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I know at least one patent author for whom the system worked exactly as designed. That being my uncle. Imagine the literal bearded tinkerer in his garage invent
by _ugfj 3y ago
I know at least one patent author for whom the system worked exactly as designed. That being my uncle. Imagine the literal bearded tinkerer in his garage inventing a (much) better sprinkler head. What's the next step? Without the patent system, I guess raise money, build a factory and establish yourself in the market? With the patent system, he sold it to one of the largest manufacturers and today AFAIK about a third of sprinkler heads sold in the US are his invention. He was paid handsomely for the decade plus of tinkering, the manufacturer got a great invention without spending a decade on R&D. Win all around.
Notably this was a physical object and not maths.
- thfuran 3y ago>Notably this was a physical object and not maths Why is that notable?
- s_dev 3y agoYou're not supposed to be able to patent 'Mathematics' or 'Nature' because these phenomena are 'discovered' and not 'invented'. You can patent a device that exploits a natural phenomena but not the phenomena itself.
- ooterness 3y agoThere are a lot of bad software patents. Many follow the formula "abstract mathematical concept, but now it's on a computer". For a long time, that's all that was required.
- thfuran 3y agoThe problem with that is not the math, it's that it's basically the same as patenting "elevators, but yellow" after elevators have been patented. It's not novel.