5 ms·

Patents considered evil

95 points by jcbrand 14y ago

jordigh 14y ago
It's interesting to note that one of the first points this article makes is that the term "intellectual property" spreads confusion and makes it sound like patents are something like copyrights or something like ship hull design rights. We've heard this before from His GNUliness: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html#IntellectualProperty
- dionidium 14y ago
  Yes, we've heard it before and it's still silly. The term serves only to distinguish intangibles from physical objects. It does not imply that all of those intangibles are equivalent any more than "physical property" implies that boats are the same thing as staplers. This is a non-issue. It's a useful term.
  - bct 14y ago
    It's useful in some contexts but overly broad in others. The differences between a boat and a stapler are readily apparent; the differences between a copyright and a patent, much less so. Imprecise language takes advantage of that.
  - lukifer 14y ago
    Language shapes thought; people have a different opinion on the estate tax when you call it a "death tax". IP may be a useful shorthand, but it carries with it a different set of implicit assumptions than "creator's monopoly".
- ktizo 14y ago
  Well, a lot of people get very confused with this stuff, especially between design copyright vs patents. And it isn't as though Stallman is exactly original in this complaint, so it makes little sense to look on him as being the main proponent of this view. For instance, Thomas Jefferson made many remarks along similar lines.
001sky 14y ago
The term "intellectual property" was coined to replace "exclusive privilege", which became politically incorrect during the French revolution
- sabat 14y ago
  Interesting to note! Although I find "intellectual property" to be an oxymoron.
  - lttlrck 14y ago
    how so?
    - sp332 14y ago
      This letter from Thomas Jefferson explains the problem. http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/a1_8_8s12.html http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/a1_8_8s12.... (Note a "taper" is a candle.)
      - eevilspock 14y ago
        "It is agreed by those who have seriously considered the subject, that no individual has, of natural right, a separate property in an acre of land, for instance." Sadly few people understand this these days. Libertarians rightly defend social liberty, but they actually betray this liberty by wrong-headedly believing that everything should be treated as private property. They are correct that one's own person or the fruits of one's own labor should not be claimable by anyone or any government (this is tantamount to slavery), but they falsely believe that land or even ideas can be the fruit of their labor and their labor only. I hope that this will be the next revolution in political economy, that Georgism/Geolibertarianism makes a comeback.
        sp332 14y ago
        If you clear land for farming, don't you think you have a natural right to the use of that land? If a neighbor dumps toxic waste there, haven't they violated your property rights?
jcbrand 14y ago
There's also a discussion about this on Reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/Economics/comments/z2lp2/patents_considered_evil/ http://www.reddit.com/r/Economics/comments/z2lp2/patents_con...
josaka 14y ago
"It typically costs from 25,000 Euro (in the cheapest courts in Europe) to $250,000 (in the UK or USA) to defend or enforce a patent in court." Try $3 million per side through trial in US court. http://www.patentinsurance.com/iprisk/aipla-survey/ http://www.patentinsurance.com/iprisk/aipla-survey/
guelo 14y ago
Anyone in the startup world can tell you an idea is not worth that much, what matters is execution. Patents are supposed to reward the lazy dreamers over the hard working entrepreneurs, though in reality they reward the giant corp with the best legal strategy.
- georgemcbay 14y ago
  Patents (at least as understood by the US founding fathers who put them in the Constitution, YMMV in other countries) are supposed to be a means by which we all benefit from knowledge that would otherwise be kept a trade secret by their inventors. The nearly two decade long protection is the price we pay for that knowledge. Of course, looking at it this way, it is absolutely insane that things like "bounce scrolling" are patent protected. Even in situations where some piece of software functionality is 100% new (which basically never happens anyway), if I can watch a video on YouTube of someone interacting with the product and then write a 20 line function that simulates the behavior I saw without ever having seen the original code, nor even having touched the original product myself and that 20 line function can be a patent violation, the patent system is already 100% completely fucked up relative to what it was designed to do originally.
woodchuck64 14y ago
Love this quote: "We do not generally ask the State to intervene to ensure that artists will paint, musicians play, chefs prepare meals, fashion designers create the new seasons. The vast bulk of our economy innovates well without 20-year monopolies. By contrast, the areas that are heavily patented, such as telecoms and pharmaceutics, resist change, are run by cartels, and extort consumers with grossly inflated prices."
gpcz 14y ago
The web site hosting the Harper's article "Secrets by the Thousands" linked in "Patents considered evil" posts questionable ideas if you look at their root site. Also, linked from their version of "Secrets" is another article titled "The Great Patents Heist" that comes from The Barnes Review, a Holocaust-denying publication. While "Secrets" is behind a pay wall on the Harper's website (http://www.harpers.org/archive/1946/10/0032777 http://www.harpers.org/archive/1946/10/0032777), I'd suggest using a direct link to Harper's (or get permission from Harper's to post "Secrets" yourself) rather than use that site as a citation.

95 points by jcbrand 14y ago

It's interesting to note that one of the first points this article makes is that the term "intellectual property" spreads confusion and makes it sound like patents are something like copyrights or something like ship hull design rights. We've heard this before from His GNUliness: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html#IntellectualProperty

dionidium 14y ago
Yes, we've heard it before and it's still silly. The term serves only to distinguish intangibles from physical objects. It does not imply that all of those intangibles are equivalent any more than "physical property" implies that boats are the same thing as staplers. This is a non-issue. It's a useful term.
- bct 14y ago
  It's useful in some contexts but overly broad in others. The differences between a boat and a stapler are readily apparent; the differences between a copyright and a patent, much less so. Imprecise language takes advantage of that.
- lukifer 14y ago
  Language shapes thought; people have a different opinion on the estate tax when you call it a "death tax". IP may be a useful shorthand, but it carries with it a different set of implicit assumptions than "creator's monopoly".
ktizo 14y ago
Well, a lot of people get very confused with this stuff, especially between design copyright vs patents. And it isn't as though Stallman is exactly original in this complaint, so it makes little sense to look on him as being the main proponent of this view. For instance, Thomas Jefferson made many remarks along similar lines.

001sky 14y ago

The term "intellectual property" was coined to replace "exclusive privilege", which became politically incorrect during the French revolution

sabat 14y ago
Interesting to note! Although I find "intellectual property" to be an oxymoron.
- lttlrck 14y ago
  how so?
  - sp332 14y ago
    This letter from Thomas Jefferson explains the problem. http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/a1_8_8s12.html http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/a1_8_8s12.... (Note a "taper" is a candle.)
    - eevilspock 14y ago
      "It is agreed by those who have seriously considered the subject, that no individual has, of natural right, a separate property in an acre of land, for instance." Sadly few people understand this these days. Libertarians rightly defend social liberty, but they actually betray this liberty by wrong-headedly believing that everything should be treated as private property. They are correct that one's own person or the fruits of one's own labor should not be claimable by anyone or any government (this is tantamount to slavery), but they falsely believe that land or even ideas can be the fruit of their labor and their labor only. I hope that this will be the next revolution in political economy, that Georgism/Geolibertarianism makes a comeback.
      - sp332 14y ago
        If you clear land for farming, don't you think you have a natural right to the use of that land? If a neighbor dumps toxic waste there, haven't they violated your property rights?

jcbrand 14y ago

There's also a discussion about this on Reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/Economics/comments/z2lp2/patents_considered_evil/ http://www.reddit.com/r/Economics/comments/z2lp2/patents_con...

josaka 14y ago

"It typically costs from 25,000 Euro (in the cheapest courts in Europe) to $250,000 (in the UK or USA) to defend or enforce a patent in court." Try $3 million per side through trial in US court. http://www.patentinsurance.com/iprisk/aipla-survey/ http://www.patentinsurance.com/iprisk/aipla-survey/

guelo 14y ago

Anyone in the startup world can tell you an idea is not worth that much, what matters is execution. Patents are supposed to reward the lazy dreamers over the hard working entrepreneurs, though in reality they reward the giant corp with the best legal strategy.

georgemcbay 14y ago
Patents (at least as understood by the US founding fathers who put them in the Constitution, YMMV in other countries) are supposed to be a means by which we all benefit from knowledge that would otherwise be kept a trade secret by their inventors. The nearly two decade long protection is the price we pay for that knowledge. Of course, looking at it this way, it is absolutely insane that things like "bounce scrolling" are patent protected. Even in situations where some piece of software functionality is 100% new (which basically never happens anyway), if I can watch a video on YouTube of someone interacting with the product and then write a 20 line function that simulates the behavior I saw without ever having seen the original code, nor even having touched the original product myself and that 20 line function can be a patent violation, the patent system is already 100% completely fucked up relative to what it was designed to do originally.

woodchuck64 14y ago

Love this quote: "We do not generally ask the State to intervene to ensure that artists will paint, musicians play, chefs prepare meals, fashion designers create the new seasons. The vast bulk of our economy innovates well without 20-year monopolies. By contrast, the areas that are heavily patented, such as telecoms and pharmaceutics, resist change, are run by cartels, and extort consumers with grossly inflated prices."

gpcz 14y ago

The web site hosting the Harper's article "Secrets by the Thousands" linked in "Patents considered evil" posts questionable ideas if you look at their root site. Also, linked from their version of "Secrets" is another article titled "The Great Patents Heist" that comes from The Barnes Review, a Holocaust-denying publication. While "Secrets" is behind a pay wall on the Harper's website (http://www.harpers.org/archive/1946/10/0032777 http://www.harpers.org/archive/1946/10/0032777), I'd suggest using a direct link to Harper's (or get permission from Harper's to post "Secrets" yourself) rather than use that site as a citation.