4 ms·

We don't need patents in any industries at all if you judge them based upon their original intent -- to further the public knowledge (the temporary monopoly was

We don't need patents in any industries at all if you judge them based upon their original intent -- to further the public knowledge (the temporary monopoly was meant to be a reward for that, not the main reason for patents). It is difficult to overestimate our combined ability to reverse engineer virtually any type of product made these days and in that sense patents aren't very useful anymore relative to their original purpose.

StavrosK 14y ago
Wasn't their original intent to protect the inventor's R&D investment by ensuring that he would be the sole beneficiary of the invention for a time? Easily reverse-engineering products makes the initial purpose even more necessary.
- nas 14y ago
  Not as I understand it. The intent was to provide an alternative to "trade secrets". In exchange for disclosing how your great new invention works, you get a limited monopoly on it. Modern patents don't work this way. Seriously, who reads patents to learn who new inventions work? I'm sure there is someone who does but mostly they are just dense legal mumble-jumble. Also, it seems most of them are totally obvious that don't need a detailed explanation of the "invention".
  - mistercow 14y ago
    >Seriously, who reads patents to learn who new inventions work? I do sometimes, actually. But you're right that it's not a very understanding-conducive format. They're more concerned with making sure the claims are watertight than making sure the public can figure out what's going on in them.
    - gruseom 14y ago
      They're more concerned with making sure the claims are watertight As far as software patents go, if their claims are "watertight" it must be in some technical legal realm that is utterly removed from the field of invention. As software designs, the vast majority (that I've seen) are risible.
  - abecedarius 14y ago
    I once read large parts of http://www.google.com/patents/US4614319 http://www.google.com/patents/US4614319 out of curiosity. The way it's written to actually explain the ideas shows up how most patents aren't.
  - antidoh 14y ago
    My understanding is that it can be dangerous for a company significantly affected by IP for its employees to read any patents. If that doesn't fly in the face ...
    - georgemcbay 14y ago
      This is true. If you violate a patent while knowing about the patent you are violating you can be on the hook for triple (treble in lawyer-speak) damages compared to a violation where you didn't know of the patent previously. For this reason, a lot of companies I've worked for have had a blanket policy requesting that software developers never read patents, especially in areas the company is working in. Of course the fact that you can very easily violate many patents without having ever read them is just more evidence that the patent system isn't currently serving a useful purpose for anyone but patent trolls and lawyers.
- abecedarius 14y ago
  If you go back the right number of centuries, the original intent was for a revenue source for the Crown. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_patent_law#England http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_patent_law#England
- jandrewrogers 14y ago
  The original intent of patents, long forgotten, was to limit the use of trade secrets. Trade secrets have the unfortunate property that the public state-of-the-art can be decades behind the private R&D. This was endemic during the times of guilds. The reversion to a use of trade secrets, at least in software (because patents are largely unenforceable), is recreating some of the issues that patents were intended to avoid. In my own area of computer science, the private state-of-the-art is at least half a decade ahead of academia. This was the situation that patents were intended to avoid.
  - ZeroGravitas 14y ago
    If academia is only 5 years behind then it doesn't seem a good deal for the public to give 20 years monopoly on ideas, particularly so if those ideas build on top of each other and lead to patent gridlock. (Of course in reality, academia is part of this patent gridlock, but the general point remains)
    - jandrewrogers 14y ago
      The point is more that academic research is reinventing the wheel rather than doing genuinely productive research. Instead of researchers researching stuff that needs to be researched, a significant number of them are researching things that other researchers have known the answer to for years. It is not an effective use of human capital.
- brlewis 14y ago
  The US Constitution authorizes congress "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries" In the jurisdiction relevant to this article (i.e. United States) the original intent was to promote progress.
josteink 14y ago
We don't need patents in any industries at all if you judge them based upon their original intent -- to further the public knowledge Good to see this one mentioned. Most people seem to forget that the original intent for all "IP-laws" originally was to broaden the public knowledge and to ultimately benefit the public. That private entities was incentivized with limited monopolies which they could use to profit was merely a means, not the goal. These days everyone takes for granted that the means is the goal and the original goal is long forgotten. If the original intent hadn't been forgotten as well as it has at this point, I doubt we would have seen the massive expanse of "IP-laws" which we have seen these last decades. Heck, back in the days there was no such thing as "IP". People were rational enough to realize there is no such thing as "intellectual property" which you can possess in a meaningful way. Copyright law, patent-law and all these "IP-laws" should be reverted back to their original intent. Unfortunately that is not going to happen. The US has way too much invested in so called "intellectual property" to go back on this now. Look at the US these days. What brings in the money? Traditional industry? All gone. Manufacturing? All outsourced. In fact all the US has left of value is "intellectual property". Think Microsoft, Apple, Google and Hollywood. Now imagine the current US without the likes of those, or a world where their "property" could be had by anyone at no cost. Where would the US be then? For all the bad things IP laws brings about (and don't get me wrong, I do think they are bad) there is a reason the US (and mostly the US) is pushing so hard on copyright-law and patent-law and trying to divert us from their original intent by instilling the idea of "intellectual property" as a legitimate one in the public mind. Right now, this so called "intellectual property" is the only thing the US have left.

StavrosK 14y ago

Wasn't their original intent to protect the inventor's R&D investment by ensuring that he would be the sole beneficiary of the invention for a time? Easily reverse-engineering products makes the initial purpose even more necessary.

nas 14y ago
Not as I understand it. The intent was to provide an alternative to "trade secrets". In exchange for disclosing how your great new invention works, you get a limited monopoly on it. Modern patents don't work this way. Seriously, who reads patents to learn who new inventions work? I'm sure there is someone who does but mostly they are just dense legal mumble-jumble. Also, it seems most of them are totally obvious that don't need a detailed explanation of the "invention".
- mistercow 14y ago
  >Seriously, who reads patents to learn who new inventions work? I do sometimes, actually. But you're right that it's not a very understanding-conducive format. They're more concerned with making sure the claims are watertight than making sure the public can figure out what's going on in them.
  - gruseom 14y ago
    They're more concerned with making sure the claims are watertight As far as software patents go, if their claims are "watertight" it must be in some technical legal realm that is utterly removed from the field of invention. As software designs, the vast majority (that I've seen) are risible.
- abecedarius 14y ago
  I once read large parts of http://www.google.com/patents/US4614319 http://www.google.com/patents/US4614319 out of curiosity. The way it's written to actually explain the ideas shows up how most patents aren't.
- antidoh 14y ago
  My understanding is that it can be dangerous for a company significantly affected by IP for its employees to read any patents. If that doesn't fly in the face ...
  - georgemcbay 14y ago
    This is true. If you violate a patent while knowing about the patent you are violating you can be on the hook for triple (treble in lawyer-speak) damages compared to a violation where you didn't know of the patent previously. For this reason, a lot of companies I've worked for have had a blanket policy requesting that software developers never read patents, especially in areas the company is working in. Of course the fact that you can very easily violate many patents without having ever read them is just more evidence that the patent system isn't currently serving a useful purpose for anyone but patent trolls and lawyers.
abecedarius 14y ago
If you go back the right number of centuries, the original intent was for a revenue source for the Crown. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_patent_law#England http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_patent_law#England
jandrewrogers 14y ago
The original intent of patents, long forgotten, was to limit the use of trade secrets. Trade secrets have the unfortunate property that the public state-of-the-art can be decades behind the private R&D. This was endemic during the times of guilds. The reversion to a use of trade secrets, at least in software (because patents are largely unenforceable), is recreating some of the issues that patents were intended to avoid. In my own area of computer science, the private state-of-the-art is at least half a decade ahead of academia. This was the situation that patents were intended to avoid.
- ZeroGravitas 14y ago
  If academia is only 5 years behind then it doesn't seem a good deal for the public to give 20 years monopoly on ideas, particularly so if those ideas build on top of each other and lead to patent gridlock. (Of course in reality, academia is part of this patent gridlock, but the general point remains)
  - jandrewrogers 14y ago
    The point is more that academic research is reinventing the wheel rather than doing genuinely productive research. Instead of researchers researching stuff that needs to be researched, a significant number of them are researching things that other researchers have known the answer to for years. It is not an effective use of human capital.
brlewis 14y ago
The US Constitution authorizes congress "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries" In the jurisdiction relevant to this article (i.e. United States) the original intent was to promote progress.

josteink 14y ago

We don't need patents in any industries at all if you judge them based upon their original intent -- to further the public knowledge Good to see this one mentioned. Most people seem to forget that the original intent for all "IP-laws" originally was to broaden the public knowledge and to ultimately benefit the public. That private entities was incentivized with limited monopolies which they could use to profit was merely a means, not the goal. These days everyone takes for granted that the means is the goal and the original goal is long forgotten. If the original intent hadn't been forgotten as well as it has at this point, I doubt we would have seen the massive expanse of "IP-laws" which we have seen these last decades. Heck, back in the days there was no such thing as "IP". People were rational enough to realize there is no such thing as "intellectual property" which you can possess in a meaningful way. Copyright law, patent-law and all these "IP-laws" should be reverted back to their original intent. Unfortunately that is not going to happen. The US has way too much invested in so called "intellectual property" to go back on this now. Look at the US these days. What brings in the money? Traditional industry? All gone. Manufacturing? All outsourced. In fact all the US has left of value is "intellectual property". Think Microsoft, Apple, Google and Hollywood. Now imagine the current US without the likes of those, or a world where their "property" could be had by anyone at no cost. Where would the US be then? For all the bad things IP laws brings about (and don't get me wrong, I do think they are bad) there is a reason the US (and mostly the US) is pushing so hard on copyright-law and patent-law and trying to divert us from their original intent by instilling the idea of "intellectual property" as a legitimate one in the public mind. Right now, this so called "intellectual property" is the only thing the US have left.