2 ms·

patents were intended to protect the little-guy, the inventor (meaning a person), with an artificial monopoly so he could make money. they weren't intended to

by fargle 3y ago

patents were intended to protect the little-guy, the inventor (meaning a person), with an artificial monopoly so he could make money. they weren't intended to be used by huge companies to help further their already impressive monopolistic empires. they collect them and use them as a kind of insurance or mutual-assued-destruction policy. microsoft won't sue ibm (and so on) because both have such a vast portfolio of garbage patents that they know they could tie each other up in litigation for 100 years, and they don't feel like paying for it. then you get to the trolls. our government is actually enabling and encouraging a semi-legal form of extortion. the big companies can pay or pay to fight. it's a tax on everyone in the business though, even when winning. only the attorneys really win here. it's obvious that the time and place for patents has come and gone. - they don't do what they are intended, do much more harm than good. - other comments are 100% correct, "software" (algorithms) and other similar areas like the one in TFA should never have existed in the first place. - the pursuit of patent portfolios has created a surge of really bad patents. it's really been the entire life of the internet and modern computing. "one-click-patent", etc. and far worse. so why actually encourage more and lower quality patents? - it does no good for an inventor to go get a patent, because even if the spiffy device is successful at market, the chinese will steal it with or without the little patent number engraving on the bottom. hell, they'll copy that too. if you find out who they are and sue them, they'll pop up as another company. if that's who you are competing against, why waste time and energy on anachronistic non-functioning armor. - better option for an advantage from a unique software algorithm is to: be to market first and, if desired, keep it a trade secret. - i think it'd be relatively easy to fix. first, allow the patent-holder to pick or easily challenge the venue (to kill east-texas) and second, allow awarding of attorney costs for the defendant, and force the plaintif to post a bond to prove they can pay them. - but why bother? just abandon the whole system. it literally helps nobody.

kiba 3y ago
patents were intended to protect the little-guy, the inventor (meaning a person), with an artificial monopoly so he could make money. Did that actually broadly happened over the history of patents? It sounds intuitive enough that patent protect the little guys, it's another if it actually happened for any period of time. I remember reading that the Wright brothers spending time and money suing other inventors and pioneers over their patents. Ultimately, they weren't very successful at building a business and fell behind. That capital spent on a lawyer could be spent on their business or improving their machines.
- fargle 3y ago
  i think it did in the US in the 18th and 19th centuries. Colt for example. many old-west certainly had lots of individual or small companies patent gadgets. i think by the 20th century, it was already a big-business only thing. or was that just the economy in general? doesn't matter. the Wrights are kind of a sad story, but one that HN readers should be familiar with. technical excellence and just flopped at the business side. they got far too wrapped up in secrecy, almost paranoia, and like you pointed out, it just delayed and eventually ruined them. strain from fighting basically killed Wilbur at 45 years old.
- teddyh 3y ago
  As I recall, the entire US aviation industry was locked up for decades in patent conflicts, and were as a result way behind the rest of the world (where US patents were not valid). The only thing which could fix this quagmire was a miracle, which actually did occur in the form of WW2, causing the US government to nationalize the entire thing, allowing people to actually innovate again, which the US air force desperately needed.
marcosdumay 3y ago
Granting intention over centuries-old institutions is a fools errand. Whatever the people that created them intended, they were used at first to grant favors to well connected people (some times for good reasons, other times not), and then to enable industrial monopolies on planned economies. That last one is the format that the modern version is based on.
- fargle 3y ago
  kinda prickly? when i think we agree. i brought up intention because it's a) historically true and b) to contrast with the complete opposite that they developed into. you get rid of something without acknowledging what it was intended for and looking at whether it's still helping or not. i don't think any of that is foolish.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
throw10920 3y ago
> it's obvious that the time and place for patents has come and gone This is a ridiculous (and incorrect) opinion being presented as fact, coupled with a lot of strawman arguments. The fact that the implementation of the patent system has been massively abused over the past few decades does in no way imply that the theory is flawed and that > just abandon the whole system. it literally helps nobody This entire comment is as ridiculous as claiming that "kids keep graduating from high school with barely any education, we might as well abandon the public school model and have every parent teach their kid".
- fargle 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - throw10920 3y ago
    This comment is absurd. > it's obvious that the time and place for patents has come and gone This, is an opinion. It is not a fact. You cannot prove it, nor does it have any grounding in reality. Factually, your statement is an opinion, and claiming that > you argue that my statement is a falacy using the same falacy ...is objectively false. Your complete lack of logic throughout your entire post shows that it doesn't deserve an answer, because there's nothing to answer to.

by fargle 3y ago

kiba 3y ago

patents were intended to protect the little-guy, the inventor (meaning a person), with an artificial monopoly so he could make money. Did that actually broadly happened over the history of patents? It sounds intuitive enough that patent protect the little guys, it's another if it actually happened for any period of time. I remember reading that the Wright brothers spending time and money suing other inventors and pioneers over their patents. Ultimately, they weren't very successful at building a business and fell behind. That capital spent on a lawyer could be spent on their business or improving their machines.

fargle 3y ago
i think it did in the US in the 18th and 19th centuries. Colt for example. many old-west certainly had lots of individual or small companies patent gadgets. i think by the 20th century, it was already a big-business only thing. or was that just the economy in general? doesn't matter. the Wrights are kind of a sad story, but one that HN readers should be familiar with. technical excellence and just flopped at the business side. they got far too wrapped up in secrecy, almost paranoia, and like you pointed out, it just delayed and eventually ruined them. strain from fighting basically killed Wilbur at 45 years old.
teddyh 3y ago
As I recall, the entire US aviation industry was locked up for decades in patent conflicts, and were as a result way behind the rest of the world (where US patents were not valid). The only thing which could fix this quagmire was a miracle, which actually did occur in the form of WW2, causing the US government to nationalize the entire thing, allowing people to actually innovate again, which the US air force desperately needed.

marcosdumay 3y ago

Granting intention over centuries-old institutions is a fools errand. Whatever the people that created them intended, they were used at first to grant favors to well connected people (some times for good reasons, other times not), and then to enable industrial monopolies on planned economies. That last one is the format that the modern version is based on.

fargle 3y ago
kinda prickly? when i think we agree. i brought up intention because it's a) historically true and b) to contrast with the complete opposite that they developed into. you get rid of something without acknowledging what it was intended for and looking at whether it's still helping or not. i don't think any of that is foolish.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]

throw10920 3y ago

> it's obvious that the time and place for patents has come and gone This is a ridiculous (and incorrect) opinion being presented as fact, coupled with a lot of strawman arguments. The fact that the implementation of the patent system has been massively abused over the past few decades does in no way imply that the theory is flawed and that > just abandon the whole system. it literally helps nobody This entire comment is as ridiculous as claiming that "kids keep graduating from high school with barely any education, we might as well abandon the public school model and have every parent teach their kid".

fargle 3y ago
[flagged]
- throw10920 3y ago
  This comment is absurd. > it's obvious that the time and place for patents has come and gone This, is an opinion. It is not a fact. You cannot prove it, nor does it have any grounding in reality. Factually, your statement is an opinion, and claiming that > you argue that my statement is a falacy using the same falacy ...is objectively false. Your complete lack of logic throughout your entire post shows that it doesn't deserve an answer, because there's nothing to answer to.