5 ms·

I used to think they were entirely useless, but since then I've learned of many instances where a much better technology is developed because the first iteratio

I used to think they were entirely useless, but since then I've learned of many instances where a much better technology is developed because the first iteration is patented. For example, the Wright brothers biggest contribution to aviation was suing everyone using wing warping (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wright_brothers_patent_war https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wright_brothers_patent_war) which greatly advanced the adoption of the much more advanced ailerons. Software patents have a similar effect, for example Cisco's patent on Virtual Router Redundancy Protocol led to the development of the more secure and more capable Common Address Redundancy Protocol (https://jacobfilipp.com/DrDobbs/articles/SA/v14/i05/a6.htm https://jacobfilipp.com/DrDobbs/articles/SA/v14/i05/a6.htm). We tend to invest heavily in whatever we can get working first, but it's rarely close to an ideal way of doing something. By pushing every developer to find a newer, better way of doing something, patents prevent stagnation and lead to more advanced technologies.

cogman10 2mo ago
This sort of benefit in software can be realized with much shorter terms. A 5 or 10 year term would accomplish pretty much all the same benefits. 25 years is just way too long for software.
- dlcarrier 2mo ago
  The benefit comes from no one ever using the earlier inferior versions.
  - cogman10 2mo ago
    Correct. 5 years is long enough to kill off inferior standards and let superior ones blossom.
    - mrheosuper 2mo ago
      if it's inferior, why does it matter if it's 5 years or 25 years ?
    - stonedivot 2mo ago
      Why do you think it always only takes 5 years to develop some superior technology? 5 years seems like a short enough time frame that a company would rather just wait out the patent than invest heavily in R&D in the off chance they come up with a viable alternative (that now of course THEY can only protect for 5 years)
autoexec 2mo ago
> Cisco's patent on Virtual Router Redundancy Protocol led to the development of the more secure and more capable Common Address Redundancy Protocol This seems like a success story in spite of software patents, not because of them. Just because they were forced to develop a new protocol in order to avoid getting sued for using Cisco's doesn't mean that they wouldn't still have improved on what Cisco had if they'd been allowed to use and modify it freely. The lack of lawsuits hanging over everyone's head certainly hasn't prevented innovation from happening in FOSS.
fluoridation 2mo ago
Having people create new technology to avoid arbitrary legal hurdles instead of adopting existing and perfectly functional technology doesn't seem particularly efficient.
- shibapuppie 2mo ago
  Trying to harp on anyone here about "efficiency" is going to fall on deaf ears. Whether it's single passenger cars or AI, nobody really understands how inefficient they and their lives are.
- SoftTalker 2mo ago
  The intent of the patent system is to encourage publishing innovation in exchange for rights to it for a period of time, and then everyone gets to use it. IMO the biggest problem has been granting patents for inventions that at least in retrospect seem non-novel or obvious. I get that there's a grey area there at some point, but "one click ordering" is one that comes to mind. Just because someone hasn't done it exactly like that before, should not make such a simple idea patentable. And I think patents should be on specific implementations, not general ideas. If I can implement the end-user experience of one-click ordering without substantially copying Amazon's underlying technology, that should be fair to do.
  - fluoridation 2mo ago
    >the biggest problem has been granting patents for inventions that at least in retrospect seem non-novel or obvious. I don't agree that that's the biggest problem. I think the biggest problem is that patents are abused to stifle competition by refusing licenses or putting untenable fees on them. No one would have cared about Nintendo's D-pad patent if they'd just put a reasonable license fee on it. On the other hand, a patent like MP3 I would argue is quite legitimate, but putting a patent on a coded just makes interoperability more difficult. If MPEG had charged licenses for decoding chips and explicitly allowed software implementations, that would have things so much more smoother.
    - 2mo ago
anthk 2mo ago
Now imagine what would happened if Euclid's books (and Newton's Principia) were Copyrighted until today.
- foobar1962 2mo ago
  That's confusing copyright with patents. The right to publish Newton's books is separate from being able to apply the knowledge which a patent protects. Note that math equations cannot be patented.
  - deleted 2mo ago
    [deleted]
  - anthk 2mo ago
    > Note that math equations cannot be patented. RSA can if you equal factors to 0.
AnimalMuppet 2mo ago
The Wright brothers sued Curtiss specifically for ailerons, and won. Ailerons were ruled to be a form of wing warping.
jquery 2mo ago
I’m not sure how you can read that Wright Brothers wiki article and come away thinking patents worked in America’s favor…
- msie 2mo ago
  Maybe dlcarrier is AI?
somat 2mo ago
The wright brothers patent was not on wing warping, it was on controlling a vehicle in the air. In short the Wright brothers did not invent the aeroplane they invented how to control a aeroplane. https://www.wright-brothers.org/History_Wing/Wright_Story/Showing_the_World/Politics_&_Patents/Patent_821343.htm https://www.wright-brothers.org/History_Wing/Wright_Story/Sh... "We wish it to be understood, however, that our invention is not limited to this particular construction, since any construction whereby the angular relations of the lateral margins of the aeroplanes may be varied in opposite directions with respect to the normal planes of said aeroplanes comes within the scope of our invention." Some people (Curtis) felt this claim was far too encompassing and should not be enforced. But I don't know, These guys just spent a decade working out an entirely new discipline, aeronautical control. And you don't think they deserve exclusive exploitation rights to that discipline for the next 20 years?
- mulmen 2mo ago
  > And you don't think they deserve exclusive exploitation rights to that discipline for the next 20 years? 20 years is the midpoint between the Wright Brother’s flight and operational jet fighters. They won the race but it was very much a competition. If Orville and Wilbur didn’t cross the line first then Maxim or Langley would have. They all built on George Cayley’s work. So no, I don’t think the first one to file a plausible patent should get exclusive rights. It should at least extend to contemporaries. And we should consider the cost to innovation when breakthroughs are artificially constrained for what amounts to multiple technological generations.
  - natpalmer1776 2mo ago
    Very much this. The incentive to create and invent is often largely financial, however that incentive need not be constructed as “winner takes all” rather we should lift each other up in our mutual accomplishments. Unfortunately in my own ruminating on the topic the only practical alternatives seem to be one or more variations on the scary boogey man of socialism.
    - WalterBright 2mo ago
deleted 2mo ago
[deleted]
wmf 2mo ago
For every case like this, there's a patent on an optimal method which forces everyone to use suboptimal workarounds.
StingyJelly 2mo ago
The fact that some innovations succeeded despite having to tiptoe around patents is more of an example of survivorship bias. When we get something working first, there are probably some optimal partial solutions there. Working around the patent means having to do some things inefficiently while being able to provide better efficiency or cost of the overall system. In my work, I all too often see that the obvious optimal solution we come up with turns out to be patented and we are spending time on finding least bad worse solution. (unless our patent lawywers manage to pussh through a patent for the same thing with different wording, like measuring period instead of measuring frequency) In some cases it is not possible. For example, 3D printing was held back for 20 years just because of sleeping patents.
PunchyHamster 2mo ago
Well if the best examples you could come up with are: * from 100 years ago, one that would happen anyway because tech progresses, patents or not * one that that wasn't correct one as they didn't patent VRRP (which was another open source competition to it), they tried to patent troll it and both of them were "proper use", not "we will try to make our patent as wide as possible so we can stifle any competition"... I think the claim of being entirely useless, at least in most spaces is very valid. There are some techs that take years and millions (medical drugs come into mind), but vast majority of patents are just stifling technical progress, and especially on software side
benj111 2mo ago
Further. In fields like medicine, you have a huge upfront research cost. Patents allow them to recoup that research cost. Patents (and copyright) aren't bad. It when it becomes too broad. Not reflective of the effort involved, or too long lasting when it becomes an issue. Fwiw, early steam engines were also patented, and that slowed down development until the patents expired.

cogman10 2mo ago

This sort of benefit in software can be realized with much shorter terms. A 5 or 10 year term would accomplish pretty much all the same benefits. 25 years is just way too long for software.

dlcarrier 2mo ago
The benefit comes from no one ever using the earlier inferior versions.
- cogman10 2mo ago
  Correct. 5 years is long enough to kill off inferior standards and let superior ones blossom.
  - mrheosuper 2mo ago
    if it's inferior, why does it matter if it's 5 years or 25 years ?
  - stonedivot 2mo ago
    Why do you think it always only takes 5 years to develop some superior technology? 5 years seems like a short enough time frame that a company would rather just wait out the patent than invest heavily in R&D in the off chance they come up with a viable alternative (that now of course THEY can only protect for 5 years)

autoexec 2mo ago

> Cisco's patent on Virtual Router Redundancy Protocol led to the development of the more secure and more capable Common Address Redundancy Protocol This seems like a success story in spite of software patents, not because of them. Just because they were forced to develop a new protocol in order to avoid getting sued for using Cisco's doesn't mean that they wouldn't still have improved on what Cisco had if they'd been allowed to use and modify it freely. The lack of lawsuits hanging over everyone's head certainly hasn't prevented innovation from happening in FOSS.

fluoridation 2mo ago

Having people create new technology to avoid arbitrary legal hurdles instead of adopting existing and perfectly functional technology doesn't seem particularly efficient.

shibapuppie 2mo ago
Trying to harp on anyone here about "efficiency" is going to fall on deaf ears. Whether it's single passenger cars or AI, nobody really understands how inefficient they and their lives are.
SoftTalker 2mo ago
The intent of the patent system is to encourage publishing innovation in exchange for rights to it for a period of time, and then everyone gets to use it. IMO the biggest problem has been granting patents for inventions that at least in retrospect seem non-novel or obvious. I get that there's a grey area there at some point, but "one click ordering" is one that comes to mind. Just because someone hasn't done it exactly like that before, should not make such a simple idea patentable. And I think patents should be on specific implementations, not general ideas. If I can implement the end-user experience of one-click ordering without substantially copying Amazon's underlying technology, that should be fair to do.
- fluoridation 2mo ago
  >the biggest problem has been granting patents for inventions that at least in retrospect seem non-novel or obvious. I don't agree that that's the biggest problem. I think the biggest problem is that patents are abused to stifle competition by refusing licenses or putting untenable fees on them. No one would have cared about Nintendo's D-pad patent if they'd just put a reasonable license fee on it. On the other hand, a patent like MP3 I would argue is quite legitimate, but putting a patent on a coded just makes interoperability more difficult. If MPEG had charged licenses for decoding chips and explicitly allowed software implementations, that would have things so much more smoother.
  - 2mo ago

anthk 2mo ago

Now imagine what would happened if Euclid's books (and Newton's Principia) were Copyrighted until today.

foobar1962 2mo ago
That's confusing copyright with patents. The right to publish Newton's books is separate from being able to apply the knowledge which a patent protects. Note that math equations cannot be patented.
- deleted 2mo ago
  [deleted]
- anthk 2mo ago
  > Note that math equations cannot be patented. RSA can if you equal factors to 0.

AnimalMuppet 2mo ago

The Wright brothers sued Curtiss specifically for ailerons, and won. Ailerons were ruled to be a form of wing warping.

jquery 2mo ago

I’m not sure how you can read that Wright Brothers wiki article and come away thinking patents worked in America’s favor…

msie 2mo ago
Maybe dlcarrier is AI?

somat 2mo ago

The wright brothers patent was not on wing warping, it was on controlling a vehicle in the air. In short the Wright brothers did not invent the aeroplane they invented how to control a aeroplane. https://www.wright-brothers.org/History_Wing/Wright_Story/Showing_the_World/Politics_&_Patents/Patent_821343.htm https://www.wright-brothers.org/History_Wing/Wright_Story/Sh... "We wish it to be understood, however, that our invention is not limited to this particular construction, since any construction whereby the angular relations of the lateral margins of the aeroplanes may be varied in opposite directions with respect to the normal planes of said aeroplanes comes within the scope of our invention." Some people (Curtis) felt this claim was far too encompassing and should not be enforced. But I don't know, These guys just spent a decade working out an entirely new discipline, aeronautical control. And you don't think they deserve exclusive exploitation rights to that discipline for the next 20 years?

mulmen 2mo ago
> And you don't think they deserve exclusive exploitation rights to that discipline for the next 20 years? 20 years is the midpoint between the Wright Brother’s flight and operational jet fighters. They won the race but it was very much a competition. If Orville and Wilbur didn’t cross the line first then Maxim or Langley would have. They all built on George Cayley’s work. So no, I don’t think the first one to file a plausible patent should get exclusive rights. It should at least extend to contemporaries. And we should consider the cost to innovation when breakthroughs are artificially constrained for what amounts to multiple technological generations.
- natpalmer1776 2mo ago
  Very much this. The incentive to create and invent is often largely financial, however that incentive need not be constructed as “winner takes all” rather we should lift each other up in our mutual accomplishments. Unfortunately in my own ruminating on the topic the only practical alternatives seem to be one or more variations on the scary boogey man of socialism.
  - WalterBright 2mo ago

deleted 2mo ago

[deleted]

wmf 2mo ago

For every case like this, there's a patent on an optimal method which forces everyone to use suboptimal workarounds.

StingyJelly 2mo ago

The fact that some innovations succeeded despite having to tiptoe around patents is more of an example of survivorship bias. When we get something working first, there are probably some optimal partial solutions there. Working around the patent means having to do some things inefficiently while being able to provide better efficiency or cost of the overall system. In my work, I all too often see that the obvious optimal solution we come up with turns out to be patented and we are spending time on finding least bad worse solution. (unless our patent lawywers manage to pussh through a patent for the same thing with different wording, like measuring period instead of measuring frequency) In some cases it is not possible. For example, 3D printing was held back for 20 years just because of sleeping patents.

PunchyHamster 2mo ago

Well if the best examples you could come up with are: * from 100 years ago, one that would happen anyway because tech progresses, patents or not * one that that wasn't correct one as they didn't patent VRRP (which was another open source competition to it), they tried to patent troll it and both of them were "proper use", not "we will try to make our patent as wide as possible so we can stifle any competition"... I think the claim of being entirely useless, at least in most spaces is very valid. There are some techs that take years and millions (medical drugs come into mind), but vast majority of patents are just stifling technical progress, and especially on software side

benj111 2mo ago

Further. In fields like medicine, you have a huge upfront research cost. Patents allow them to recoup that research cost. Patents (and copyright) aren't bad. It when it becomes too broad. Not reflective of the effort involved, or too long lasting when it becomes an issue. Fwiw, early steam engines were also patented, and that slowed down development until the patents expired.