4 ms·

> But isn't the point being made that this is better not looked at as a good versus bad, it's better looked at as one sort of bad against another sort of bad.

> But isn't the point being made that this is better not looked at as a good versus bad, it's better looked at as one sort of bad against another sort of bad. The direct consequence of this would be a call to get rid of the evil on both sides and abolish the (software) patent system altogether. I'd like to emphasize a quote from the end of the article: > Patents have become the arena in which tech companies have chosen to do battle. There is no longer competition about the best user experience or the best technical solution to an engineering problem but competition about who can file the best vague, yet court approved patent and secure the most destructive intellectual properties. I don't understand why we are still only talking about reforming the patent system.

Tyrannosaurs 13y ago
> There is no longer competition about the best user experience or the best technical solution to an engineering problem but competition about who can file the best vague, yet court approved patent and secure the most destructive intellectual properties. I don't understand why we are still only talking about reforming the patent system. Seriously? iOS7 and Android Kit Kat both move user experience forward both in terms of the UI and the functionality offered. The latest iPhones, Android phones and Lumias are clearly better than what went before. I suspect if you asked average engineers at Apple, Google or Microsoft how much of their time and energy is taken up addressing problems caused by patents the number would be pretty small and if you look at how much those companies spend on patents, lawyers and settlements it's dwarfed by what they spend on product development. To put the giant $4.5bn spent on the patents in question in context (and remember that's was shared between several companies), it's about what Samsung spend on marketing in a year or half of Apple's 5C/5S iPhone sales for the first weekend they were on sale. Yes patents are impacting the industry but that's not to say that competition about things users care about has stopped, it's just slowing things up a bit.
- nathan_long 13y ago
  >> Yes patents are impacting the industry but that's not to say that competition about things users care about has stopped, it's just slowing things up a bit. I think "slowing things up a bit" is a great understatement. Hackers who could build the Next Big Thing have no chance at success if it takes a billion-dollar patent arsenal to avoid getting sued out of existence. Who wins this fight is a side issue. The real issue, I think, is that only such giants can compete. If so, we're missing out on a lot of innovation. A lot of products can be dreamt of that do not benefit the Apple or Microsoft or Google ecosystems. But can they be built without infringing "a navigation tool for graphical user interface?"
  - jamesaguilar 13y ago
    And yet most people are somehow managing to avoid getting sued out of existence while still building amazing products in small companies and start ups.
- Perseids 13y ago
  You have a point and I was a bit polemic. Nonetheless those conflicts do reach the consumer in a significant manner, for example last year, when I updated my smartphone firmware for stability reasons, all the rubber band menus vanished and were replaced by glowing edges because of the ongoing dispute. And those patents weren't even applicable in my country. Also remember all the cases where one side was trying to prohibit the sale of some phone or tablet somewhere in the world.
  - Tyrannosaurs 13y ago
    I don't dispute that there is an impact but your example shows the real scale of it. Is rubber banding really such a great loss? Yes it's nice but what's the actual impact on the quality of your experience been? Frankly most of the patents that have been enforced seem to me at least to have been pretty minor and relatively easy to workaround with little real impact on the user.
    - tempestn 13y ago
      To take the counter-argument, do these things really need the protection of patents then? Wouldn't the situation be better for the user if minor innovations of this sort could be borrowed, and companies instead needed to continue innovating in order to differentiate their products? I could see a short protection period for things like this, but the magnitude of current protections seems extreme.
      - Tyrannosaurs 13y ago
        I agree - my personal preference is for reform of the patent system to provide a higher bar for what can be patented (actively used by the owner in a current product, evidence of significant investment to get there, significantly non-obvious and so on) and a shorter period (three to five years except in exceptional circumstances). But that's a somewhat different argument - the original point was that consumers were being significantly impacted and I don't think this shows that. To my mind the biggest impact may be coming from FRAND patents, the terms of which don't have to be particularly fair or reasonable and as such can easily be used to block new entrants. To my mind FRAND patents should have transparent licensing terms which are common to every licensee whether you be a major multinational or a two man start up.
- gbhn 13y ago
  The amount spent on patents and related litigation is massive. There are other large costs as well of course, but the patent fiasco is a large drag on the industry. Something I'd like to see in addition to the now-pending reform is a law limiting damages to a fraction of revenue related to how the patent figures in the device in question. That ends up looking like a mandatory licensing fee, which I think would be about right for those few tech patents which are actually valid.

Tyrannosaurs 13y ago

> There is no longer competition about the best user experience or the best technical solution to an engineering problem but competition about who can file the best vague, yet court approved patent and secure the most destructive intellectual properties. I don't understand why we are still only talking about reforming the patent system. Seriously? iOS7 and Android Kit Kat both move user experience forward both in terms of the UI and the functionality offered. The latest iPhones, Android phones and Lumias are clearly better than what went before. I suspect if you asked average engineers at Apple, Google or Microsoft how much of their time and energy is taken up addressing problems caused by patents the number would be pretty small and if you look at how much those companies spend on patents, lawyers and settlements it's dwarfed by what they spend on product development. To put the giant $4.5bn spent on the patents in question in context (and remember that's was shared between several companies), it's about what Samsung spend on marketing in a year or half of Apple's 5C/5S iPhone sales for the first weekend they were on sale. Yes patents are impacting the industry but that's not to say that competition about things users care about has stopped, it's just slowing things up a bit.

nathan_long 13y ago
>> Yes patents are impacting the industry but that's not to say that competition about things users care about has stopped, it's just slowing things up a bit. I think "slowing things up a bit" is a great understatement. Hackers who could build the Next Big Thing have no chance at success if it takes a billion-dollar patent arsenal to avoid getting sued out of existence. Who wins this fight is a side issue. The real issue, I think, is that only such giants can compete. If so, we're missing out on a lot of innovation. A lot of products can be dreamt of that do not benefit the Apple or Microsoft or Google ecosystems. But can they be built without infringing "a navigation tool for graphical user interface?"
- jamesaguilar 13y ago
  And yet most people are somehow managing to avoid getting sued out of existence while still building amazing products in small companies and start ups.
Perseids 13y ago
You have a point and I was a bit polemic. Nonetheless those conflicts do reach the consumer in a significant manner, for example last year, when I updated my smartphone firmware for stability reasons, all the rubber band menus vanished and were replaced by glowing edges because of the ongoing dispute. And those patents weren't even applicable in my country. Also remember all the cases where one side was trying to prohibit the sale of some phone or tablet somewhere in the world.
- Tyrannosaurs 13y ago
  I don't dispute that there is an impact but your example shows the real scale of it. Is rubber banding really such a great loss? Yes it's nice but what's the actual impact on the quality of your experience been? Frankly most of the patents that have been enforced seem to me at least to have been pretty minor and relatively easy to workaround with little real impact on the user.
  - tempestn 13y ago
    To take the counter-argument, do these things really need the protection of patents then? Wouldn't the situation be better for the user if minor innovations of this sort could be borrowed, and companies instead needed to continue innovating in order to differentiate their products? I could see a short protection period for things like this, but the magnitude of current protections seems extreme.
    - Tyrannosaurs 13y ago
      I agree - my personal preference is for reform of the patent system to provide a higher bar for what can be patented (actively used by the owner in a current product, evidence of significant investment to get there, significantly non-obvious and so on) and a shorter period (three to five years except in exceptional circumstances). But that's a somewhat different argument - the original point was that consumers were being significantly impacted and I don't think this shows that. To my mind the biggest impact may be coming from FRAND patents, the terms of which don't have to be particularly fair or reasonable and as such can easily be used to block new entrants. To my mind FRAND patents should have transparent licensing terms which are common to every licensee whether you be a major multinational or a two man start up.
gbhn 13y ago
The amount spent on patents and related litigation is massive. There are other large costs as well of course, but the patent fiasco is a large drag on the industry. Something I'd like to see in addition to the now-pending reform is a law limiting damages to a fraction of revenue related to how the patent figures in the device in question. That ends up looking like a mandatory licensing fee, which I think would be about right for those few tech patents which are actually valid.