6 ms·

I'm unhappy with Apple and Microsoft too, but the real enemy is a broken patent system that creates the perverse incentives that motivate companies to launch la

by cs702 13y ago

I'm unhappy with Apple and Microsoft too, but the real enemy is a broken patent system that creates the perverse incentives that motivate companies to launch lawsuits like this one, to the detriment of society. Regardless of who wins, we have already lost, because we have a patent system that discourages innovation and competition in software! Maybe the prospect of patent Armageddon will finally force lawmakers to address the issue head on. I'm hopeful. As Winston Churchill supposedly said, "you can always count on Americans to do the right thing -- after they've tried everything else." -- PS. I highly recommend Gary Reback's 2002 article, "Patently Absurd," which accurately depicts how patents are used by large corporations: http://www.forbes.com/asap/2002/0624/044_print.html http://www.forbes.com/asap/2002/0624/044_print.html -- Edits: grammar and style; also, added PS and qualified quote with "supposedly," because it's unclear if Churchill ever actually said those words (thanks icebraining and drabiega for pointing that out).

icebraining 13y ago
Actually, he probably didn't: http://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/11/11/exhaust-alternatives/ http://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/11/11/exhaust-alternatives... I like the saying anyway, though, however said it.
drabiega 13y ago
The patent system isn't a person or group. It's a weapon of mass rent-seeking built in part by these same companies so that they can reap huge profits without having to actually compete with their rivals. Responsibility for this situation is squarely on the shoulders of these companies and others who have lobbied the patent system into what it is today. Also, and this is a minor quibble, despite it's frequent attribution to him, there is no evidence that Sir Winston actually ever said that.
Datsundere 13y ago
Don't blame the patent system. While it is true that patent system should be reformed/eliminated, those companies chose to take advantage of it. Just because you can steal something when nobody is looking doesn't mean it's justified to be stolen.
- VikingCoder 13y ago
  Companies are required to maximize their profits, and patents are a legal framework for creating profit. I absolutely blame the patent system, and it's absurd of you to suggest otherwise.
  - moocowduckquack 13y ago
    How about blaming both. These positions don't seem exclusive.
  - jasonlotito 13y ago
    > Companies are required to maximize their profits, This meme needs to die. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/09/09/how-the-cult-of-shareholder-value-wrecked-american-business/ http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/09/09/h... "There are no statutes that put the shareholder at the top of the corporate priority list." "Nor does the law require, as many believe, that executives and directors owe a special fiduciary duty to shareholders." It needs to die. Edit: And there are many, many other places you can find support for this.
    - dd36 13y ago
      There may not be statutes but there absolutely is case law. In fact, I'm sure there are indirect statutes. There's just no way that the purpose of a for profit company is not to maximize profits to the owners of that company. There may be reasonable debate about where best to deploy capital but those decisions should be justified.
      - moocowduckquack 13y ago
        A company can have more than one purpose and sometimes maximising profits gets in the way of the other purposes of the business, so just because a business is for profit, does not neccessarily mean that it will seek to maximise that profit or that the owners want it to as they may be just as interested in the other purposes that the business can be put to. Money alone makes a poor measure of business as business is there to do stuff and money is just one of the processes involved.
wmeredith 13y ago
This is the logical equivalent of, "don't hate the player, hate the game." And it holds about as much water. If any company in the world has the warchest to bow out of petty patent politics, it's Apple.
- wpietri 13y ago
  Yes! I am perfectly happy to hate the player and the game.
- pyre 13y ago
  Apple and Microsoft were part of a consortium. Do we know that Apple was a ringleader here? Maybe they just are along for the ride to make sure that they weren't in the crosshairs? </devils-advocate>
  - talkingstove 13y ago
    We do know they are the ringleader as they own 58% of Rockstar.
Arjuna 13y ago
This whole story brings on such a lugubrious feeling. I mean, I guess we can chalk it up to human nature, but, patent system aside: How did we ever arrive at the place where we believe that everyone else must lose in order for someone to win? How did we get to a point where we believe that we have to take from someone else's plate when there's more than enough to go around? How did we lose the vision that bringing the highest performance, service, features and functionality is "The Right Way" to deliver and compete, instead of destroying ourselves? How did we become so misguided that, even with a broken patent system, we are not intelligent enough and civil enough to simply do "The Right Thing?" None of this activity is in the spirit of the Hacker Ethos, regardless of the broken system. At what point did we lose our bearing? I'm reminded of Joshua's observation from WarGames: "A strange game. The only winning move is not to play." Sigh...
- allochthon 13y ago
  we are not intelligent enough and civil enough to simply do "The Right Thing?" With the majority of people, who are generally decent, the honor system is workable. Problems arise with a minority of people who are willing to exploit loopholes and engage in freeloading (e.g., patent trolls). This creates the tragedy of the commons [1]. With the existence of freeloaders, it is necessary to carefully craft public policy to discourage freeloading and rent seeking. Right now the US (and perhaps international) patent system does just the opposite. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons
- chongli 13y ago
  This isn't just a human problem, it is one that exists throughout nature. Cheaters, free riders, parasites; just a few names for the same idea: beings that benefit at the cost of others. The problem is that natural selection favours these cheaters. The best we can hope for is to mitigate the effects of cheating. Attempts to completely stamp out cheating (such as the patent system) are doomed to failure.
pg 13y ago
It's certainly true that the patent system is broken. But the fact you can get away with doing something due to broken laws doesn't make it ok to do it.
- masklinn 13y ago
  The operative word in cs705's comment is incentive. The patent system is broken in such a way that not only does it makes possible to get away with this behavior, it encourages and rewards it. That's very different than merely "making it possible".
  - ajross 13y ago
    And the operative word in pg's reply is "ok". That Apple, MS, et. al. are acting in their objective self interest (and to the detriment of all of ours!) is an important point. But it doesn't speak to the moral issue which is that such behavior needs to be condemned and not excused.
    - dnautics 13y ago
      well, that's a tricky calculation. It's possible that Apple and MS have miscalculated the backlash on this, and they will be net losers. As for morality, although I disagree with it, there is a moral case for intellectual property rights. That this absurdity is an outcome of it suggests that there's something wrong with the foundational moral assumptions, but given that people are calling this a "nuclear" case - it's reasonable that many people did not forsee this coming. 4.5 billion dollars. If lawyers are even taking 1% of that - good gosh. So many other things in this world 45 million could be better spent on.
    - stock_toaster 13y ago
      If the system incentivizes this behavior, can a publicly traded corporation even choose to ignore it? Would shareholders be able to claim breach of fiduciary duties if they did? Note: I am certainly not arguing that this is a good thing for anyone by any means at all.
akavel 13y ago
If patent system was OK, with their power and money they could always find another weapon if what they really want is to attack a competitor. That said, I don't want to mean that the system is OK, obviously, this weapon surely looks too powerful.
kazagistar 13y ago
Guns don't kill people. People with guns kill people. Apple does not have to participate in this. They chose to cause they anti-competative to the bone.
peterashford 13y ago
While I agree that the US Patent System is broken for allowing this, Microsoft and Apple have to wear the moral blame for following this course of action.

by cs702 13y ago

icebraining 13y ago

Actually, he probably didn't: http://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/11/11/exhaust-alternatives/ http://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/11/11/exhaust-alternatives... I like the saying anyway, though, however said it.

drabiega 13y ago

The patent system isn't a person or group. It's a weapon of mass rent-seeking built in part by these same companies so that they can reap huge profits without having to actually compete with their rivals. Responsibility for this situation is squarely on the shoulders of these companies and others who have lobbied the patent system into what it is today. Also, and this is a minor quibble, despite it's frequent attribution to him, there is no evidence that Sir Winston actually ever said that.

Datsundere 13y ago

Don't blame the patent system. While it is true that patent system should be reformed/eliminated, those companies chose to take advantage of it. Just because you can steal something when nobody is looking doesn't mean it's justified to be stolen.

VikingCoder 13y ago
Companies are required to maximize their profits, and patents are a legal framework for creating profit. I absolutely blame the patent system, and it's absurd of you to suggest otherwise.
- moocowduckquack 13y ago
  How about blaming both. These positions don't seem exclusive.
- jasonlotito 13y ago
  > Companies are required to maximize their profits, This meme needs to die. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/09/09/how-the-cult-of-shareholder-value-wrecked-american-business/ http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/09/09/h... "There are no statutes that put the shareholder at the top of the corporate priority list." "Nor does the law require, as many believe, that executives and directors owe a special fiduciary duty to shareholders." It needs to die. Edit: And there are many, many other places you can find support for this.
  - dd36 13y ago
    There may not be statutes but there absolutely is case law. In fact, I'm sure there are indirect statutes. There's just no way that the purpose of a for profit company is not to maximize profits to the owners of that company. There may be reasonable debate about where best to deploy capital but those decisions should be justified.
    - moocowduckquack 13y ago
      A company can have more than one purpose and sometimes maximising profits gets in the way of the other purposes of the business, so just because a business is for profit, does not neccessarily mean that it will seek to maximise that profit or that the owners want it to as they may be just as interested in the other purposes that the business can be put to. Money alone makes a poor measure of business as business is there to do stuff and money is just one of the processes involved.

wmeredith 13y ago

This is the logical equivalent of, "don't hate the player, hate the game." And it holds about as much water. If any company in the world has the warchest to bow out of petty patent politics, it's Apple.

wpietri 13y ago
Yes! I am perfectly happy to hate the player and the game.
pyre 13y ago
Apple and Microsoft were part of a consortium. Do we know that Apple was a ringleader here? Maybe they just are along for the ride to make sure that they weren't in the crosshairs? </devils-advocate>
- talkingstove 13y ago
  We do know they are the ringleader as they own 58% of Rockstar.

Arjuna 13y ago

This whole story brings on such a lugubrious feeling. I mean, I guess we can chalk it up to human nature, but, patent system aside: How did we ever arrive at the place where we believe that everyone else must lose in order for someone to win? How did we get to a point where we believe that we have to take from someone else's plate when there's more than enough to go around? How did we lose the vision that bringing the highest performance, service, features and functionality is "The Right Way" to deliver and compete, instead of destroying ourselves? How did we become so misguided that, even with a broken patent system, we are not intelligent enough and civil enough to simply do "The Right Thing?" None of this activity is in the spirit of the Hacker Ethos, regardless of the broken system. At what point did we lose our bearing? I'm reminded of Joshua's observation from WarGames: "A strange game. The only winning move is not to play." Sigh...

allochthon 13y ago
we are not intelligent enough and civil enough to simply do "The Right Thing?" With the majority of people, who are generally decent, the honor system is workable. Problems arise with a minority of people who are willing to exploit loopholes and engage in freeloading (e.g., patent trolls). This creates the tragedy of the commons [1]. With the existence of freeloaders, it is necessary to carefully craft public policy to discourage freeloading and rent seeking. Right now the US (and perhaps international) patent system does just the opposite. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons
chongli 13y ago
This isn't just a human problem, it is one that exists throughout nature. Cheaters, free riders, parasites; just a few names for the same idea: beings that benefit at the cost of others. The problem is that natural selection favours these cheaters. The best we can hope for is to mitigate the effects of cheating. Attempts to completely stamp out cheating (such as the patent system) are doomed to failure.

pg 13y ago

It's certainly true that the patent system is broken. But the fact you can get away with doing something due to broken laws doesn't make it ok to do it.

masklinn 13y ago
The operative word in cs705's comment is incentive. The patent system is broken in such a way that not only does it makes possible to get away with this behavior, it encourages and rewards it. That's very different than merely "making it possible".
- ajross 13y ago
  And the operative word in pg's reply is "ok". That Apple, MS, et. al. are acting in their objective self interest (and to the detriment of all of ours!) is an important point. But it doesn't speak to the moral issue which is that such behavior needs to be condemned and not excused.
  - dnautics 13y ago
    well, that's a tricky calculation. It's possible that Apple and MS have miscalculated the backlash on this, and they will be net losers. As for morality, although I disagree with it, there is a moral case for intellectual property rights. That this absurdity is an outcome of it suggests that there's something wrong with the foundational moral assumptions, but given that people are calling this a "nuclear" case - it's reasonable that many people did not forsee this coming. 4.5 billion dollars. If lawyers are even taking 1% of that - good gosh. So many other things in this world 45 million could be better spent on.
  - stock_toaster 13y ago
    If the system incentivizes this behavior, can a publicly traded corporation even choose to ignore it? Would shareholders be able to claim breach of fiduciary duties if they did? Note: I am certainly not arguing that this is a good thing for anyone by any means at all.

akavel 13y ago

If patent system was OK, with their power and money they could always find another weapon if what they really want is to attack a competitor. That said, I don't want to mean that the system is OK, obviously, this weapon surely looks too powerful.

kazagistar 13y ago

Guns don't kill people. People with guns kill people. Apple does not have to participate in this. They chose to cause they anti-competative to the bone.

peterashford 13y ago

While I agree that the US Patent System is broken for allowing this, Microsoft and Apple have to wear the moral blame for following this course of action.