6 ms·

Or we could just abolish the concept of patents entirely. All they do is stifle progress so that somebody can make money at an unfair advantage to everyone else

by Timwi 3y ago

Or we could just abolish the concept of patents entirely. All they do is stifle progress so that somebody can make money at an unfair advantage to everyone else.

gruez 3y ago
>All they do is stifle progress so that somebody can make money at an unfair advantage to everyone else. You don't see any problem with pouring huge sums of money into developing something, only for a competitor to copy your idea and undercut you? As an inventor, why would I bother putting in all that effort knowing that would happen?
- Timwi 3y ago
  This is such egocentric/selfish thinking. I wish to live in a society which “pours” adequate sums of money into developing things for the benefit of all, not leaving it up to individuals like you who are in it only to benefit themselves.
- johngladtj 3y ago
  Same reason you would do anything else. Because regardless of whether you have a monopoly, you can still make money by solving people's problems
  - wizzwizz4 3y ago
    If you're going to invest in making something possible, you need to recover at least the value of the resources you expended in doing so. Otherwise, you'll have no resources left for the next investment. Copyright and patents are capitalism's attempt to make investments possible in a world where copying is cheap, and while they're deeply flawed, that doesn't change the fact that investments do need to be returned. (Don't get me started on the stock market: that has nothing to do with actual investment.)
    - gruez 3y ago
      >(Don't get me started on the stock market: that has nothing to do with actual investment.) Secondary markets support "actual investment" by allowing early investors to cash out. An investment is far more attractive to you if you know you can offload it to someone else and get the net present value immediately, rather than waiting years/decades for it to pay out. For instance, if a nuclear plant takes will last 80 years but will take 50 years to break even, why would a 40 year old bother to invest? By the time it breaks even you'd be long dead.
      - wizzwizz4 3y ago
        At the cost of so deeply skewing what an "investment" is. How much destructive nonsense has been driven by the stock market? The South Sea Bubble, and every bubble since. Short-sighted decisions to meet quarterly revenue targets, at the expense of all else. What TeMPOraL calls "fracking": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34297430 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34297430. I would not call any of this investment, but the stock market would. If they require disclosure of enough information for the technology to be (in principle) independently reproduced, patents are worth it. I'd even argue that patent terms could be extended, in some domains, where that's necessary to ensure a return on investment. Copyright is, in principle, worth it, though the term is currently far too long and the laws can be abused for unrelated things (e.g. DMCA ink cartridges). But the stock market is not worth it. The invisible hand of the market can remain irrational far, far longer than you can remain healthy and fed with a roof over your head, surrounded by friends and beautiful things. Let us not sacrifice what is good at the altar of the invisible hand. The real estate market is similar: housing is for living in, not for speculative investment. The market incentivises real estate owners to ensure there aren't enough houses to go round, driving up house prices – but they usually forget that they can't actually sell their only property, so this only benefits landlords. (Irrational behaviour, sure, but whoever said humans were rational was a 20th-century economist who never read Adam Smith.) Large infrastructure developments used to be handled at the community level, and in many places, they still are. For something as large as a nuclear power plant, that'd be your regional council or your national government. Hundred-year investments have to be made at that scale, anyway: that's what your secondary market proposal is about, after all. The stock market is only one (highly-flawed) way of organising things. People do not build sheds in their gardens because they expect to be compensated: they build a shed because they want a shed. People do not work because they expect time and labour to be returned to them: they work because they get other things out of it. We should not assume that investment of resources yields fruits in kind – but the stock market cannot but make that assumption!
- adrian_b 3y ago
  If you are unable to make efficiently products based on your ideas, for the entire society it is much better if someone else is able to do efficient production. The reason why the Western countries have achieved their dominant position in the modern world is because at some point, a few centuries ago, the secrecy of the manufacturing guilds has been overridden by the new trend of publishing openly any new discovery in science and technology, while the countries like China, which have remained dominated by secrecy, have remained stagnant during the fast evolution of the European countries. The Silicon Valley has become what it is because in the early days of the electronics industry the concerns about "IP" were minimal, every new discovery was published and it spread quickly among all companies located there. Then gradually the "IP" protection has increased, the competition has diminished more and more and the pace of innovation has slowed down proportionally. It is extremely rare that those who have the original idea for a patent are also able to discover the follow-up innovations that are necessary to convert an idea into a successful product. There are very numerous examples of patents which have been almost never used in anything useful as long as they were valid, but immediately after expiration many companies were able to make good products based on them.
  - gruez 3y ago
    > If you are unable to make efficiently products based on your ideas, for the entire society it is much better if someone else is able to do efficient production. What happens when the idea in question takes a non-trivial amount money to develop, and you want to avoid a prisoner's dilemma situation where nobody wants to put in the investment?

by Timwi 3y ago

Or we could just abolish the concept of patents entirely. All they do is stifle progress so that somebody can make money at an unfair advantage to everyone else.

gruez 3y ago

>All they do is stifle progress so that somebody can make money at an unfair advantage to everyone else. You don't see any problem with pouring huge sums of money into developing something, only for a competitor to copy your idea and undercut you? As an inventor, why would I bother putting in all that effort knowing that would happen?

Timwi 3y ago
This is such egocentric/selfish thinking. I wish to live in a society which “pours” adequate sums of money into developing things for the benefit of all, not leaving it up to individuals like you who are in it only to benefit themselves.
johngladtj 3y ago
Same reason you would do anything else. Because regardless of whether you have a monopoly, you can still make money by solving people's problems
- wizzwizz4 3y ago
  If you're going to invest in making something possible, you need to recover at least the value of the resources you expended in doing so. Otherwise, you'll have no resources left for the next investment. Copyright and patents are capitalism's attempt to make investments possible in a world where copying is cheap, and while they're deeply flawed, that doesn't change the fact that investments do need to be returned. (Don't get me started on the stock market: that has nothing to do with actual investment.)
  - gruez 3y ago
    >(Don't get me started on the stock market: that has nothing to do with actual investment.) Secondary markets support "actual investment" by allowing early investors to cash out. An investment is far more attractive to you if you know you can offload it to someone else and get the net present value immediately, rather than waiting years/decades for it to pay out. For instance, if a nuclear plant takes will last 80 years but will take 50 years to break even, why would a 40 year old bother to invest? By the time it breaks even you'd be long dead.
    - wizzwizz4 3y ago
      At the cost of so deeply skewing what an "investment" is. How much destructive nonsense has been driven by the stock market? The South Sea Bubble, and every bubble since. Short-sighted decisions to meet quarterly revenue targets, at the expense of all else. What TeMPOraL calls "fracking": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34297430 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34297430. I would not call any of this investment, but the stock market would. If they require disclosure of enough information for the technology to be (in principle) independently reproduced, patents are worth it. I'd even argue that patent terms could be extended, in some domains, where that's necessary to ensure a return on investment. Copyright is, in principle, worth it, though the term is currently far too long and the laws can be abused for unrelated things (e.g. DMCA ink cartridges). But the stock market is not worth it. The invisible hand of the market can remain irrational far, far longer than you can remain healthy and fed with a roof over your head, surrounded by friends and beautiful things. Let us not sacrifice what is good at the altar of the invisible hand. The real estate market is similar: housing is for living in, not for speculative investment. The market incentivises real estate owners to ensure there aren't enough houses to go round, driving up house prices – but they usually forget that they can't actually sell their only property, so this only benefits landlords. (Irrational behaviour, sure, but whoever said humans were rational was a 20th-century economist who never read Adam Smith.) Large infrastructure developments used to be handled at the community level, and in many places, they still are. For something as large as a nuclear power plant, that'd be your regional council or your national government. Hundred-year investments have to be made at that scale, anyway: that's what your secondary market proposal is about, after all. The stock market is only one (highly-flawed) way of organising things. People do not build sheds in their gardens because they expect to be compensated: they build a shed because they want a shed. People do not work because they expect time and labour to be returned to them: they work because they get other things out of it. We should not assume that investment of resources yields fruits in kind – but the stock market cannot but make that assumption!
adrian_b 3y ago
If you are unable to make efficiently products based on your ideas, for the entire society it is much better if someone else is able to do efficient production. The reason why the Western countries have achieved their dominant position in the modern world is because at some point, a few centuries ago, the secrecy of the manufacturing guilds has been overridden by the new trend of publishing openly any new discovery in science and technology, while the countries like China, which have remained dominated by secrecy, have remained stagnant during the fast evolution of the European countries. The Silicon Valley has become what it is because in the early days of the electronics industry the concerns about "IP" were minimal, every new discovery was published and it spread quickly among all companies located there. Then gradually the "IP" protection has increased, the competition has diminished more and more and the pace of innovation has slowed down proportionally. It is extremely rare that those who have the original idea for a patent are also able to discover the follow-up innovations that are necessary to convert an idea into a successful product. There are very numerous examples of patents which have been almost never used in anything useful as long as they were valid, but immediately after expiration many companies were able to make good products based on them.
- gruez 3y ago
  > If you are unable to make efficiently products based on your ideas, for the entire society it is much better if someone else is able to do efficient production. What happens when the idea in question takes a non-trivial amount money to develop, and you want to avoid a prisoner's dilemma situation where nobody wants to put in the investment?