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

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.
  - account42 2mo ago
    It would be better to allow codec patents only on the encoder. Once you have encoded data, there is only one valid way to decode it so everyone should be able to implement that. That is, the general decoding mechanism at least - you could still have novel implementation details.
    - fluoridation 2mo ago
      Eh. It would be better, yes. I still think it would suck.
- thayne 2mo ago
  That's one problem. 25 years is also a really long time in fast moving fields like software, microchips, etc. And the format the invention is "published" as is essentially a legal document, often largely written by lawyers for a target audience of patent clerks and other lawyers, not a technical specification written for engineers and scientists. And the is an incentive to omit or obscure details important to actually replicating the invention.
deleted 2mo ago
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kelseyfrog 2mo ago
Why can't the market work it out on its own? People will buy superior products. Governments mucking around with things like patents only distorts markets in ways that make them inefficient, and ultimately worse. Anyone who thinks the government's intervention improves things hasn't been at the business end of the government.

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.
- account42 2mo ago
  It would be better to allow codec patents only on the encoder. Once you have encoded data, there is only one valid way to decode it so everyone should be able to implement that. That is, the general decoding mechanism at least - you could still have novel implementation details.
  - fluoridation 2mo ago
    Eh. It would be better, yes. I still think it would suck.
thayne 2mo ago
That's one problem. 25 years is also a really long time in fast moving fields like software, microchips, etc. And the format the invention is "published" as is essentially a legal document, often largely written by lawyers for a target audience of patent clerks and other lawyers, not a technical specification written for engineers and scientists. And the is an incentive to omit or obscure details important to actually replicating the invention.

deleted 2mo ago

[deleted]

kelseyfrog 2mo ago

Why can't the market work it out on its own? People will buy superior products. Governments mucking around with things like patents only distorts markets in ways that make them inefficient, and ultimately worse. Anyone who thinks the government's intervention improves things hasn't been at the business end of the government.