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Simple solution: Abolish patents. All the rhetoric about incentivizing innovation is bullshit. They stifle innovation, and they stifle competition. They're desi

Simple solution: Abolish patents. All the rhetoric about incentivizing innovation is bullshit. They stifle innovation, and they stifle competition. They're designed to protect slow, inefficient established corporations. That's all they ever did and that's all they'll ever do.

jMyles 3y ago
Hear hear. But how?
ClassyJacket 3y ago
Agreed. I shouldn't be banned from inventing something just because somebody else already invented it. Patents suck.
palata 3y ago
I think it's a bit more nuanced than that, because in some industries patents may make sense. I would say "Simple solution: abolish patents on software".
sircastor 3y ago
I don't think they're designed to project established corporations, but lawyers move faster than congress. So much like the Tax code, they've already figured out how to take advantage of the existing system. In fact, I would say the ultimate realization of that is the existence of patent-trolls. The patent-holder which exists solely for the purpose of possessing the patent rather than creating it, or utilizing it to make their own product.
chefandy 3y ago
I reckon simple solutions are often simple because they ignore important complexities. I'd love to abolish patents, but I don't see how our society could before figuring out stuff like how else to support the people that do important knowledge work, and incentivizing creating new things when it's a hell of a lot more profitable to just wait until someone else does it first. The software industry is already compatible enough that many companies open source their code voluntarily, but I don't see how we can generalize that. What incentive would companies have to pour all of those resources into complex chip design, intricate novel medical devices, or new medicine? You might be able to have open source insulin pump controllers, but how about a lifesaving new linear accelerator or chemotherapy drug when your competitor could just pay your lead engineer half of your 9 figure R&D budget to completely replicate the process and hit the market at nearly the same time? I'd love if this work could be done by universities or publicly funded because it so obviously benefits the greater good, but it's not, and that seems like a prerequisite you simply can't ignore. I'd love to be proven wrong, but I think the "well if you wanna make an omelet..." kind of attitude I usually see accompany sentiments like this seem more edge-lordy than anything else.
- shiroiushi 3y ago
  Have you actually read any patents? Just knowing the bare basics of how something works isn't enough to make a successful business out of it. Even with mechanical manufactured stuff, a few diagrams isn't going to tell you all the stuff you really need to know to properly manufacture it, and patents have famously left out lots of important trade secrets, not to mention stuff that people just didn't bother writing down. >into complex chip design Do you have any idea all the technology and tools that go into chip design? They aren't all nicely documented in some patent applications. >when your competitor could just pay your lead engineer half of your 9 figure R&D budget to completely replicate the process Good luck with that. No single engineer knows enough to replicate any truly complex process. >I'd love if this work could be done by universities or publicly funded because it so obviously benefits the greater good If you could pay a single engineer to do anything so substantial as you claim, then all this work would be done by universities. It isn't, for a reason. The incentive that companies have to pour resources into this stuff is to make money, and they do this by building their technology base and market share. Not having patents isn't going to make much difference; it'll just prevent them from keeping new competitors out of the market so easily.
  - chefandy 3y ago
    Ok: I'll chalk this set of nitpicks and amorphous opposition up to "nuh-uh".
mopenstein 3y ago
Patents and copyrights are dangled like winning lottery tickets in front of the average citizen. Maybe you can invent something or write a book and sell it for millions! Which does happen... about as often as people win the lottery. More often a patent or copyright is one of thousands a giant company procures. But all the intellectual property profiteers need is that 1 in 300,000,000 chance dangling in front of a voter and they'll never agree to do away with IP, in fact, the opposite will happen. They'll actively fight to keep them in place.
- paledot 3y ago
  Somehow the winning ticket in popular discourse is to be a patent troll: at best, "sell my idea" to some big company (troll); at worst convince a court to give you a pile of money because someone "stole" your idea (in advance). It is a rare person who dreams of coming up with a good idea and then working hard for years to make it a reality.
  - freejazz 3y ago
    How many patent trolls do you know? As compared to people that you know who would/could be an inventor on a patent? I'm a patent litigator and it's still the latter for me. This narrative is a bit histrionic.
    - djmips 3y ago
      Hmmmm, I mostly know people who worked for big companies who got BS patents for bragging rights and one from a small startup with one obvious idea but they wanted to try and protect themselves since the idea was essential to their core business. The former don't seem much different from trolls while the latter should not have been granted a patent since it was so obvious IMO.
    - paledot 3y ago
      As a software developer, I'm not exactly representative, nor are you. The point was about ambition/popular perception, not the reality. If your "maybe someday" dream prominently features being issued a patent, it's not because you'll use the patent responsibily to defend the idea that you're actively developing and marketing. If your "maybe someday" plan involves developing and marketing an idea, patents might be a factor somewhere way down the list of how to get there, but that's a very different ambition. (That's not to say that the reality isn't also broken, just that popular perception is even more broken.)
JumpCrisscross 3y ago
> Abolish patents. All the rhetoric about incentivizing innovation is bullshit. Oh, I would immediately start a fund that looks for good ideas at the germinating phase and then superfunds a competitor.

jMyles 3y ago

Hear hear. But how?

ClassyJacket 3y ago

Agreed. I shouldn't be banned from inventing something just because somebody else already invented it. Patents suck.

palata 3y ago

I think it's a bit more nuanced than that, because in some industries patents may make sense. I would say "Simple solution: abolish patents on software".

sircastor 3y ago

I don't think they're designed to project established corporations, but lawyers move faster than congress. So much like the Tax code, they've already figured out how to take advantage of the existing system. In fact, I would say the ultimate realization of that is the existence of patent-trolls. The patent-holder which exists solely for the purpose of possessing the patent rather than creating it, or utilizing it to make their own product.

chefandy 3y ago

I reckon simple solutions are often simple because they ignore important complexities. I'd love to abolish patents, but I don't see how our society could before figuring out stuff like how else to support the people that do important knowledge work, and incentivizing creating new things when it's a hell of a lot more profitable to just wait until someone else does it first. The software industry is already compatible enough that many companies open source their code voluntarily, but I don't see how we can generalize that. What incentive would companies have to pour all of those resources into complex chip design, intricate novel medical devices, or new medicine? You might be able to have open source insulin pump controllers, but how about a lifesaving new linear accelerator or chemotherapy drug when your competitor could just pay your lead engineer half of your 9 figure R&D budget to completely replicate the process and hit the market at nearly the same time? I'd love if this work could be done by universities or publicly funded because it so obviously benefits the greater good, but it's not, and that seems like a prerequisite you simply can't ignore. I'd love to be proven wrong, but I think the "well if you wanna make an omelet..." kind of attitude I usually see accompany sentiments like this seem more edge-lordy than anything else.

shiroiushi 3y ago
Have you actually read any patents? Just knowing the bare basics of how something works isn't enough to make a successful business out of it. Even with mechanical manufactured stuff, a few diagrams isn't going to tell you all the stuff you really need to know to properly manufacture it, and patents have famously left out lots of important trade secrets, not to mention stuff that people just didn't bother writing down. >into complex chip design Do you have any idea all the technology and tools that go into chip design? They aren't all nicely documented in some patent applications. >when your competitor could just pay your lead engineer half of your 9 figure R&D budget to completely replicate the process Good luck with that. No single engineer knows enough to replicate any truly complex process. >I'd love if this work could be done by universities or publicly funded because it so obviously benefits the greater good If you could pay a single engineer to do anything so substantial as you claim, then all this work would be done by universities. It isn't, for a reason. The incentive that companies have to pour resources into this stuff is to make money, and they do this by building their technology base and market share. Not having patents isn't going to make much difference; it'll just prevent them from keeping new competitors out of the market so easily.
- chefandy 3y ago
  Ok: I'll chalk this set of nitpicks and amorphous opposition up to "nuh-uh".

mopenstein 3y ago

Patents and copyrights are dangled like winning lottery tickets in front of the average citizen. Maybe you can invent something or write a book and sell it for millions! Which does happen... about as often as people win the lottery. More often a patent or copyright is one of thousands a giant company procures. But all the intellectual property profiteers need is that 1 in 300,000,000 chance dangling in front of a voter and they'll never agree to do away with IP, in fact, the opposite will happen. They'll actively fight to keep them in place.

paledot 3y ago
Somehow the winning ticket in popular discourse is to be a patent troll: at best, "sell my idea" to some big company (troll); at worst convince a court to give you a pile of money because someone "stole" your idea (in advance). It is a rare person who dreams of coming up with a good idea and then working hard for years to make it a reality.
- freejazz 3y ago
  How many patent trolls do you know? As compared to people that you know who would/could be an inventor on a patent? I'm a patent litigator and it's still the latter for me. This narrative is a bit histrionic.
  - djmips 3y ago
    Hmmmm, I mostly know people who worked for big companies who got BS patents for bragging rights and one from a small startup with one obvious idea but they wanted to try and protect themselves since the idea was essential to their core business. The former don't seem much different from trolls while the latter should not have been granted a patent since it was so obvious IMO.
  - paledot 3y ago
    As a software developer, I'm not exactly representative, nor are you. The point was about ambition/popular perception, not the reality. If your "maybe someday" dream prominently features being issued a patent, it's not because you'll use the patent responsibily to defend the idea that you're actively developing and marketing. If your "maybe someday" plan involves developing and marketing an idea, patents might be a factor somewhere way down the list of how to get there, but that's a very different ambition. (That's not to say that the reality isn't also broken, just that popular perception is even more broken.)

JumpCrisscross 3y ago

> Abolish patents. All the rhetoric about incentivizing innovation is bullshit. Oh, I would immediately start a fund that looks for good ideas at the germinating phase and then superfunds a competitor.