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Yes. This part is worth repeating even though it says the same thing as the GP (I cleaned it up slightly): "Patents are usually discussed in the context of som

by gruseom 14y ago

Yes. This part is worth repeating even though it says the same thing as the GP (I cleaned it up slightly): "Patents are usually discussed in the context of someone "stealing" an idea from the long suffering lone inventor that devoted his life to creating this one brilliant idea, blah blah blah. But in the majority of cases in software, patents affect independent invention. Get a dozen sharp programmers together, give them all a hard problem to work on, and a bunch of them will come up with solutions that would probably be patentable, and be similar enough that the first programmer to file the patent could sue the others for patent infringement. Why should society reward that?" Carmack put his finger on precisely what bothers me as a programmer about software patents.

krickle 14y ago
This is a very good explaination of why it is wrong. It all boils down to the fact that patent examiners apparently cannot be well-versed in every possible domain and therefore don't realize what is trivial or not. They give patents to each of the ten guys, when a patent should only be issued after ten guys' research of many months (if at all).
- gruseom 14y ago
  It's not just about what's trivial, though many patents are. It's that you can work hard to solve a problem independently and then legally be attacked for infringing some claim you knew nothing about. One thing puzzles me. The social utility of patents is supposed to be that they spread knowledge, because otherwise people would keep their discoveries secret. Well, how many people make use of the "knowledge" in software patents to further their work? When was the last time any of us said, "Gee, this is hard, I'll do a patent search to see if anyone has solved it"? The very question sounds like a joke. In other words, regardless of what one thinks about software patents in theory, in practice their positive uses are negligible compared to their negative ones.
  - SimonPStevens 14y ago
    That's not the sole utility of patents. While it is part of the agreed exchange (temporary monopoly in exchange for publication), patents are also intended to encourage research and innovation. Who would bother spending time and money on research if the outcome was easily copied by competitors before you could recover your costs. (admittedly, this doesn't quite work out that way with many software patents). The publication of the patent itself is more of a side effect of the desired outcome. Also, just because you don't read patents doesn't mean nobody does. I would guess it's more of a trickle down effect. University professors and researchers read patents and use it to expand and continue research and gradually for the good patents by the time the patent has expired the knowledge it imparted has diffused into the working participants in the field.
    - Schwolop 14y ago
      Bollocks. No university professor or researcher I know reads patents - we read journal papers and conference proceedings that describe the work in our language. Patents are written in legal language such that I can't even decipher patents written about my own work.
      - gbhn 14y ago
        I'm kind of surprised there isn't more patent defense on the doctrine of teachability. That is, my defense is that your patent is written such that it doesn't teach me how to do what you did, therefore it is invalid, no matter what the content. I think it would be great to see the courts adopt that standard. It's there in the law, and repairs the problem of the obviousness standard, which is to say that the patent troll just pays some expert to say "it isn't obvious to me!" and done. But teachability is a much more defense-friendly requirement: the jury typically won't be able to understand it, so if the defense brings a line of smart people who say "this is gibberish" that ought to be very compelling.
        gruseom 14y ago
        That's such a great idea that I wonder what legal barriers there are against using it. There are a few patent lawyers on HN. Maybe one of them can explain.

by gruseom 14y ago

krickle 14y ago

This is a very good explaination of why it is wrong. It all boils down to the fact that patent examiners apparently cannot be well-versed in every possible domain and therefore don't realize what is trivial or not. They give patents to each of the ten guys, when a patent should only be issued after ten guys' research of many months (if at all).

gruseom 14y ago
It's not just about what's trivial, though many patents are. It's that you can work hard to solve a problem independently and then legally be attacked for infringing some claim you knew nothing about. One thing puzzles me. The social utility of patents is supposed to be that they spread knowledge, because otherwise people would keep their discoveries secret. Well, how many people make use of the "knowledge" in software patents to further their work? When was the last time any of us said, "Gee, this is hard, I'll do a patent search to see if anyone has solved it"? The very question sounds like a joke. In other words, regardless of what one thinks about software patents in theory, in practice their positive uses are negligible compared to their negative ones.
- SimonPStevens 14y ago
  That's not the sole utility of patents. While it is part of the agreed exchange (temporary monopoly in exchange for publication), patents are also intended to encourage research and innovation. Who would bother spending time and money on research if the outcome was easily copied by competitors before you could recover your costs. (admittedly, this doesn't quite work out that way with many software patents). The publication of the patent itself is more of a side effect of the desired outcome. Also, just because you don't read patents doesn't mean nobody does. I would guess it's more of a trickle down effect. University professors and researchers read patents and use it to expand and continue research and gradually for the good patents by the time the patent has expired the knowledge it imparted has diffused into the working participants in the field.
  - Schwolop 14y ago
    Bollocks. No university professor or researcher I know reads patents - we read journal papers and conference proceedings that describe the work in our language. Patents are written in legal language such that I can't even decipher patents written about my own work.
    - gbhn 14y ago
      I'm kind of surprised there isn't more patent defense on the doctrine of teachability. That is, my defense is that your patent is written such that it doesn't teach me how to do what you did, therefore it is invalid, no matter what the content. I think it would be great to see the courts adopt that standard. It's there in the law, and repairs the problem of the obviousness standard, which is to say that the patent troll just pays some expert to say "it isn't obvious to me!" and done. But teachability is a much more defense-friendly requirement: the jury typically won't be able to understand it, so if the defense brings a line of smart people who say "this is gibberish" that ought to be very compelling.
      - gruseom 14y ago
        That's such a great idea that I wonder what legal barriers there are against using it. There are a few patent lawyers on HN. Maybe one of them can explain.