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Your example is very apt. Isn't it great that you can't patent mathematics? Software and hardware should not be patentable like it currently is. Sorry, but sin
by mibbitier 14y ago
Your example is very apt. Isn't it great that you can't patent mathematics? Software and hardware should not be patentable like it currently is.
Sorry, but since I can remember, (20 years ago say), the idea of a touchscreen tablet/smartphone was obvious. It was absolutely inevitable, and it was boring waiting for the technology to appear to allow it to happen. Absolutely nothing on any smartphone, tablet, etc is innovative to the point where a patent should be granted.
- gaius 14y agoThe devil is always in the details. Since the first internal combustion engine, the car was an obvious development. But it turns out that there is more subtlety to making a car than simply swapping a horse for a motor on a carriage. Would you say that absolutely nothing in any car or truck is innovative to the point where a patent should be granted? Tablets are an interesting case study because we've been down this road before (google for Windows XP Tablet Edition, 2001). Anything in a modern tablet that wasn't in XP Tablet, or the Apple Newton, you can say required innovation to do.
- mibbitier 14y agoPersonally, I think patents do far more harm than they do good. They reward complacency. They reward laziness. They stifle innovation.
- gaius 14y agoThen I hope you never need to do anything more complex than copying something someone's already done, least of all invest your own money in risky research that may yield no results.
- mibbitier 14y agoFWIW I'm listed as inventor on around 10 patents. The only area I think patents do make some sense is for medicine, where the R&D costs are astronomically high. But most other fields, R&D isn't that big a cost.