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Not necessarily. If you amend the way in which patents are granted, tighten the criteria for a grantable patent, and change the ways patents are enforced, you h

Not necessarily. If you amend the way in which patents are granted, tighten the criteria for a grantable patent, and change the ways patents are enforced, you have a chance to reform the system. What you say could be true, but don't throw the baby out with the bath water until you've tried other ways first. EDIT: This is also a technology issue. If patent offices had a better understanding of Wi-Fi and practical applications of public internet, a patent wouldn't be granted to Innovatio that would give them a legal position, and this circumstance wouldn't arise. Keep the patent system, but educate the system on rapid technology advances. It's stale, but amendable.

Kliment 14y ago
I personally now believe the patent system deserves to die in its entirety. It is not producing any value, it is not resulting in any innovation, it just strikes fear into the hearts of those of us who would dare attempt to make something meaningful.
- potatolicious 14y ago
  This is a common belief in the software industry - and almost only in the software industry. Software patents != all patents There are fields where R&D costs are astronomical, and patents are a barrier that allows this enormous amount of money to be spent. Keep in mind that software patents are only a tiny slice of the whole patent pie.
  - arbuge 14y ago
    I agree with this last part. Pharmaceutical patents for example come to mind. Those are clearly not software/methodology/business process patents though - I don't think recognizing them would be difficult.
    - betterunix 14y ago
      I have a different take on pharmaceutical patents: the research costs could largely be covered with NIH grants, and the pharmaceutical companies should only be in the position of producing the drugs that grant-funded research discovers. Why should the public have to pay absurdly high prices for medication because of the special treatment big pharma gets from the government? Let the pharmaceutical companies compete, and we can get our medications at a fraction of the price (and maybe not have to rely on the notoriously abusive health insurance companies just to do what our doctors tell us to do). While we are at it, let's disband the DEA and stop protecting the pharmaceutical companies' market from drugs we could be growing in our backyards.
      - potatolicious 14y ago
        > "While we are at it, let's disband the DEA and stop protecting the pharmaceutical companies' market from drugs we could be growing in our backyards." Drugs != marijuana - the DEA's mandate extends well beyond that of policing pot use. There are plenty of chemical substances of substantial and extreme harm that are currently under the umbrella of the DEA and shouldn't leave it. It's somewhat funny that this is in the same thread as "a small segment of patents are bad, specifically the patents I deal with personally, so let's dismantle the whole system", since your stance seems to break down to "some drugs are wrongly regulated, specifically the drugs I deal with personally, so let's dismantle the whole system".
        pstuart 14y ago
        Sorry, but I'll have to disagree. The DEA operates in the criminal realm and doesn't care about health (it only cares about itself, really). The only drug enforcement we need is an FDA that ensures that what is on the label matches what is in the product itself, and that standards are set for guidance in their use. If you want to worry about dangerous drugs being available on the streets you should start with alcohol and tobacco.
        betterunix 14y ago
        Do you really think that marijuana is the only drug you can grow in your backyard? Do you think it is the only drug that can easily be grown that also has medical uses? The drugs described in the article could be grown and purified at home. "There are plenty of chemical substances of substantial and extreme harm" Care to actually name any? Really, you are approaching drug policy from entirely the wrong angle. The DEA is a paramilitary agency, one that has the power to declare drugs to be illegal without any democratic process at all, and which has the legal authority to seize property and then use the proceeds from the sale of that property in its own budget. Thousands of innocent people have been killed by DEA assaults on civilian homes, for being in the wrong place at the wrong time or just because of bad information from informants. Health and safety are, in practice, completely irrelevant to the DEA. That the DEA works for the benefit of the pharmaceutical industry is not in question anymore. The Obama administration released emails related to the healthcare bill that paint a clear quid-pro-quo picture: stronger DEA action against illegal drug imports and medical marijuana programs in exchange for pharmaceutical lobbyists supporting the bill. "some drugs are wrongly regulated" Almost all useful drugs are wrongly regulated. There is no recognition of the reality that recreational drugs will be used regardless of the law. This has not only led to a steady source of income for criminals, but also to terrible tragedies in the past. In the 1980s, several people who wanted to use heroine developed Parkinson's disease after a drug dealer attempted to sell a legal alternative, MPPP, but so accidentally produced poisonous MPTP, a Parkinson's-inducing agent (ironically, MPPP is now illegal; MPTP is not illegal, despite being one of the most dangerous substances a person can ingest). Recreational drug users have no way to know what dose or purity they are buying, nor even if they are actually buying the drug they expect, with only two exceptions: alcohol and tobacco. So when a drug user goes to the doctor, what can they say? "I have been ingesting a white powder some criminal sold me. I think it is cocaine." That does not promote public health by any stretch of the imagination; by contrast, an tobacco user can tell their doctor about their habit in a way that is useful: "I smoke a pack of cigarettes each week," or perhaps, "I smoke a cigar once every 4-5 months." When some guy is found nude in the woods after having used something labeled "bath salts," we really have no way to know what happened -- did he overdose on MDPV, or was it just a lot of caffeine, or perhaps some drug that we have never seen before? "let's dismantle the whole system" You make it sound as though the system established by the controlled substances act has some merit or utility. In reality, it is a system without any constructive purpose at all, which serves only to inflate the profits of certain well-connected corporations, to serve the interests of police and prison guard unions, and to give the government a way to continue to oppress certain minorities despite clear laws protecting people from such oppression. The controlled substances act also gives the executive branch tremendous power, allowing the creation of new prohibition law without an act of congress; this power was recently used to ban several synthetic cannibinoids and MDPV. The executive branch can also overrule the DHHS and FDA recommendations on drug scheduling, having famously done so for MDMA. So unless you can point to something useful the DEA and the controlled substances act have accomplished, I see no reason to assume that disbanding a combination law enforcement agency, intelligence agency, and paramilitary force would be a bad thing. Repeal the CSA and replace it with sensible regulations on drugs and constructive policies that promote human health, and you'll have pushed society forward.
    - Jach 14y ago
      Pharmaceutical patents do not help the case for patents at all. http://levine.sscnet.ucla.edu/papers/imbookfinal09.pdf http://levine.sscnet.ucla.edu/papers/imbookfinal09.pdf
    - Peaker 14y ago
      The Pirate Party wrote a good rebuttal of this: http://www2.piratpartiet.se/an_alternative_to_pharmaceutical_patents http://www2.piratpartiet.se/an_alternative_to_pharmaceutical...
  - mikeash 14y ago
    Patents are supposed to be an exchange. "You tell us how your invention works so other people can take advantage, and in return we'll give you the ability to make money from people using it for a while." I don't think it's software versus non-software, but really just a matter of how high the bar is set to actually obtain a patent. If you can obtain a patent for any random thing a competent person could come up with in an hour, then there's no utility to be had in making the invention public. When patents work well (and I'm sure they do in many cases), people will want to search for patents that cover what they're trying to do, because if they find anything good, it'll save them a lot of effort to license the patent rather than invent things from scratch. Imagine having a really hard software problem, and searching the patent database for something that could help. In an ideal world, you might run across something useful, contact the patent holder, and work out a licensing arrangement. In our world, you're unlikely to find anything good, and if you do, the holder is unlikely to be willing to license it to you fairly. Meanwhile, there's a good chance of coming across a stupid patent that applies to what you're doing, that doesn't tell you anything you couldn't come up with on your own, but that you now would owe triple damages for if you used it, because it's willful infringement now that you know about the patent. In short, the patent system can be useful, but the system must ensure that patents are only awarded for inventions that deserve it. If you can somehow pull that off, I think the whole question of whether it should be possible to patent software would more or less go away.
  - Kliment 14y ago
    I work in hardware.
JulianMorrison 14y ago
I think that reforming the system would be harder, more precarious, and not worth the bother. It would be a lot of fuss and hard to interest reformers in, while easily arousing lobbying pushback from trolls. There would be continual pressure to compromise the purity of a well tuned working system into something that still has room for the trolls to continue their trolling. And when the spotlight was off it, it would start to slip back towards the way it was, with extension bills being nodded through. Honestly it'd be both simpler to rouse interest for, and simpler to argue for, a total repeal. The squawking would be louder, but the final result would throw the ball back into the troll's court - to sneakily extend something is a lot easier than to re-implement it when it has been scrapped entirely.

Kliment 14y ago

I personally now believe the patent system deserves to die in its entirety. It is not producing any value, it is not resulting in any innovation, it just strikes fear into the hearts of those of us who would dare attempt to make something meaningful.

potatolicious 14y ago
This is a common belief in the software industry - and almost only in the software industry. Software patents != all patents There are fields where R&D costs are astronomical, and patents are a barrier that allows this enormous amount of money to be spent. Keep in mind that software patents are only a tiny slice of the whole patent pie.
- arbuge 14y ago
  I agree with this last part. Pharmaceutical patents for example come to mind. Those are clearly not software/methodology/business process patents though - I don't think recognizing them would be difficult.
  - betterunix 14y ago
    I have a different take on pharmaceutical patents: the research costs could largely be covered with NIH grants, and the pharmaceutical companies should only be in the position of producing the drugs that grant-funded research discovers. Why should the public have to pay absurdly high prices for medication because of the special treatment big pharma gets from the government? Let the pharmaceutical companies compete, and we can get our medications at a fraction of the price (and maybe not have to rely on the notoriously abusive health insurance companies just to do what our doctors tell us to do). While we are at it, let's disband the DEA and stop protecting the pharmaceutical companies' market from drugs we could be growing in our backyards.
    - potatolicious 14y ago
      > "While we are at it, let's disband the DEA and stop protecting the pharmaceutical companies' market from drugs we could be growing in our backyards." Drugs != marijuana - the DEA's mandate extends well beyond that of policing pot use. There are plenty of chemical substances of substantial and extreme harm that are currently under the umbrella of the DEA and shouldn't leave it. It's somewhat funny that this is in the same thread as "a small segment of patents are bad, specifically the patents I deal with personally, so let's dismantle the whole system", since your stance seems to break down to "some drugs are wrongly regulated, specifically the drugs I deal with personally, so let's dismantle the whole system".
      - pstuart 14y ago
        Sorry, but I'll have to disagree. The DEA operates in the criminal realm and doesn't care about health (it only cares about itself, really). The only drug enforcement we need is an FDA that ensures that what is on the label matches what is in the product itself, and that standards are set for guidance in their use. If you want to worry about dangerous drugs being available on the streets you should start with alcohol and tobacco.
      - betterunix 14y ago
        Do you really think that marijuana is the only drug you can grow in your backyard? Do you think it is the only drug that can easily be grown that also has medical uses? The drugs described in the article could be grown and purified at home. "There are plenty of chemical substances of substantial and extreme harm" Care to actually name any? Really, you are approaching drug policy from entirely the wrong angle. The DEA is a paramilitary agency, one that has the power to declare drugs to be illegal without any democratic process at all, and which has the legal authority to seize property and then use the proceeds from the sale of that property in its own budget. Thousands of innocent people have been killed by DEA assaults on civilian homes, for being in the wrong place at the wrong time or just because of bad information from informants. Health and safety are, in practice, completely irrelevant to the DEA. That the DEA works for the benefit of the pharmaceutical industry is not in question anymore. The Obama administration released emails related to the healthcare bill that paint a clear quid-pro-quo picture: stronger DEA action against illegal drug imports and medical marijuana programs in exchange for pharmaceutical lobbyists supporting the bill. "some drugs are wrongly regulated" Almost all useful drugs are wrongly regulated. There is no recognition of the reality that recreational drugs will be used regardless of the law. This has not only led to a steady source of income for criminals, but also to terrible tragedies in the past. In the 1980s, several people who wanted to use heroine developed Parkinson's disease after a drug dealer attempted to sell a legal alternative, MPPP, but so accidentally produced poisonous MPTP, a Parkinson's-inducing agent (ironically, MPPP is now illegal; MPTP is not illegal, despite being one of the most dangerous substances a person can ingest). Recreational drug users have no way to know what dose or purity they are buying, nor even if they are actually buying the drug they expect, with only two exceptions: alcohol and tobacco. So when a drug user goes to the doctor, what can they say? "I have been ingesting a white powder some criminal sold me. I think it is cocaine." That does not promote public health by any stretch of the imagination; by contrast, an tobacco user can tell their doctor about their habit in a way that is useful: "I smoke a pack of cigarettes each week," or perhaps, "I smoke a cigar once every 4-5 months." When some guy is found nude in the woods after having used something labeled "bath salts," we really have no way to know what happened -- did he overdose on MDPV, or was it just a lot of caffeine, or perhaps some drug that we have never seen before? "let's dismantle the whole system" You make it sound as though the system established by the controlled substances act has some merit or utility. In reality, it is a system without any constructive purpose at all, which serves only to inflate the profits of certain well-connected corporations, to serve the interests of police and prison guard unions, and to give the government a way to continue to oppress certain minorities despite clear laws protecting people from such oppression. The controlled substances act also gives the executive branch tremendous power, allowing the creation of new prohibition law without an act of congress; this power was recently used to ban several synthetic cannibinoids and MDPV. The executive branch can also overrule the DHHS and FDA recommendations on drug scheduling, having famously done so for MDMA. So unless you can point to something useful the DEA and the controlled substances act have accomplished, I see no reason to assume that disbanding a combination law enforcement agency, intelligence agency, and paramilitary force would be a bad thing. Repeal the CSA and replace it with sensible regulations on drugs and constructive policies that promote human health, and you'll have pushed society forward.
  - Jach 14y ago
    Pharmaceutical patents do not help the case for patents at all. http://levine.sscnet.ucla.edu/papers/imbookfinal09.pdf http://levine.sscnet.ucla.edu/papers/imbookfinal09.pdf
  - Peaker 14y ago
    The Pirate Party wrote a good rebuttal of this: http://www2.piratpartiet.se/an_alternative_to_pharmaceutical_patents http://www2.piratpartiet.se/an_alternative_to_pharmaceutical...
- mikeash 14y ago
  Patents are supposed to be an exchange. "You tell us how your invention works so other people can take advantage, and in return we'll give you the ability to make money from people using it for a while." I don't think it's software versus non-software, but really just a matter of how high the bar is set to actually obtain a patent. If you can obtain a patent for any random thing a competent person could come up with in an hour, then there's no utility to be had in making the invention public. When patents work well (and I'm sure they do in many cases), people will want to search for patents that cover what they're trying to do, because if they find anything good, it'll save them a lot of effort to license the patent rather than invent things from scratch. Imagine having a really hard software problem, and searching the patent database for something that could help. In an ideal world, you might run across something useful, contact the patent holder, and work out a licensing arrangement. In our world, you're unlikely to find anything good, and if you do, the holder is unlikely to be willing to license it to you fairly. Meanwhile, there's a good chance of coming across a stupid patent that applies to what you're doing, that doesn't tell you anything you couldn't come up with on your own, but that you now would owe triple damages for if you used it, because it's willful infringement now that you know about the patent. In short, the patent system can be useful, but the system must ensure that patents are only awarded for inventions that deserve it. If you can somehow pull that off, I think the whole question of whether it should be possible to patent software would more or less go away.
- Kliment 14y ago
  I work in hardware.

JulianMorrison 14y ago

I think that reforming the system would be harder, more precarious, and not worth the bother. It would be a lot of fuss and hard to interest reformers in, while easily arousing lobbying pushback from trolls. There would be continual pressure to compromise the purity of a well tuned working system into something that still has room for the trolls to continue their trolling. And when the spotlight was off it, it would start to slip back towards the way it was, with extension bills being nodded through. Honestly it'd be both simpler to rouse interest for, and simpler to argue for, a total repeal. The squawking would be louder, but the final result would throw the ball back into the troll's court - to sneakily extend something is a lot easier than to re-implement it when it has been scrapped entirely.