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I'm a software engineer. Consequently I have to admit ignorance about this concept of a valid and useful patent. All I ever see is patents that hinder the Progr

by brlewis 11y ago

I'm a software engineer. Consequently I have to admit ignorance about this concept of a valid and useful patent. All I ever see is patents that hinder the Progress of Science and useful Arts. Are there really enough valid and useful patents that we should hesitate in our fight against the rest?

jebblue 11y ago
I'm confused, are you asking if you should be fighting patent trolls or patents? If trolls, then fighting them is better than not. Patents are tools, valid and legal, you don't fight tools, you use them, improve them, complain about them, etc.
- brlewis 11y ago
  I'm talking about patents. Patents are tools in the same sense that landmines are.
  - sosborn 11y ago
    Why choose the word landmine? What's wrong with, say, a hammer?
    - brlewis 11y ago
      Hammers aren't used to exclude people from a path they might otherwise blissfully follow.
      - sosborn 11y ago
        I guess I disagree with the idea that patents are inherently bad. Like hammers they can be used to build or to destroy.
      - ycombobreaker 11y ago
        You simply aren't using enough hammers! Though seriously, I think the term landmine is loaded toward using patents exclusively as a troll. A wider analogy could be like a toll bridge, where the builder should be compensated by travelers. Some tolls could be usurious, but that wouldn't invalidate the whole principle.
acveilleux 11y ago
There are useful patents though they may hinder more then they help depending on your PoV. Various codecs and some crypto algorithms come to mind. You run into a lot more useful ones at the intersection with the physical world where some protection lets a company get a chance to be the first one to market and reap some benefit. In some industries (Pharma) it's really the only practical approach due to the extreme development costs (easily over 1B$) and often cheap production costs.
- brlewis 11y ago
  To be clear, when I say "patent" I'm referring to a legal instrument that secures exclusive rights. When I say "useful patent" I'm talking about the utility of the legal instrument, not the utility of the mathematical algorithm claimed in the patent.
throwawaykf05 11y ago
Can you explain why you think patents hinder progress of science and the useful arts? How many cases do you know of that people were unable to advance the arts because of a patent? People talk about patent trolls suing startups and main street shops: How many of them actually do anything technically innovative? Hinder commercialization of some old technology? Sure, patents can do that. Stifle progress? Not so much. There are studies on these types of things that you can find on ssrn.com Your impression is likely based on what you hear in a) tech media, which is largely supported by ads and hence welcome rage-views, and b) tech forums like this where open source is the dominant religion. But count how many times you've heard of a merit-less lawsuit, and compare that to the dark matter of millions of active patents out there. Forming opinions based on cherry picked examples is not a good idea. Better to look at empirical evidence. I'll give you some numbers less than 1% of patents are ever asserted, and only a fraction of them make it to a trial. The vast majority of patents lie fallow because there is no demand for their technology in the market. Now does that look like a serious problem anymore?
- brlewis 11y ago
  You're looking at the wrong data. Progress is easily impeded without actual lawsuits. The RSA patent held back crypto progress for decades. I don't know if there were any lawsuits. Likewise for the GIF patent. Still today patents on JPEG2000 are preventing its adoption. H.264 patents slowed progress on web technology. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.264/MPEG-4_AVC#Controversies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.264/MPEG-4_AVC#Controversies The "dark matter of millions of active patents out there" is an apt description of failure. The constitutional purpose of patents was to disclose inventions that others could build on. If that purpose were being fulfilled we'd be browsing the patent database instead of all the places we actually go when we want to pick up a new technique.
  - throwawaykf05 11y ago
    I extend the same challenge to CamperBob2 above: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9977378 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9977378 Give concrete examples instead of vague generalizations. I just have an example of how the GIF patent actually provoked progress as it was used to sure people who were using it without remuneration to the creators. Image compression experts say JPEG2000 is simply not used because it's just not enough of an improvement to make it worth the hassle. Patent issues are secondary. And note that patents did not prevent it from bruin developed in the first place. H.264 patents did not slow down development of new technology, it just slowed adoption of existing technology (h.264) in a different existing environment (browsers) Would you really qualify using the same technology in a browser as a significant technical innovation? So coming back to my challenge: Now that the RSA patent has expired in 2000, 15 years ago, what novel developments can you point to that you can say was blocked by the patent?

by brlewis 11y ago

jebblue 11y ago

I'm confused, are you asking if you should be fighting patent trolls or patents? If trolls, then fighting them is better than not. Patents are tools, valid and legal, you don't fight tools, you use them, improve them, complain about them, etc.

brlewis 11y ago
I'm talking about patents. Patents are tools in the same sense that landmines are.
- sosborn 11y ago
  Why choose the word landmine? What's wrong with, say, a hammer?
  - brlewis 11y ago
    Hammers aren't used to exclude people from a path they might otherwise blissfully follow.
    - sosborn 11y ago
      I guess I disagree with the idea that patents are inherently bad. Like hammers they can be used to build or to destroy.
    - ycombobreaker 11y ago
      You simply aren't using enough hammers! Though seriously, I think the term landmine is loaded toward using patents exclusively as a troll. A wider analogy could be like a toll bridge, where the builder should be compensated by travelers. Some tolls could be usurious, but that wouldn't invalidate the whole principle.

acveilleux 11y ago

There are useful patents though they may hinder more then they help depending on your PoV. Various codecs and some crypto algorithms come to mind. You run into a lot more useful ones at the intersection with the physical world where some protection lets a company get a chance to be the first one to market and reap some benefit. In some industries (Pharma) it's really the only practical approach due to the extreme development costs (easily over 1B$) and often cheap production costs.

brlewis 11y ago
To be clear, when I say "patent" I'm referring to a legal instrument that secures exclusive rights. When I say "useful patent" I'm talking about the utility of the legal instrument, not the utility of the mathematical algorithm claimed in the patent.

throwawaykf05 11y ago

Can you explain why you think patents hinder progress of science and the useful arts? How many cases do you know of that people were unable to advance the arts because of a patent? People talk about patent trolls suing startups and main street shops: How many of them actually do anything technically innovative? Hinder commercialization of some old technology? Sure, patents can do that. Stifle progress? Not so much. There are studies on these types of things that you can find on ssrn.com Your impression is likely based on what you hear in a) tech media, which is largely supported by ads and hence welcome rage-views, and b) tech forums like this where open source is the dominant religion. But count how many times you've heard of a merit-less lawsuit, and compare that to the dark matter of millions of active patents out there. Forming opinions based on cherry picked examples is not a good idea. Better to look at empirical evidence. I'll give you some numbers less than 1% of patents are ever asserted, and only a fraction of them make it to a trial. The vast majority of patents lie fallow because there is no demand for their technology in the market. Now does that look like a serious problem anymore?

brlewis 11y ago
You're looking at the wrong data. Progress is easily impeded without actual lawsuits. The RSA patent held back crypto progress for decades. I don't know if there were any lawsuits. Likewise for the GIF patent. Still today patents on JPEG2000 are preventing its adoption. H.264 patents slowed progress on web technology. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.264/MPEG-4_AVC#Controversies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.264/MPEG-4_AVC#Controversies The "dark matter of millions of active patents out there" is an apt description of failure. The constitutional purpose of patents was to disclose inventions that others could build on. If that purpose were being fulfilled we'd be browsing the patent database instead of all the places we actually go when we want to pick up a new technique.
- throwawaykf05 11y ago
  I extend the same challenge to CamperBob2 above: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9977378 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9977378 Give concrete examples instead of vague generalizations. I just have an example of how the GIF patent actually provoked progress as it was used to sure people who were using it without remuneration to the creators. Image compression experts say JPEG2000 is simply not used because it's just not enough of an improvement to make it worth the hassle. Patent issues are secondary. And note that patents did not prevent it from bruin developed in the first place. H.264 patents did not slow down development of new technology, it just slowed adoption of existing technology (h.264) in a different existing environment (browsers) Would you really qualify using the same technology in a browser as a significant technical innovation? So coming back to my challenge: Now that the RSA patent has expired in 2000, 15 years ago, what novel developments can you point to that you can say was blocked by the patent?