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I'd like to see a quantitative study on the effects of ridiculous patent laws. Most HNers know that US patent law, and the entire patent system here is broken,

I'd like to see a quantitative study on the effects of ridiculous patent laws. Most HNers know that US patent law, and the entire patent system here is broken, but a quantitative study might be able to convince people who otherwise wouldn't pay any attention to the issue to give it some thought.

nirvana 14y ago
The US Patent law, and the "entire patent system" are not broken. A lot of very vocal HNers like to go on ideological rants along these lines, but when pressed for specifics they generally cannot back them up (eg: they haven't even read the patents in question, or don't know the difference between a utility patent and a design patent, or even what design or utility patents cover.) In fact, I have yet to meet someone who opposes the current patent system who understood what patents are. Anti-IP propaganda claiming that the patent system is "doing damage" by measuring the enforcement of patents against people will be good for ideological arguments but actually be pointless. Because it comes from that lack of understanding of the benefit patents provide. Patents incentivize the publication of inventions so that others, who may not have been up to speed on the state of the art, can come up to speed and start competing. They also disincentivize the need to obfuscate or protect your inventions using physical or technological means, which improves repairability and in fact, enabled the entire standard-component industrial sector we have that has allowed integrated circuits to be such a big part of our lives. Without patents, technological progress would be severely restricted-- not because there "would be no incentive to invent" (a straw-man that anti-IP people seem fond of knocking down) but because there would be vastly less communication and understanding of how other people's inventions work. And like Global Warming and "Quantitative Easing" and other nonsensical, anti-scientific, ideological positions, the proponents, rather than make or defend logical arguments for their positions, tend to use signaling like "most HNers know the US Patent law... is broken". You just presume your conclusion, and a lot of others do as well, which is why they can't make arguments and instead are forced to downvote or shout down those who make counter arguments. Since having a good argument (with well researched citations) is not a defense against downvotes on HN, your claim becomes self fulfilling-- anyone who might challenge the ideology of anti-IP with facts, logic or reason, is downvoted so you don't have to see them. Which, ironically, is why I'm posting this here. Becuase I really, really, hate to see the single mindedness, and cheering that groupthink. So, if you want to claim that the system is broken, feel free to make an argument, and feel free to account for the factors I briefly touched on.
- ericdykstra 14y ago
  I'm not an expert on patents in the least, but the system feels broken when a company can be awarded $1B from a patent infringement lawsuit. From what I've read (I'll add sources as I find them), the patent process takes more than two years on average to get approved, patent examiners are given patents that they don't have domain expertise in, and they don't get enough time to review patents. It seems, on the outside, that lots of money and time is spent on patent lawsuits and purchasing patent portfolios and none of it really leads to the advancement of anything besides lawyers and lawsuits. Do you think the patent system is fine how it is, or is there reform you would like to see?
  - rayiner 14y ago
    Here's a counter example: ARM. In ARM's case, patents serve a valuable purpose: they allow a separation of concerns. The company that designs the microprocessor does not have to be the company that builds things using the microprocessor. Allowing ARM to focus on what they do best--designing microprocessors, and allowing say Samsung to focus on what they do best, manufacturing things, helps everyone. The patent in this case is simply a legal device that allows people to transact in terms of a design. Also, looking at the outlier damages award from a patent infringement isn't really meaningful, in the same way that looking at the damages award for medical malpractice isn't really meaningful. Occasionally, you'll have a jury that awards someone $10m for a stubbed toe, but if you look at comprehensive studies of medical malpractice suits you'll see that: 1) most of the time the jury is right; 2) the actual overhead of the system is 1-3% of a $1.5 trillion industry, which is tied to a profession that is otherwise almost entirely self-regulated. People tend to focus on the damages awards and think "oh that's costing the economy money" but obviously damages awards just shift money from one place to the other. The "cost" is in the litigation fees and how the law changes peoples' incentives, and that's much harder to evaluate than just looking at a big $100m judgment.
    - SoftwareMaven 14y ago
      This doesn't make sense to me. Are you saying that, without patents, ARM couldn't license it's designs to Samsung? Why not? Or are you saying ARM wouldn't be able to stay in business because Samsung would just steal their designs? I don't think that is true, for the exact "expert" reasons you mention: ARM is great at designing processors. If Samsung wants reasonable updates to stay competitive with other manufacturers, they would need to pay for those experts.
rayiner 14y ago
Most HN-ers don't know anything of the sort. They suspect it based on confirmation bias and gut feelings, but they don't "know" it.

nirvana 14y ago

The US Patent law, and the "entire patent system" are not broken. A lot of very vocal HNers like to go on ideological rants along these lines, but when pressed for specifics they generally cannot back them up (eg: they haven't even read the patents in question, or don't know the difference between a utility patent and a design patent, or even what design or utility patents cover.) In fact, I have yet to meet someone who opposes the current patent system who understood what patents are. Anti-IP propaganda claiming that the patent system is "doing damage" by measuring the enforcement of patents against people will be good for ideological arguments but actually be pointless. Because it comes from that lack of understanding of the benefit patents provide. Patents incentivize the publication of inventions so that others, who may not have been up to speed on the state of the art, can come up to speed and start competing. They also disincentivize the need to obfuscate or protect your inventions using physical or technological means, which improves repairability and in fact, enabled the entire standard-component industrial sector we have that has allowed integrated circuits to be such a big part of our lives. Without patents, technological progress would be severely restricted-- not because there "would be no incentive to invent" (a straw-man that anti-IP people seem fond of knocking down) but because there would be vastly less communication and understanding of how other people's inventions work. And like Global Warming and "Quantitative Easing" and other nonsensical, anti-scientific, ideological positions, the proponents, rather than make or defend logical arguments for their positions, tend to use signaling like "most HNers know the US Patent law... is broken". You just presume your conclusion, and a lot of others do as well, which is why they can't make arguments and instead are forced to downvote or shout down those who make counter arguments. Since having a good argument (with well researched citations) is not a defense against downvotes on HN, your claim becomes self fulfilling-- anyone who might challenge the ideology of anti-IP with facts, logic or reason, is downvoted so you don't have to see them. Which, ironically, is why I'm posting this here. Becuase I really, really, hate to see the single mindedness, and cheering that groupthink. So, if you want to claim that the system is broken, feel free to make an argument, and feel free to account for the factors I briefly touched on.

ericdykstra 14y ago
I'm not an expert on patents in the least, but the system feels broken when a company can be awarded $1B from a patent infringement lawsuit. From what I've read (I'll add sources as I find them), the patent process takes more than two years on average to get approved, patent examiners are given patents that they don't have domain expertise in, and they don't get enough time to review patents. It seems, on the outside, that lots of money and time is spent on patent lawsuits and purchasing patent portfolios and none of it really leads to the advancement of anything besides lawyers and lawsuits. Do you think the patent system is fine how it is, or is there reform you would like to see?
- rayiner 14y ago
  Here's a counter example: ARM. In ARM's case, patents serve a valuable purpose: they allow a separation of concerns. The company that designs the microprocessor does not have to be the company that builds things using the microprocessor. Allowing ARM to focus on what they do best--designing microprocessors, and allowing say Samsung to focus on what they do best, manufacturing things, helps everyone. The patent in this case is simply a legal device that allows people to transact in terms of a design. Also, looking at the outlier damages award from a patent infringement isn't really meaningful, in the same way that looking at the damages award for medical malpractice isn't really meaningful. Occasionally, you'll have a jury that awards someone $10m for a stubbed toe, but if you look at comprehensive studies of medical malpractice suits you'll see that: 1) most of the time the jury is right; 2) the actual overhead of the system is 1-3% of a $1.5 trillion industry, which is tied to a profession that is otherwise almost entirely self-regulated. People tend to focus on the damages awards and think "oh that's costing the economy money" but obviously damages awards just shift money from one place to the other. The "cost" is in the litigation fees and how the law changes peoples' incentives, and that's much harder to evaluate than just looking at a big $100m judgment.
  - SoftwareMaven 14y ago
    This doesn't make sense to me. Are you saying that, without patents, ARM couldn't license it's designs to Samsung? Why not? Or are you saying ARM wouldn't be able to stay in business because Samsung would just steal their designs? I don't think that is true, for the exact "expert" reasons you mention: ARM is great at designing processors. If Samsung wants reasonable updates to stay competitive with other manufacturers, they would need to pay for those experts.

rayiner 14y ago

Most HN-ers don't know anything of the sort. They suspect it based on confirmation bias and gut feelings, but they don't "know" it.