7 ms·

John Carmack on Patents

64 points by azharcs 18y ago

scw 18y ago
Until we can remove the leverage that intellectual property holders currently have, they will fight ruthlessly to retain 'their' property. Compare the economically optimum copyright length (http://arstechnica.com/old/content/2007/07/research-optimal-copyright-term-is-14-years.ars http://arstechnica.com/old/content/2007/07/research-optimal-...) with the actual changes in length within the US (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Copyright_term.svg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Copyright_term.svg). This increase in terms coupled with the ease of patent filing surely is purely marginal decision making.
noonespecial 18y ago
Yes, it is a legal tool that may help you against your competitors, but I'll have no part of it. Its basically mugging someone. Love it. Legal does not mean moral. Or right. Putting on a suit and using a paper weapon doesn't make it any more respectable than hiding in an alley and using a steel one. I'm looking forward to Mr. Carmack's position paper.
- statictype 18y ago
  Well, that post is about 3 and half years old. So don't hold your breath waiting for his position paper :).
  - noonespecial 18y ago
    Yeah saw that. Went searching hopefully. Disappointment. Busy guy I guess. In the end though, I'd rather he be making cool stuff than messing around with patent nonsense, whatever side he's on.
    - aaronblohowiak 18y ago
      Not non-sense,m actually. Quite the opposite. This is comapany and industry-ruining stuff. To continue on oblivious to the law and the effect that industry leaders like Carmack can have on the law is nonsense.
      - arockwell 18y ago
        Do you think John Carmack's time is better spent writing 3d engines or lobbying congress?
        dice 18y ago
        Hidden third option: building space rockets and driving Ferraris.
        arockwell 18y ago
        Touche.
deleted 18y ago
[deleted]
- sharkbrainguy 18y ago
  He obviously doesn't use a pseudonym on slashdot.
dzorz 18y ago
Uh, effect -> affect.
- GeoJawDguJin 18y ago
  The truly elite (or at least, those who think of themselves as such) know that "effect," when used as a verb, is (sort of) a synonym for "cause."
  - sokoloff 18y ago
    It's clear from reading Carmack's sentence that he means affect (alter/disturb, in this case negatively so), not the verb form of effect/to cause. (Not that that justifies a grammar flame on HN, but it was at least an accurate flame.)
anewaccountname 18y ago
Carmack isn't just being hypothetical here; he independently came up with "Carmack's Reverse" for rendering shadows and it turned out Creative already had a patent on it; they ended up using it to force Doom 3 to support some crufty proprietary 3d sound system.
- GrandMasterBirt 18y ago
  Look at the current patent trends. The first company to paten an idea that having people interact via avatars interact in an online world managed by a server was not the first company to come up with the idea. However they are now suing every MMORPG on the market because any game in which users chat with eachother using avatars violate the patent. Apple is doing such things as well patenting things like "a 3d desktop" they don't have to do much just describe a rough idea of one. OOOOOO and my favorite is the company who is suing Apple, MS, Palm, Google due to their exclusive patent on operating systems. I am sure they invented OSes it just a few years ago.
kmavm 18y ago
I work at a commercial software company, for which I've filed and been granted some patents. I do so even though the pittance my company provides as a "patent bonus" doesn't begin to compensate for the paperwork, writing, iterating with a lawyer, etc. involved in the process. In principle, it's possible one of my patents will either defend my employer from litigation, or be a poker chip in some licensing deal in the future, but honestly the odds of that are small. My selfish reason for writing patents is that they provide a way of publicly recording my technical contributions. An alternative venue is academic publications, but that's inherently a crapshoot. Granted patents have your name on them, are freely available unlike a lot of CS journals, and usually provide better technical detail about the problem and solution than a typical 5-page academic CS paper.
- lliiffee 18y ago
  In what sense are academic publications more a crapshoot than patents? I hope you don't mean that because they might be rejected! That would completely convince me of Carmack's correctness.
erik 18y ago
I recall reading something from Carmack along the lines of "I find it horrrifying that I can't use my own ideas if someone else had the same idea first." It was a very succinct and insightful quote on a problem with patents, but now I can't find a source for the quote. Does anyone know what I'm reffering to?
- jwilliams 18y ago
  Ok - So - What's the alternative? There are some inventions that take vast amounts of investment, yet are easy to copy.
  - JesseAldridge 18y ago
    Government sponsorship of inventors, maybe? Some expert could decide which projects are worth pursuing and fund the research and development. Private companies could then take those inventions and build businesses around them. There could be a large cash prize if the invention ends up being especially valuable.
    - notauser 18y ago
      This is essentially how research universities work. The 'large cash prize' tends to be either tenure or a fat consulting job.
      - gravitycop 18y ago
        This is essentially how research universities work. Research universities do not give away the technologies they develop. They sell or license them for millions of dollars. http://www.google.com/search?q=university+patent+license+million http://www.google.com/search?q=university+patent+license+mil... I believe JesseAldridge above was referring instead to government funding R&D and then simply giving away the technology the way the daguerreotype photographic process was given away. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daguerreotype http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daguerreotype Instead of Daguerre obtaining a French patent, the French government provided a pension for him. In Britain, Miles Berry, acting on Daguerre's behalf, obtained a patent for the daguerreotype process on 14 August 1839. Almost simultaneously, on 19 August 1839, the French government announced the invention as a gift "Free to the World".
incomethax 18y ago
Hmmm... Interesting... Seems like a prisoner's dilemma situation to me. If I was to patent, it would be to my benefit, but it would also hurt the 'other ' I was playing the game with (supposing he didn't patent). I suppose Carmack's position paper would advertise to the world that he is in favor of no patents, thus in this 'multi-round' game he is providing others with the ability to collude with him to keep patents out of his field.
- anewaccountname 18y ago
  When a product is covered by more than one patent, the patent-holders end up in a tragedy of the commons problem. The commons is the person with the product. He has money he can pay. Each patent holder has a veto over the product and wants to extract as much as they can. One hold-out can ruin it for everyone and every single stake holder often ends up worse off as a result.
  - elecengin 18y ago
    The cases you are referring to - where there are blocking patents - generally are resolved with mutual licensing agreements. Of course, there are many exceptions, especially when there are patent trolls involved. In these cases, though, I really wonder the comparative cost of innovation versus licensing battles. Software is still an amazingly open field - given that licensing battles can run into the millions, if that money was invested in R&D could an alternative (superior) method be found? One of the methods that patents were supposed to encourage innovation was by providing reasons to innovate. If you are forced to explore new options and develop your own IP that might be patentable, is that such an awful thing?
    - Retric 18y ago
      Software patents often leave zero room for innovation. Let's say you patent pushing email to a hand held device AND pulling email from a hand held device what are the options? Showing a screen shot of another device that's not hand held? It's still either push or pull. etc.
- 18y ago
TweedHeads 18y ago
Patents should be valid for one year only, to give a head start to whom had the idea and invested developing it. That willl give them enough time to build a brand (iPhone, Viagra) then it is all open season and everybody can copy and improve on that idea to get an edge, investing their own resources (Zune, Cialis) whether they fail or not is up to the market. You can't blame people for you being a great researcher and a poor marketer. People will reward who can be both.

64 points by azharcs 18y ago

scw 18y ago

Until we can remove the leverage that intellectual property holders currently have, they will fight ruthlessly to retain 'their' property. Compare the economically optimum copyright length (http://arstechnica.com/old/content/2007/07/research-optimal-copyright-term-is-14-years.ars http://arstechnica.com/old/content/2007/07/research-optimal-...) with the actual changes in length within the US (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Copyright_term.svg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Copyright_term.svg). This increase in terms coupled with the ease of patent filing surely is purely marginal decision making.

noonespecial 18y ago

Yes, it is a legal tool that may help you against your competitors, but I'll have no part of it. Its basically mugging someone. Love it. Legal does not mean moral. Or right. Putting on a suit and using a paper weapon doesn't make it any more respectable than hiding in an alley and using a steel one. I'm looking forward to Mr. Carmack's position paper.

statictype 18y ago
Well, that post is about 3 and half years old. So don't hold your breath waiting for his position paper :).
- noonespecial 18y ago
  Yeah saw that. Went searching hopefully. Disappointment. Busy guy I guess. In the end though, I'd rather he be making cool stuff than messing around with patent nonsense, whatever side he's on.
  - aaronblohowiak 18y ago
    Not non-sense,m actually. Quite the opposite. This is comapany and industry-ruining stuff. To continue on oblivious to the law and the effect that industry leaders like Carmack can have on the law is nonsense.
    - arockwell 18y ago
      Do you think John Carmack's time is better spent writing 3d engines or lobbying congress?
      - dice 18y ago
        Hidden third option: building space rockets and driving Ferraris.
        arockwell 18y ago
        Touche.

deleted 18y ago

[deleted]

sharkbrainguy 18y ago
He obviously doesn't use a pseudonym on slashdot.

dzorz 18y ago

Uh, effect -> affect.

GeoJawDguJin 18y ago
The truly elite (or at least, those who think of themselves as such) know that "effect," when used as a verb, is (sort of) a synonym for "cause."
- sokoloff 18y ago
  It's clear from reading Carmack's sentence that he means affect (alter/disturb, in this case negatively so), not the verb form of effect/to cause. (Not that that justifies a grammar flame on HN, but it was at least an accurate flame.)

anewaccountname 18y ago

Carmack isn't just being hypothetical here; he independently came up with "Carmack's Reverse" for rendering shadows and it turned out Creative already had a patent on it; they ended up using it to force Doom 3 to support some crufty proprietary 3d sound system.

GrandMasterBirt 18y ago
Look at the current patent trends. The first company to paten an idea that having people interact via avatars interact in an online world managed by a server was not the first company to come up with the idea. However they are now suing every MMORPG on the market because any game in which users chat with eachother using avatars violate the patent. Apple is doing such things as well patenting things like "a 3d desktop" they don't have to do much just describe a rough idea of one. OOOOOO and my favorite is the company who is suing Apple, MS, Palm, Google due to their exclusive patent on operating systems. I am sure they invented OSes it just a few years ago.

kmavm 18y ago

I work at a commercial software company, for which I've filed and been granted some patents. I do so even though the pittance my company provides as a "patent bonus" doesn't begin to compensate for the paperwork, writing, iterating with a lawyer, etc. involved in the process. In principle, it's possible one of my patents will either defend my employer from litigation, or be a poker chip in some licensing deal in the future, but honestly the odds of that are small. My selfish reason for writing patents is that they provide a way of publicly recording my technical contributions. An alternative venue is academic publications, but that's inherently a crapshoot. Granted patents have your name on them, are freely available unlike a lot of CS journals, and usually provide better technical detail about the problem and solution than a typical 5-page academic CS paper.

lliiffee 18y ago
In what sense are academic publications more a crapshoot than patents? I hope you don't mean that because they might be rejected! That would completely convince me of Carmack's correctness.

erik 18y ago

I recall reading something from Carmack along the lines of "I find it horrrifying that I can't use my own ideas if someone else had the same idea first." It was a very succinct and insightful quote on a problem with patents, but now I can't find a source for the quote. Does anyone know what I'm reffering to?

jwilliams 18y ago
Ok - So - What's the alternative? There are some inventions that take vast amounts of investment, yet are easy to copy.
- JesseAldridge 18y ago
  Government sponsorship of inventors, maybe? Some expert could decide which projects are worth pursuing and fund the research and development. Private companies could then take those inventions and build businesses around them. There could be a large cash prize if the invention ends up being especially valuable.
  - notauser 18y ago
    This is essentially how research universities work. The 'large cash prize' tends to be either tenure or a fat consulting job.
    - gravitycop 18y ago
      This is essentially how research universities work. Research universities do not give away the technologies they develop. They sell or license them for millions of dollars. http://www.google.com/search?q=university+patent+license+million http://www.google.com/search?q=university+patent+license+mil... I believe JesseAldridge above was referring instead to government funding R&D and then simply giving away the technology the way the daguerreotype photographic process was given away. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daguerreotype http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daguerreotype Instead of Daguerre obtaining a French patent, the French government provided a pension for him. In Britain, Miles Berry, acting on Daguerre's behalf, obtained a patent for the daguerreotype process on 14 August 1839. Almost simultaneously, on 19 August 1839, the French government announced the invention as a gift "Free to the World".

incomethax 18y ago

Hmmm... Interesting... Seems like a prisoner's dilemma situation to me. If I was to patent, it would be to my benefit, but it would also hurt the 'other ' I was playing the game with (supposing he didn't patent). I suppose Carmack's position paper would advertise to the world that he is in favor of no patents, thus in this 'multi-round' game he is providing others with the ability to collude with him to keep patents out of his field.

anewaccountname 18y ago
When a product is covered by more than one patent, the patent-holders end up in a tragedy of the commons problem. The commons is the person with the product. He has money he can pay. Each patent holder has a veto over the product and wants to extract as much as they can. One hold-out can ruin it for everyone and every single stake holder often ends up worse off as a result.
- elecengin 18y ago
  The cases you are referring to - where there are blocking patents - generally are resolved with mutual licensing agreements. Of course, there are many exceptions, especially when there are patent trolls involved. In these cases, though, I really wonder the comparative cost of innovation versus licensing battles. Software is still an amazingly open field - given that licensing battles can run into the millions, if that money was invested in R&D could an alternative (superior) method be found? One of the methods that patents were supposed to encourage innovation was by providing reasons to innovate. If you are forced to explore new options and develop your own IP that might be patentable, is that such an awful thing?
  - Retric 18y ago
    Software patents often leave zero room for innovation. Let's say you patent pushing email to a hand held device AND pulling email from a hand held device what are the options? Showing a screen shot of another device that's not hand held? It's still either push or pull. etc.
18y ago

TweedHeads 18y ago

Patents should be valid for one year only, to give a head start to whom had the idea and invested developing it. That willl give them enough time to build a brand (iPhone, Viagra) then it is all open season and everybody can copy and improve on that idea to get an edge, investing their own resources (Zune, Cialis) whether they fail or not is up to the market. You can't blame people for you being a great researcher and a poor marketer. People will reward who can be both.