The whole US patent system needs to either be scrapped or rebuilt. The purpose it was originally intended to be used for doesn't make sense in a world where most new technology is just software, and software is incredibly easy to copy and duplicate. Getting a software patent is mostly a matter of sneaking past the people at the USPTO, and making sure you're the first to file. These patent factories could just write c…
IBM sues Airbnb for patent royalties
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Re: IBM sues Airbnb for patent royalties
#62Re: IBM sues Airbnb for patent royalties
#63Re: IBM sues Airbnb for patent royalties
#64Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The purpose it was originally intended to be used for doesn't make sense in a world where most new technology is just software, and software is incredibly easy to copy and duplicate. The very first patent was to duplicate an existing process (the loom) and have a monopoly to produce it. I keep hearing this argument from patent proponents, but patents have never in their history been ostensibly for good.
If patents had a requirement that they must be licensed under "reasonable" terms (i.e. if brought to court you can argue that the license was designed to price out or discourage competitors) then I'm totally in support of them since it's supposed to be a reward for sharing your design with the world rather than keeping it a trade secret.
Re: IBM sues Airbnb for patent royalties
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The purpose it was originally intended to be used for doesn't make sense in a world where most new technology is just software, and software is incredibly easy to copy and duplicate. The very first patent was to duplicate an existing process (the loom) and have a monopoly to produce it. I keep hearing this argument from patent proponents, but patents have never in their history been ostensibly for good.
The Constitution requires that Congress setup laws for both copyright and patent, for the good of the nation. Patents were always intended for the overall wellbeing of the nation. That's not to say that is what has always been achieved by the patent system, but it's not some sort of conspiracy. If anything, in history, they were always OSTENSIBLY for good, but perhaps ACTUALLY bad. So I find your statement to be A) h…
No it doesn't, it grants them the power but it doesn't specify they have to do it.
“The Congress shall have Power To…promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries….”
There is a big difference between having a power and being forced to use it.
Re: IBM sues Airbnb for patent royalties
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
I guess I always assumed this is more or less how it worked everywhere, at least anywhere that respect intellectual property. Is this not the case? What other models are out there, and which ones work better?
EU doesn't allow software patents. The world hasn't ended so far. https://fsfe.org/campaigns/swpat/swpat.en.html for a decent overview
Re: IBM sues Airbnb for patent royalties
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The purpose it was originally intended to be used for doesn't make sense in a world where most new technology is just software, and software is incredibly easy to copy and duplicate. The very first patent was to duplicate an existing process (the loom) and have a monopoly to produce it. I keep hearing this argument from patent proponents, but patents have never in their history been ostensibly for good.
The Constitution requires that Congress setup laws for both copyright and patent, for the good of the nation. Patents were always intended for the overall wellbeing of the nation. That's not to say that is what has always been achieved by the patent system, but it's not some sort of conspiracy. If anything, in history, they were always OSTENSIBLY for good, but perhaps ACTUALLY bad. So I find your statement to be A) h…
Stable ownership is the gift of social law, and is given late in the progress of society. It would be curious then, if an idea, the fugitive fermentation of an individual brain, could, of natural right, be claimed in exclusive and stable property. If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it.
It is notable that patent and copyright are not natural rights. At no time was it assumed that people have such rights, nor that government, without explicit authorization could grant such limited term monopolies. Calling these monopolies "good" is definitely not uncontested, nor was it ever.
Re: IBM sues Airbnb for patent royalties
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
It depends on your definition of "new technology", but I would say it's almost certainly not true. In a world where electric coffee grinders exist, and batteries exist, is a battery powered electric coffee grinder a new technology? Or just a new product. I'd say the latter. There's certainly new software technology being produced every day, but much less than there are new software products being launched every day.…
I don't think the idea "battery powered coffee grinder" is patentable but why shouldn't the unique details of the implementation be covered? Assuming that patents were actually useful as method of sharing useful designs with the world wouldn't you want to know how to overcome the engineering challenges?
Re: IBM sues Airbnb for patent royalties
#69IBM has so many generic patents. I wonder why they don't sue more companies? I guess maybe they settle under the radar.
Re: IBM sues Airbnb for patent royalties
#70Shocking: some people believe they should rule the world forever. What a novel play by entitled aristocrats.
Forever? Patents typically last 13 years
Why should “using commonly known syntax patterns to enable mechanized organization and display of text and images in any number arbitrary configurations”, which is a reasonable enough description of what we’re doing from a user perspective, be protected?
That’s ALL software work is. “Feeling” ephemeral things are real is not a good enough justification for shackling us all with such laws.
That’s ripe for abuse. No less than being told we have to make laws this way because people “felt” God was telling them that’s ok.
But money makes laws change so they can collect on our innate agency and curiosity for these things.
They own the land and the ideas.
Sorry, mate, read a bit more than contemporary politics & economics books.
A philosophy that undoes all this captured emotional energy to prop up correctness of winning favor with stern old people who don’t literally contribute except via condescending approval is right there.
Society will instead kowtow to daddy despite all the now dead philosophers writing that we should avoid just that, lest they reign over us with their feelings of what is appropriate and emotional wanky tales of grandiose pipe dreams they want to achieve for themselves via our effort. More real gains for them, inequality gains for those of us that prop up their emotional castles.
Adam Smith was right: the extreme division of labor has created a society of ignorant humans whose agency has been boxed in by the state apparatus.
I’m not talking about anti-science and well argued positions. Politically the people are not existing in one. They’re existing as scared children too afraid of the ruler their fifth grade teacher who died years ago, keeps in her drawer.
Childish paranoias literally etched in these brains forever. Thanks neuroscience for showing us the long life of our childhood anxieties and paranoias.