4 ms·
I can't remember a single case of patenting improving consumer experience in the modern era. The way I see it, patents are designed to improve capitalist behav
by aayush 14y ago
I can't remember a single case of patenting improving consumer experience in the modern era.
The way I see it, patents are designed to improve capitalist behaviour, once where your ideas are protected: the march towards innovation is strictly optional.
It's time instead to consider how dependent our world is on iterative practices. Everything we build on and upon is no longer unique: it's all inspired, and improved.
Jim Jarmusch said this once:
>Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination. Devour old films, new films, music, books, paintings, photographs, poems, dreams, random conversations, architecture, bridges, street signs, trees, clouds, bodies of water, light and shadows.
To embrace iteration, we need to get rid of patents. That much is certain.
- taligent 14y agoDyson Vacuum Cleaners. One sole inventor who developed 5,127+ prototype designs and clearly brought something unique to the marketplace. Gave his whole life and money to the product. Almost immediately after it came out Hoover copied the design and basically would have put him out of business. The patents were the ONLY thing that protected him from a huge multinational who didn't invent anything. Now Dyson went on to invent a whole range of very cool gadgets which never would have existed without patents.
- radio4fan 14y agoInterestingly, the Dyson design was based on an existing cyclone system widely used to separate out dust and particles in industrial settings. The innovation was using the process in a domestic vacuum cleaner. So it's not too far removed from the "thing-that-already-exists but on the internet" patents which are a large part of the problem, or the "thing-that-already-exists but on a mobile" patent which is biting Notch's ass at the moment. Not that I'm saying Dyson's patents are invalid, nor that his designs haven't improved the state of the art in several fields, but he didn't invent the cyclone technology in a... vacuum.
- kenjackson 14y agoYou don't know what may have never existed with no patents. Maybe Jobs doesn't even consider the iPhone. This sort of thing is just speculative without a control.