. That would keep the innovation in general out of the public's hands, only giving us access to some product built on it.
- moralestapia 3y agoYou're right, but also, nothing stops you from making your own ambient temperature superconductor and donate it to humanity.
- codedokode 3y agoMaybe there are no other room temperature superconductors in this universe.
- mort96 3y agoI don't know how to make ambient temperature superconductors.
- moralestapia 3y ago¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I hope you see the point.
- mort96 3y agoI don't, sorry.
- dividedbyzero 3y agoIf they are restrictive and/or greedy with licensing, that is. A huge ton of cheap-ish licenses would rake in a fortune too, it doesn't have to go the e-ink way. But if it did, it might actually be worse: There's no reason why Chinese companies couldn't just ignore that patent like they do others. Pretty much unchecked innovation free for all inside the Chinese market (extending to Russia at least) vs. hardly anyone able to do anything in the West would make for an interesting situation, to say the least. Even the US Military-Industrial Complex couldn't outright ignore such a patent I think.
- mort96 3y agoYeah, I know it's not the only outcome. But the fact that it's potentially up to some random tiny group of people whether superconductors proliferate or go the e-ink route is atrocious IMO. I hope you're right that the free markets of China and Russia will save us from the strict planning enforced on the west by the USA (... oh the sweet irony).
- Rzor 3y agoI don't believe that China would let that sit tight. They will find a way to replicate in no time and start the engine of research full throttle. It's simply too good to be true. It would alleviate all their problems, from food to climate and energy.
- thfuran 3y agoLead compounds generally aren't good eatin'.
- LadyCailin 3y agoIs that how this works? Bleach isn’t good eatin either, but table salt is just fine. Edit: this is not sarcastic, I am not good at chemistry.
- amluto 3y agoBleach is excellent eatin’ in appropriate moderation. (Hypochlorous acid at a few ppm is used to keep drinking water safe. Your immune system apparently makes hypochlorous acid! It breaks down in your body very quickly.) Lead and most or all of its compounds are toxic. It’s not good for you in moderation. It’s apparently not even harmless in small amounts.
- vel0city 3y agoMany things which are "toxic" can be perfectly tolerable or even necessary at certain amounts. Some things are just truly toxic at any amount and are not good to have any amount in your body. Your body uses Chlorine atoms in its normal processes all the time. Its essential in the function of your digestive system, the nervous system uses it to transmit electrical impulses, muscles use it to contract and extend, and facilitates the movement of oxygen and carbon dioxide inside cells. Without chlorine, you just wouldn't function: your muscles wouldn't move, your heart wouldn't pump, your brain wouldn't think. Lead is similar enough to calcium and zinc to displace it when your body makes proteins, but it doesn't "fold" the same. This causes the proteins to be less functional or non-functional, which causes a lot of further problems down the line. Also, because lead sometimes replaces calcium your body will stash it away in your bones which can make it tricky to actually get rid of.
- mabbo 3y agoThat's how patents work though. That's the whole deal. Private entities invest in research and development. If they find something incredible, they release the full details to the world of what they found, and in return we give them monopoly on the invention for a period of time. That's a patent. Take away the incentive and private entities won't invest in research. The public appetite for investing in basic research with government funding is pretty low. So instead of waiting 20 years for the patent to expire, during which we're all paying a premium on the invention, we instead spend 20 or more years without the invention at all because no research was funded to find it. Maybe longer.
- mort96 3y agoI know that's how patents work. That's the problem. I don't believe private entities wouldn't invest in research if it wasn't for patents. But I also don't care. If the private sector won't invest, let the public sector invest. Just don't keep innovations out of the hands of humanity.
- messe 3y agoPatents aren't just an incentive to invest in research: it's (moreso, even) an incentive to also disclose that research. So yes, in a world with patents, private entities would still engage in research, but what would they gain from disclosing the details of their process?
- lucubratory 3y agoIt is extremely rare that actionable, reproducible information comes out of the patent process. In general, they provide as little information as possible in order to satisfy the office, which is extremely overworked and (by design) rubber stamps everything that has basically the correct headings and formatting and isn't too similar to an existing patent.
- krab 3y agoIn the case of drugs, it works. The day a patent expires, you have generics that instantly lower the market price. Replicating a drug from a patent is not free but you know that the compound works and can be synthesized. It's much cheaper than doing original research where a drug candidate can fail after you invested a lot into it.
- fartsucker69 3y agocomments like this really make me smh. what's wrong with some lucky people getting rich off of this? you do realize they financed that research for the past 20 years, and if it's actually an investment group instead of a few passionate individuals I can guarantee you they also financed a shitload of other endeavours that went nowhere and ate the losses, lol. you could do the same, get together with a group of other people and invest in something using your disposable software eng income (maybe you already are). or you could just complain when someone else takes the risk and reaps the rewards because you apparently have no concept of things like jealousy, envy, or basic economics lol.
- mort96 3y ago[flagged]
- jtbayly 3y agoThey literally couldn’t get rich if they kept it out of everybody else’s hands.
- mort96 3y agoSure they could? That's a common way people get rich off of patents; make a product which uses your new innovation, sell that product, use the patent to prevent everyone else from using the innovation to make competing products. I believe that's more or less the history of e-ink, among other things.
- braunboffel 3y ago> use the patent to prevent everyone else > the history of e-ink Could you give everyone here some verifiable data? Please identify what patent you're talking about. I hope I will get a genuine response from someone who genuinely knows that industry because the last time I asked I just got a patents.google.com/search?q=eink response. It is fun to blame patents. But that's like saying we're not making progress in operating systems because Microsoft owns a key patent in operating systems.
- sschueller 3y agoIf this truly is the "Wunder" material no patent will prevent people from synthesizing it. Sure, commercially there would be lawsuits and blocking being able to sell a product based on it but many foreign governments don't care. Even the US would ignore such patents if it was useful for military usage.
- amluto 3y agoI think it also depends pretty strongly on what the patent says. For one thing, there doesn’t seem to be any strong reason to believe that the superconducting material (if any) is what the LK-99 team thinks it is. For another, lead is nasty, and, if there really is a room temperature superconductor, there will be plenty of interest in finding lead-free materials with similar properties, and those might not be covered by a patent.
- jovial_cavalier 3y agoI don't see how it would hold back research. Private companies and universities would still be able to acquire the material to do R&D with it.
- mort96 3y agoI have to admit I'm not very familiar with how patents work in this field in particular, but in general, patents seem to have a huge limiting effect on research. For example, in video coding, nobody wants to invest into making a new codec just to find that their codec falls under a patent owned by the MPEG, and it's really hard to make a new codec which doesn't fall under those patents.
- jovial_cavalier 3y agoIf the patent is on the process for creating LK-99, then obviously that patent only has worth in that people are going to buy LK-99 from the patent holder for development of new applications, and eventually marketing of the applications themselves. The same people may use their initiative to generate a bunch of patents on applications of LK-99, and indeed most of its applications may end up being patented, but that's not to say progress will be halted because of this.
- jacquesm 3y agoThat's pretty much how all privately funded novel drug research works.
- mort96 3y agoYeah, which is also a monumental problem.
- jacquesm 3y agoIndeed, but I don't see how you're going to special case this if you aren't willing/able to at the same time get a frontal assault from the pharmaceutic giants.
- mort96 3y agoOh if it was up to me, pharmaceutical companies wouldn't be able to keep affordable life saving treatments out of the public's hand through state enforced monopolies either. It's not like I'm all in favour of patents except in the field of superconductors...
- dmbche 3y agoI mean no not at all - patents are legal tools that can be skirted around just like anything else. If people don't respect the patent and produce things with it, your recourses are lawsuits - patents aren't stopping chinese manufacturers from exploiting patents from the US. And for something this important, I can even imagine governement making some kind of "public good" patent for things that are too influential - where the compensation is pre arranged and reasonable.
- roywiggins 3y agoI'm personally comfortable with making some lucky investors super rich, in this case. Like, this is sort of the canonical good application of a patent: you've invented something extremely useful, but can't keep it a trade secret and don't have the expertise to scale it up yourself. This is what patents are supposed to be for!
- mensetmanusman 3y agoThat’s actually the best case scenario. Scale up for world consumption will be around $1B capital in my experience, and it will be difficult to get that learning curve paid for if IP doesn’t protect the first mover. Otherwise there is first mover disadvantage in game theory which dramatically slows progress based on history of tech development.
- codethief 3y agoAFAIU, the patent is limited to South Korea.
- bhouston 3y agoThat is insane and would be a major error if true.
- GuB-42 3y agoAs far as I know, there is no such thing as an international patent. What is called an international patent is just a standardized application so that only one national patent office has to examine it. If it is accepted, other national offices will grant the patent much more easily since the hard work has already been done. And here, there is an international application, so what I think is that there is already a patent in Korea, but it is still pending for other countries.
- hungryforcodes 3y agoWait, correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't patents only valid in the country they are filed in? So to be able to enforce a patent, you'd need to have filed in the US, Europe and China(?). Also patents take a couple of years to get accepted...
- rwmj 3y agoFiling in juridictions worldwide is a routine process when you apply for an important patent. Any respectable patent lawyer should be able to deal with it.
- hungryforcodes 3y agoBut you have to choose to do it and there is an additional cost, if I am not mistaken. When our startup filed our patents in the US market, we chose not to do the same in Europe...
- HeyLaughingBoy 3y agoSure, and most large corporations with worldwide influence do it automatically. The last action one of my previous employers took was to send me payments for a patent I'm named on when they filed it in the EU. I had already quit, but it was easier to just send me the check than to cancel it :-)
- hungryforcodes 3y agoGood point about that! Obviously there are alot of big players like that. However I heard this was a small lab, so I guess we don't know yet what their patenting power is.