5 ms·

Do you realize that, regardless of how it's abused now, in a world with zero patents no little guy would ever be paid for his idea? Big companies could just se

Do you realize that, regardless of how it's abused now, in a world with zero patents no little guy would ever be paid for his idea? Big companies could just see the idea, realize the value and task 100 people with copying it exactly. Further no company would bother with R&D because as soon as they make a breakthrough everyone else will simply steal the idea and sell for pennies more than cost of production. R&D costs could never be recouped so no one would ever do it again.

wissler 14y ago
Men who have minds large enough to envision the kinds of ideas that would deserve a patent (if patents were moral) are precisely the kind who would invent regardless of whether they could get one. See Nicola Tesla or the many scientists throughout history who have achieved great things without having a carrot and a stick. Or see Linus Torvalds. The kind of men who refuse to engage themselves in creation without being prodded are the kind who patent most of the trivial ideas we see patented today.
- jeremyarussell 14y ago
  Tesla was one in a million. For your ideas to work you would need to teach the entire 7 billion strong population of humans that we need to peacefully work together as a species. I'm sure you'll be met with great success. Until that day it is necessary to protect rights in a manner that lets people know they can do great things and not have to worry that someone will steal their years of hard work. I don't agree with people filing this lawsuit. I don't think their idea is all that novel. I also think patents shouldn't last longer then it takes to recoup the investment. TL;DR = People don't work that way, but yeah the patent system is currently ridiculous.
- wissler 14y ago
  jeremyrussell: "People don't work that way" is question-begging (if you don't know what that logical fallacy is please see Wikipedia). The point is that they ought to work that way. People can and should change. Answering "well they don't work that way" as an argument against this is fallacious. I mean, take your argument and apply it to (say) cannibals. A cannibalistic tribe would say "well, we eat people, we've always eaten people, therefore things will never change." There can't be a logical, rational argument for patents. Which is unsurprising, since patents are clearly barbaric. So barbarians defend patents using (surprise) barbaric illogic.
- flyinRyan 14y ago
  I'm sorry but this is just not true. You say the kind of people who deserve a patent would do the work either way and then you suggest a handful of people. Many, many people have created things for the purpose of making money. Your world would eliminate people like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates. Later in life, when Jobs had billions, he didn't seem to care about money anymore but in the beginning Apple tried everything. They even had a clothing line. As for your examples, Linus didn't invent. He made a version of an existing OS and started with an existing version of a copy of that OS. He did it for fun, but one must also recognize that he's gained a tremendous amount by this seemingly "benevolent" action. Fresh out of college he could take much more interesting jobs than most people with his background could. His "gift" ended up being a loss leader for his career. So if we were reliant on only having people like Tesla to push us forward we'd be nowhere near where we are today. Tesla was brilliant but there are just far too few people who think and work as he did.
  - wissler 14y ago
    "Your world would eliminate people like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates." You've got to be kidding. Do you know nothing about the history of software? "If people had understood how patents would be granted when most of today’s ideas were invented, and had taken out patents, the industry would be at a complete standstill today."--Bill Gates
    - roopeshv 14y ago
      "that's the great thing about internet, you can make up quotes, and attribute it to others" --abraham lincoln so, please cite.
      - wissler 14y ago
        Please use Google instead of posting mindless sarcasm. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/09/opinion/09lee.html?_r=1 http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/09/opinion/09lee.html?_r=1
        14y ago
DennisP 14y ago
> no little guy would ever be paid for his idea That's always the rhetoric but in practice patents usually protect big companies at the expense of the little guy. This is especially true in software, where getting the patent is generally a lot more expensive than creating the invention. Only the big companies can afford to file patents for every little trick of coding they come up with. And for all types of inventions, it's generally very expensive to litigate. All sorts of inventive software was created before there were software patents, so empirically, it's clear that in this business at least we don't need patents.

wissler 14y ago

Men who have minds large enough to envision the kinds of ideas that would deserve a patent (if patents were moral) are precisely the kind who would invent regardless of whether they could get one. See Nicola Tesla or the many scientists throughout history who have achieved great things without having a carrot and a stick. Or see Linus Torvalds. The kind of men who refuse to engage themselves in creation without being prodded are the kind who patent most of the trivial ideas we see patented today.

jeremyarussell 14y ago
Tesla was one in a million. For your ideas to work you would need to teach the entire 7 billion strong population of humans that we need to peacefully work together as a species. I'm sure you'll be met with great success. Until that day it is necessary to protect rights in a manner that lets people know they can do great things and not have to worry that someone will steal their years of hard work. I don't agree with people filing this lawsuit. I don't think their idea is all that novel. I also think patents shouldn't last longer then it takes to recoup the investment. TL;DR = People don't work that way, but yeah the patent system is currently ridiculous.
wissler 14y ago
jeremyrussell: "People don't work that way" is question-begging (if you don't know what that logical fallacy is please see Wikipedia). The point is that they ought to work that way. People can and should change. Answering "well they don't work that way" as an argument against this is fallacious. I mean, take your argument and apply it to (say) cannibals. A cannibalistic tribe would say "well, we eat people, we've always eaten people, therefore things will never change." There can't be a logical, rational argument for patents. Which is unsurprising, since patents are clearly barbaric. So barbarians defend patents using (surprise) barbaric illogic.
flyinRyan 14y ago
I'm sorry but this is just not true. You say the kind of people who deserve a patent would do the work either way and then you suggest a handful of people. Many, many people have created things for the purpose of making money. Your world would eliminate people like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates. Later in life, when Jobs had billions, he didn't seem to care about money anymore but in the beginning Apple tried everything. They even had a clothing line. As for your examples, Linus didn't invent. He made a version of an existing OS and started with an existing version of a copy of that OS. He did it for fun, but one must also recognize that he's gained a tremendous amount by this seemingly "benevolent" action. Fresh out of college he could take much more interesting jobs than most people with his background could. His "gift" ended up being a loss leader for his career. So if we were reliant on only having people like Tesla to push us forward we'd be nowhere near where we are today. Tesla was brilliant but there are just far too few people who think and work as he did.
- wissler 14y ago
  "Your world would eliminate people like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates." You've got to be kidding. Do you know nothing about the history of software? "If people had understood how patents would be granted when most of today’s ideas were invented, and had taken out patents, the industry would be at a complete standstill today."--Bill Gates
  - roopeshv 14y ago
    "that's the great thing about internet, you can make up quotes, and attribute it to others" --abraham lincoln so, please cite.
    - wissler 14y ago
      Please use Google instead of posting mindless sarcasm. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/09/opinion/09lee.html?_r=1 http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/09/opinion/09lee.html?_r=1
      - 14y ago

DennisP 14y ago

> no little guy would ever be paid for his idea That's always the rhetoric but in practice patents usually protect big companies at the expense of the little guy. This is especially true in software, where getting the patent is generally a lot more expensive than creating the invention. Only the big companies can afford to file patents for every little trick of coding they come up with. And for all types of inventions, it's generally very expensive to litigate. All sorts of inventive software was created before there were software patents, so empirically, it's clear that in this business at least we don't need patents.