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My feelings about the uselessness of patents (other than enriching lawyers and giving East Texas judges something to besides levy fines on tumbleweeds) are not
by xp84 2y ago
My feelings about the uselessness of patents (other than enriching lawyers and giving East Texas judges something to besides levy fines on tumbleweeds) are not drawn from experience with the law, you’re right. But your vast experience doesn’t seem to have given you any compelling arguments in their favor.
I still don’t see them being used to add any value to the world. Your claim that they’re in the ‘public domain’ doesn’t disprove that unless (1) they’re really being used for a learning purpose and (2) those learning outcomes outweigh the waste and damage we know they they cause. I can’t prove that the authors who create the materials people do use to learn are not reading patents as a major source of information, but you haven’t proven that they are.
Patents, including but not limited to software ones, are actually used very disproportionately by the biggest players in an industry, for amassing a war chest of patents that, if you do a good enough job bamboozling a judge, many people could be said to infringe. The reason for that is of course to do battle with other big corporations, so that when they come for you, you can end it in a draw and cross-license a bunch of them. Meanwhile if someone small tries to compete with you, unleashing patent hell can kill them outright because they have no patents with which to countersue you. Really cool tool “for the inventor,” patents.
I do question what, exactly, we gain from having this. How is this better than companies keeping some things as secret. (Let’s also just appreciate the absurdity of “secret methods” when it comes to software. We all know how software does things anyway. Actually implementing it well is hard. And we have copyright to protect code.)
- freejazz 2y ago> But your vast experience doesn’t seem to have given you any compelling arguments in their favor. You don't come across as reasonable, so I don't take it as much of a slight. >I can’t prove that the authors who create the materials people do use to learn are not reading patents as a major source of information, but you haven’t proven that they are. It's in the public domain. There's no disputing that it is in the body of human knowledge. That you argue something like this just shows you are not being reasonable. >Patents, including but not limited to software ones, are actually used very disproportionately by the biggest players in an industry, for amassing a war chest of patents that, if you do a good enough job bamboozling a judge, many people could be said to infringe. Of course, because no judge could ever reasonably be convinced that a patent infringes. It's only by bamboozling! All the changes to the patent system that have made it pro-big-tech come from the media you consume and the changes their funders put in place. PTAB is a great example. > Meanwhile if someone small tries to compete with you, unleashing patent hell can kill them outright because they have no patents with which to countersue you. LOL, get off tech media if this is something you think is actually an issue. > Really cool tool “for the inventor,” patents. You're just advocating that the patent system should be more pro-inventor, not that it should disappear. I wouldn't disagree with that at all!