4 ms·

I'm not sure there is such a thing as not "good enough to be patentable". There is a patent for de-boning a turkey, for god sakes. Oh, and a related patent for

by tdavis 18y ago

I'm not sure there is such a thing as not "good enough to be patentable". There is a patent for de-boning a turkey, for god sakes. Oh, and a related patent for a "method of removing meat from a bone". We ran into our own patent issue when we managed to duplicate the functionality of a partner's (pending) patent in a week. The wording is so vague that every site remotely like ours would be in violation, were it ever actually accepted, which I doubt it will be. In short, I have lost all respect for patenting in general and believe it should be abolished entirely.

axod 18y ago
Agreed. I'm sure everyone on hacker news who has done anything has violated some patent in existence somewhere. The quicker we can abolish the whole system, the better. I don't think it's helpful for anyone. The award of $19m is also pretty ridiculous for something so trivial.
- jrockway 18y ago
  The award of $19m is also pretty ridiculous for something so trivial. Yeah, but they willfully used a good idea to make money. We should penalize companies that apply good ideas to bring products to market. Don't want any of that...
  - axod 18y ago
    Just goes to show that ideas aren't worthless, assuming you have the money to file a patent and sue someone who executed on the idea.
- jballanc 18y ago
  The award of $19m is also pretty ridiculous for something so trivial. To put it into perspective, this is only about 0.06% of Apple's cash reserve.
  - axod 18y ago
    To put it into perspective, it probably took a couple of days to come up with the idea, and file the patent. Probably cost a few k. Quite a nice ROI.
jnorthrop 18y ago
All patents? Really? What about drug patents or things like 3M's Post-It Notes. These are items easily duplicated but born out of healthy spending on R&D.
- axod 18y ago
  Will companies stop spending R&D if they can't patent the outcome? I don't think they would. I think they'd find another way to 'lock-in' - such as providing better value, or a better product.
  - jnorthrop 18y ago
    I think particularly in the case of pharmaceuticals that would certainly be the case. Why spend all of that time and effort to find an effective and safe cure if all you need to do is sit on the sidelines until someone else comes up with it. At that point all you need to do is simply reverse engineer it and produce it yourself. The ability to copy someone else's work would dramatically lower the reward for the companies. Ultimately leading to the business decision that it isn't worth investing in R&D.
    - tdavis 18y ago
      Pharmaceutical companies already employ ridiculous markup on everything simply because they can. You could argue, they need to recoup R&D, and that's fine. And companies are entitled to profiting from their hard work, but come on. Charging $12,000 for a treatment that costs $500 to create? Maybe instead of abolishing patents entirely, they should be time-release. I don't know how that would be calculated, but something that allowed companies to exploit their research for a certain period of time, at which point anybody is free to reverse engineer it and do it themselves. Somebody patents de-boning a turkey in 1990; almost 20 years later I am still unable to legally de-bone a turkey for profit! Ridiculous!
      - ams6110 18y ago
        Patents do expire, that's the whole point. The government will protect your idea for you for a period of time, in exchange for making it public. After that time expires, others are free to copy the idea -- that's how generic drugs come to market. You understate the costs of pharmacutical R&D. Most ideas fail, or do more harm than good. Of those that show some promise, there are extensive animal and then human clinical trials. More ideas wash out here. Laboratories cost money. Researchers cost money. Trials cost money. Defending class action lawsuits costs money. Comparing the cost of the raw ingredients to the retail price ignores a whole bunch of stuff.

by tdavis 18y ago

axod 18y ago

Agreed. I'm sure everyone on hacker news who has done anything has violated some patent in existence somewhere. The quicker we can abolish the whole system, the better. I don't think it's helpful for anyone. The award of $19m is also pretty ridiculous for something so trivial.

jrockway 18y ago
The award of $19m is also pretty ridiculous for something so trivial. Yeah, but they willfully used a good idea to make money. We should penalize companies that apply good ideas to bring products to market. Don't want any of that...
- axod 18y ago
  Just goes to show that ideas aren't worthless, assuming you have the money to file a patent and sue someone who executed on the idea.
jballanc 18y ago
The award of $19m is also pretty ridiculous for something so trivial. To put it into perspective, this is only about 0.06% of Apple's cash reserve.
- axod 18y ago
  To put it into perspective, it probably took a couple of days to come up with the idea, and file the patent. Probably cost a few k. Quite a nice ROI.

jnorthrop 18y ago

All patents? Really? What about drug patents or things like 3M's Post-It Notes. These are items easily duplicated but born out of healthy spending on R&D.

axod 18y ago
Will companies stop spending R&D if they can't patent the outcome? I don't think they would. I think they'd find another way to 'lock-in' - such as providing better value, or a better product.
- jnorthrop 18y ago
  I think particularly in the case of pharmaceuticals that would certainly be the case. Why spend all of that time and effort to find an effective and safe cure if all you need to do is sit on the sidelines until someone else comes up with it. At that point all you need to do is simply reverse engineer it and produce it yourself. The ability to copy someone else's work would dramatically lower the reward for the companies. Ultimately leading to the business decision that it isn't worth investing in R&D.
  - tdavis 18y ago
    Pharmaceutical companies already employ ridiculous markup on everything simply because they can. You could argue, they need to recoup R&D, and that's fine. And companies are entitled to profiting from their hard work, but come on. Charging $12,000 for a treatment that costs $500 to create? Maybe instead of abolishing patents entirely, they should be time-release. I don't know how that would be calculated, but something that allowed companies to exploit their research for a certain period of time, at which point anybody is free to reverse engineer it and do it themselves. Somebody patents de-boning a turkey in 1990; almost 20 years later I am still unable to legally de-bone a turkey for profit! Ridiculous!
    - ams6110 18y ago
      Patents do expire, that's the whole point. The government will protect your idea for you for a period of time, in exchange for making it public. After that time expires, others are free to copy the idea -- that's how generic drugs come to market. You understate the costs of pharmacutical R&D. Most ideas fail, or do more harm than good. Of those that show some promise, there are extensive animal and then human clinical trials. More ideas wash out here. Laboratories cost money. Researchers cost money. Trials cost money. Defending class action lawsuits costs money. Comparing the cost of the raw ingredients to the retail price ignores a whole bunch of stuff.