4 ms·

How do you reconcile patenting (effectively closing off a solution to everyone else) with your goal of minimizing human error?

downandout 12y ago
You're obviously anti-patent, but the answer to your question is that I was trying to build a business. If you ever sit down with potential investors or acquirers, two of the most common questions you will hear are these: "What barriers to entry are there for your competitors?" and "What assets do you have?". A patent is both of these things. Whatever your feelings on the subject, as the system stands today, patents are valuable and necessary for many technology businesses. Google, Apple, Samsung, etc. all have thousands of patents.
- mathattack 12y ago
  I would also add that "If the other guy has patents, it helps to have a few of your own." Eventually the system will be fixed, but we're not there yet.
- digi_owl 12y ago
  Can't comment for anyone else, but for me at least the iffiness is not the concept but the execution. Current patent durations may be fine for its original purpose, mechanical and chemical processes, as there is likely to have been significant expense involved. But software is a massive gray area, even if one ignore the whole problem of it being pretty much lawyers into place (code as a form of applied math etc). 20 years is a damn long time in the computing world. Never mind the whole issue of software being the only area where you can both patent the idea and copyright the specific implementation. Heck, i think Bill Gates pretty much admitted that it would be virtually impossible to start Microsoft today because of the change in patent law. Never mind patenting in medicine, where often the production process is downright cheap but the medicine is expensive because of patent licensing. Resulting in various nations pretty much giving pharmacorps the middle finger and allowing local companies to violate the patent to solve immediate national health issues.
- bediger4000 12y ago
  I don't think the question asked makes the asker anti-patent. In your comment, you wrote: As engineers we have a responsibility to design systems in ways that minimize the effects of human error. That's more than a little didactic and preachy. It looks to me like you're trying to tell everyone that they have a moral duty to design systems in particular ways. That's well and good, another design principle for all of us to observe. But you also write that you got a patent on an idea or method of how to actually implement that design principle. It makes it seem like you've got a profit motive for prescribing the design principle: you've got a patent on the way to implement that principle. We've got a moral obligation to implement that principle, hence we should pay you (or your assignee) for the idea. The question isn't anti-patent, it just gets at the motive for prescribing such a design principle.
chrismcb 12y ago
They aren't mutually exclusive.

downandout 12y ago

You're obviously anti-patent, but the answer to your question is that I was trying to build a business. If you ever sit down with potential investors or acquirers, two of the most common questions you will hear are these: "What barriers to entry are there for your competitors?" and "What assets do you have?". A patent is both of these things. Whatever your feelings on the subject, as the system stands today, patents are valuable and necessary for many technology businesses. Google, Apple, Samsung, etc. all have thousands of patents.

mathattack 12y ago
I would also add that "If the other guy has patents, it helps to have a few of your own." Eventually the system will be fixed, but we're not there yet.
digi_owl 12y ago
Can't comment for anyone else, but for me at least the iffiness is not the concept but the execution. Current patent durations may be fine for its original purpose, mechanical and chemical processes, as there is likely to have been significant expense involved. But software is a massive gray area, even if one ignore the whole problem of it being pretty much lawyers into place (code as a form of applied math etc). 20 years is a damn long time in the computing world. Never mind the whole issue of software being the only area where you can both patent the idea and copyright the specific implementation. Heck, i think Bill Gates pretty much admitted that it would be virtually impossible to start Microsoft today because of the change in patent law. Never mind patenting in medicine, where often the production process is downright cheap but the medicine is expensive because of patent licensing. Resulting in various nations pretty much giving pharmacorps the middle finger and allowing local companies to violate the patent to solve immediate national health issues.
bediger4000 12y ago
I don't think the question asked makes the asker anti-patent. In your comment, you wrote: As engineers we have a responsibility to design systems in ways that minimize the effects of human error. That's more than a little didactic and preachy. It looks to me like you're trying to tell everyone that they have a moral duty to design systems in particular ways. That's well and good, another design principle for all of us to observe. But you also write that you got a patent on an idea or method of how to actually implement that design principle. It makes it seem like you've got a profit motive for prescribing the design principle: you've got a patent on the way to implement that principle. We've got a moral obligation to implement that principle, hence we should pay you (or your assignee) for the idea. The question isn't anti-patent, it just gets at the motive for prescribing such a design principle.

chrismcb 12y ago

They aren't mutually exclusive.