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And I am absolutely sure that if we got rid of patents tomorrow innovation wouldn’t be reduced at all I don't think this is true at all. While most of the bad

by btn 17y ago

And I am absolutely sure that if we got rid of patents tomorrow innovation wouldn’t be reduced at all I don't think this is true at all. While most of the bad press about software patents comes from frivolous patents and companies that troll with their portfolios, that doesn't mean there are no legitimate software patents. Consider the patents held by MPEG LA (MPEG codecs, Firewire, H.264, etc.) These patents represent years of R&D work by their member companies and describe inventions that are non-frivolous. Surely these companies deserve some kind of protection for their work to encourage them to continue to invest in such research and publish it. One of the difficulties in the software patents issue is where to draw the line---how to define what is a "software patent" and what defines the patentability of inventions in that class. The debate on software patents is shifting more towards this issue, and articles that make sweeping statements like "software/internet/hardware patents have no benefit to society and should be abolished" add nothing to it.

kiba 17y ago
Sweeping statement do have merits. It might be helpful for you to read the book "Against Intellectual Monopoly". http://www.dklevine.com/general/intellectual/againstfinal.htm http://www.dklevine.com/general/intellectual/againstfinal.ht... It talked about many historical cases where the patent and copyright system failed and as well historical evidence of free market providing immense innovative pressure. Just because an argument is in the extreme doesn't mean it have any merits whatsoever. Sometime, it have lot of merits. For example, James Watt use the patent system to force his competitor away from the market, instead of using his time to invent. When his patent expired, Watt got rich anyway! The early American book publishing industry benefited immensely from book piracy of British authors. British authors got paid anyway, sometime even better than the royalty rate they receive at home! The movie industry moved to California to escape Thomas Edison' movie patent.
- btn 17y ago
  Just because an argument is in the extreme doesn't mean it have any merits whatsoever. Perhaps, but my specific problems with this article is that I don't think it advances the argument in any meaningful way, and it doesn't provide evidence for its conclusion---other than a single example of a patent troll, and the claim that an NYT story about another company promotes an "urban myth". The general problem with sweeping statements is that they very susceptible to attack because they lack the precision you need to build a proper argument.
  - kiba 17y ago
    I would add that a sweeping statements will need a book to build a proper argument, not just a two page article. Actually, stratch my statement about Watt getting rich. The source I read indicate that Watt was able to kept the price of his steam engine up by the virtue of being first even after the patent expiration. It is still true that he use legal forces to keep his many inventive competitors at bay. http://mises.org/story/3280 http://mises.org/story/3280 So he still have a competitive advantage after the fact that the patent expired. It is what people refer to as "first mover advantage".
cabalamat 17y ago
> Consider the patents held by MPEG LA (MPEG codecs, Firewire, H.264, etc.) These patents represent years of R&D work by their member companies and describe inventions that are non-frivolous. Surely these companies deserve some kind of protection for their work to encourage them to continue to invest in such research and publish it. There are two separate issues here, (1) whether patents are necessary to encourage innovation, and (2) whether companies "deserve" patents. To answer the first question, the existance of non-patent-emcumbered codecs, such as Ogg Vorbis and Ogg Theora, demonstrates that software patents don't need to exist for these things to exist. (I sometimes half-jokingly refer to arguments of the sort "but without copyright/patent incentives, X wouldn't exist" as "the Linux-doesn't-exist theory of intellectual property"). To answer the second question, why would companies deserve patents? So they can make bigger profits, presumably? But why is that a good thing? The purpose of the economy isn't for companies to make profits, it's for the economy to make things people need and want. Companies making big profits is a good thing if and only if it leads to the economy making things people need and want -- so if people want to make money they have to make something people want, not game the patent system to no-one else's advantage. And since software patents aren't necessary to produce good software, and since they in fact overall harm progress in software rather than help it, in the interests of the economy they shouldn't exist.
- 10ren 17y ago
  "but without copyright/patent incentives, X wouldn't exist" as "the Linux-doesn't-exist theory of intellectual property" Linux was based on Unix. Unix was developed and marketed by a company that enforced its intellectual property in it. Would they have funded both activities without any way to own the results (i.e. copyright)? If Unix did not exist, would Linux? An aside on patents: regular expression matching using DFAs was patented by Ken Thompson (for his employer) http://www.wikipatents.com/3568156.html http://www.wikipatents.com/3568156.html
  - camccann 17y ago
    Unix was developed as a side result of a couple hackers wanting to play a game that wouldn't run well on the systems available, so they ported it to a new system and then wrote an OS for that system as well (because hey, why not). At the time, they were being paid to pretty much screw around with technology by virtue of working at a large research facility funded by a corporation with a government-granted monopoly. Unix wasn't even officially acknowledged by Bell Labs until a couple years after it was developed, and wasn't marketed for use outside the labs until a few years later. So, no, I don't think the early development of Unix had much to do with the ability to enforce intellectual property.
megaman821 17y ago
Consider the patents held by MPEG LA (MPEG codecs, Firewire, H.264, etc.) These patents represent years of R&D work by their member companies and describe inventions that are non-frivolous. Surely these companies deserve some kind of protection for their work to encourage them to continue to invest in such research and publish it. Let's take the case of H.264. Why is copyright not sufficient enough to protect their innovations to whatever degree of protection they choose (using licenses like GPL, MIT, or whatever they choose)? The problem is there isn't just a patent on H.264 there are hundreds of patents on various aspects of it. This isn't done to protect the years of R&D it is done to create a patent minefield for any future competitors. They don't let other more well understood industries operate in this way. Ford can't patent round rubber tires, hydraulic power steering, and using friction for braking. Good luck making a car now, but this is exactly the challenge a next-gen video codec would face.
- anamax 17y ago
  > Let's take the case of H.264. Why is copyright not sufficient enough to protect their innovations to whatever degree of protection they choose (using licenses like GPL, MIT, or whatever they choose)? Someone "skilled in the art" can take the descriptions of H.264 and produce a coder and a decoder without copying anything. Since there's no copying, copyright protection doesn't come into play. Given that, how are they going to "protect their innovations"? Are you suggesting that they keep the description as a trade secret and allow access only under license? (They can't publish and say "you can't use this description unless you pay us money" - copyright doesn't work that way.)
  - megaman821 17y ago
    Someone "skilled in the art" can take the descriptions of H.264 and produce a coder and a decoder without copying anything. Isn't this exactly the same way people get around patents now? If I patent a Jack in the Box made using a spring and a box you could come along and make one using compressed air and a box. The amount of protection H.264 would receive is directly related to how broadly derivative work is applied. Even at its broadest interpretation and everything that decoded or encode H.264 had to be licensed from them, at least it wouldn't stop other encodings from using almost all modern strategies to video encoding.

by btn 17y ago

kiba 17y ago

Sweeping statement do have merits. It might be helpful for you to read the book "Against Intellectual Monopoly". http://www.dklevine.com/general/intellectual/againstfinal.htm http://www.dklevine.com/general/intellectual/againstfinal.ht... It talked about many historical cases where the patent and copyright system failed and as well historical evidence of free market providing immense innovative pressure. Just because an argument is in the extreme doesn't mean it have any merits whatsoever. Sometime, it have lot of merits. For example, James Watt use the patent system to force his competitor away from the market, instead of using his time to invent. When his patent expired, Watt got rich anyway! The early American book publishing industry benefited immensely from book piracy of British authors. British authors got paid anyway, sometime even better than the royalty rate they receive at home! The movie industry moved to California to escape Thomas Edison' movie patent.

btn 17y ago
Just because an argument is in the extreme doesn't mean it have any merits whatsoever. Perhaps, but my specific problems with this article is that I don't think it advances the argument in any meaningful way, and it doesn't provide evidence for its conclusion---other than a single example of a patent troll, and the claim that an NYT story about another company promotes an "urban myth". The general problem with sweeping statements is that they very susceptible to attack because they lack the precision you need to build a proper argument.
- kiba 17y ago
  I would add that a sweeping statements will need a book to build a proper argument, not just a two page article. Actually, stratch my statement about Watt getting rich. The source I read indicate that Watt was able to kept the price of his steam engine up by the virtue of being first even after the patent expiration. It is still true that he use legal forces to keep his many inventive competitors at bay. http://mises.org/story/3280 http://mises.org/story/3280 So he still have a competitive advantage after the fact that the patent expired. It is what people refer to as "first mover advantage".

cabalamat 17y ago

> Consider the patents held by MPEG LA (MPEG codecs, Firewire, H.264, etc.) These patents represent years of R&D work by their member companies and describe inventions that are non-frivolous. Surely these companies deserve some kind of protection for their work to encourage them to continue to invest in such research and publish it. There are two separate issues here, (1) whether patents are necessary to encourage innovation, and (2) whether companies "deserve" patents. To answer the first question, the existance of non-patent-emcumbered codecs, such as Ogg Vorbis and Ogg Theora, demonstrates that software patents don't need to exist for these things to exist. (I sometimes half-jokingly refer to arguments of the sort "but without copyright/patent incentives, X wouldn't exist" as "the Linux-doesn't-exist theory of intellectual property"). To answer the second question, why would companies deserve patents? So they can make bigger profits, presumably? But why is that a good thing? The purpose of the economy isn't for companies to make profits, it's for the economy to make things people need and want. Companies making big profits is a good thing if and only if it leads to the economy making things people need and want -- so if people want to make money they have to make something people want, not game the patent system to no-one else's advantage. And since software patents aren't necessary to produce good software, and since they in fact overall harm progress in software rather than help it, in the interests of the economy they shouldn't exist.

10ren 17y ago
"but without copyright/patent incentives, X wouldn't exist" as "the Linux-doesn't-exist theory of intellectual property" Linux was based on Unix. Unix was developed and marketed by a company that enforced its intellectual property in it. Would they have funded both activities without any way to own the results (i.e. copyright)? If Unix did not exist, would Linux? An aside on patents: regular expression matching using DFAs was patented by Ken Thompson (for his employer) http://www.wikipatents.com/3568156.html http://www.wikipatents.com/3568156.html
- camccann 17y ago
  Unix was developed as a side result of a couple hackers wanting to play a game that wouldn't run well on the systems available, so they ported it to a new system and then wrote an OS for that system as well (because hey, why not). At the time, they were being paid to pretty much screw around with technology by virtue of working at a large research facility funded by a corporation with a government-granted monopoly. Unix wasn't even officially acknowledged by Bell Labs until a couple years after it was developed, and wasn't marketed for use outside the labs until a few years later. So, no, I don't think the early development of Unix had much to do with the ability to enforce intellectual property.

megaman821 17y ago

Consider the patents held by MPEG LA (MPEG codecs, Firewire, H.264, etc.) These patents represent years of R&D work by their member companies and describe inventions that are non-frivolous. Surely these companies deserve some kind of protection for their work to encourage them to continue to invest in such research and publish it. Let's take the case of H.264. Why is copyright not sufficient enough to protect their innovations to whatever degree of protection they choose (using licenses like GPL, MIT, or whatever they choose)? The problem is there isn't just a patent on H.264 there are hundreds of patents on various aspects of it. This isn't done to protect the years of R&D it is done to create a patent minefield for any future competitors. They don't let other more well understood industries operate in this way. Ford can't patent round rubber tires, hydraulic power steering, and using friction for braking. Good luck making a car now, but this is exactly the challenge a next-gen video codec would face.

anamax 17y ago
> Let's take the case of H.264. Why is copyright not sufficient enough to protect their innovations to whatever degree of protection they choose (using licenses like GPL, MIT, or whatever they choose)? Someone "skilled in the art" can take the descriptions of H.264 and produce a coder and a decoder without copying anything. Since there's no copying, copyright protection doesn't come into play. Given that, how are they going to "protect their innovations"? Are you suggesting that they keep the description as a trade secret and allow access only under license? (They can't publish and say "you can't use this description unless you pay us money" - copyright doesn't work that way.)
- megaman821 17y ago
  Someone "skilled in the art" can take the descriptions of H.264 and produce a coder and a decoder without copying anything. Isn't this exactly the same way people get around patents now? If I patent a Jack in the Box made using a spring and a box you could come along and make one using compressed air and a box. The amount of protection H.264 would receive is directly related to how broadly derivative work is applied. Even at its broadest interpretation and everything that decoded or encode H.264 had to be licensed from them, at least it wouldn't stop other encodings from using almost all modern strategies to video encoding.