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These do look cool and perhaps are examples of inventions that should be patented, but unfortunately for me, patent abuses have turned me off to the whole paten
by jbuzbee 11y ago
These do look cool and perhaps are examples of inventions that should be patented, but unfortunately for me, patent abuses have turned me off to the whole patent system. I wouldn't want reminders of this broken system staring me in the face every day.
- rayiner 11y agoI think that view is a bit short sighted. For example, Xerox PARC was bankrolled by Xerox's monopoly on copier patents. In an environment where the company didn't have to worry about counting pennies in cut throat competition, it was able to fund fundamental research into technologies we take for granted today (dynamic languages, the GUI, networking). After Japanese companies successfully sued Xerox and got a consent decree to force licensing of the patents, the company, and PARC, quickly declined. Monopolies are often good for fundamental innovation. How much of modern computing traces back to either Bell Labs (built on the AT&T monopoly, which traces back to the Bell patent) or PARC (built on the Xerox patent monopoly)?