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The Patent Pledge

paulgraham.com

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Re: The Patent Pledge

#171

Post by beagle3 »

jessriedel wrote: post #166
beagle3 wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it does not reduce to 1%. At worst, it will reduce to (1/p)% (with p However, it does chill the chilling effect - right now, e.g. Microsoft has ~20,000 patents, and they can sue anyone for anything. This way, they will actively have to choose strategically what they want to enforce. Finally, and I think I haven't made this clear enough, I don't think my proposal is a GOOD patent system in any way. It is bad. But…

Fine, so it's a (n/p) times 1% tax, where p is the average chance of victory and n is the average number of years in court for each suit. This doesn't seem to change the structure of the incentives at all; it's just a tax on patent infringement damages. I find the non-retroactive possibility much more interesting.

I don't disagree a non-retroactive possibility might be better; I just haven't been able to reach a conclusion about it.

And, it is more than just a tax on patent infringement damages - because you have to pay the tax upfront, which makes a big difference in cashflow.

eolas's $600M verdict against Microsoft, and i4i's $400M verdict would both require posting $6M / $4M per year respectively in never-to-be-recouped taxes, which is a huge sum for the companies in question, and would probably have made them not sue.

Furthermore, it involves the IRS in valuations, which is a good thing (because it is much harder to mess with the IRS) - manipulation of the value of a patent would have to be explained, and not arbitrary to avoid taxes.

Anyway, we could all dream - it is the lobbyists that write the laws, and the patent holders have thousands of them in DC.

Re: The Patent Pledge

#172

Post by DanBealeC »

teach wrote: post #170
damoncali wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except the superpowers with all the nukes routinely fling them at each other. Where is the deterrence? If IBM is not deterred by Microsoft's patents, why would they be deterred by mine?

I think you're mistaken about superpowers flinging nukes at each other. Only two nuclear weapons have ever been used in war, and that was 65 years ago.

It was analogy / metaphor. All the superpowers == all the big companies (Google, Apple, Samsung, etc) routinely fling nukes == lots of patent litigation.

Re: The Patent Pledge

#174

Post by ghshephard »

dotBen wrote: post #169
Daniel_Newby wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, you can make that commitment - in writing and verbally - when you join a company. With most employers, the statement is "For a period of one year after leaving employment, I will review and sign all documents needed to attain intellectual property protection for work done in the scope and course of employment."

Yes, exactly. Which is why you would redact that line and tell them you can only sign the contract without that clause. In the current climate NO software engineer should be signing any employment contract handed to them without making some change - there is tons of opportunity to leverage better terms in the current market.

dotBen - do you work in Silicon Valley? Unless you are a CxO, there is almost never any modification of the employment contract, and certainly never any surrounding the IP elements at a VC funded company of any stature.

In 95% of the cases, if you won't sign the contract as provided, it's a deal breaker and you aren't hired. I'm not saying there aren't exceptions for special cases. And, clearly for non VC funded companies there is more flexibility - but the employee contract in the valley is pretty much an immutable template.

Re: The Patent Pledge

#176

Post by loup-vaillant »

pg wrote: post #134
haberman wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is a good example of something that would have turned out worse if there hadn't been software patents? (I know you've argued before that software patents aren't fundamentally different than patents on anything else, but to a lot of people software patents have more obviously negative consequences).

The most famous example is probably Watt's steam engine. Bolton & Watt had high development costs and could not have gotten funding without their patent. But once established they definitely used patents against smaller competitors. So it is hard to say for sure even in this case whether patents were a net win. They probably were though. The patent probably caused modern separate-condenser steam engines to happen at…

Strange. That directly contradicts Against Intellectual Monopoly[1], which claims patents did more harm than good in this very case.

One reason is independent discovery: most innovations tend to be discovered independently and nearly simultaneously. Like, when "science is ready", innovations just pop out of several people's mind relatively quickly. (See also Eben Moglen's folk theory of the internet and innovation: "wrap the internet around a planet, spin the planet, and ideas flow out of the network".)

If we accept that, the only thing that could have significantly slowed the development of the modern separate-condenser steam engine down is money. Like, no single one investor is willing to risk making the first step, by fear of being eaten by copycats. If this is so, then we have a tragedy of the commons.

Risk aversion in this case is indeed a problem. I think it is mitigated however by (i) the first mover advantage, and (ii) variations of risk-aversion among individuals (combined with independent discovery, you get a winner-takes-all scenario).

Ah, before I forget: adopting an individualist point of view tend to favour patents: an inventor is entitled to reward (forgetting other's entitlement for freedom of invention). If I didn't have that patent, then I wouldn't have done this much good (forgetting that others may have done it otherwise). I know you didn't make this error, —Cf your §2—, but others do —for instance by taking your §1 out of context.)

[1]: http://www.dklevine.com/general/intellectual/against.htm

Re: The Patent Pledge

#177

Post by dodo53 »

What about as a further peer-pressure type 'good citizenship' patent thing - a voluntary pay $x per patent in your portfolio to a non-profit which uses money to search existing patent-base and seek to preemptively invalidate invalid/frivolous patents. You could have a little badge on your website or some such.

Re: The Patent Pledge

#178

Post by ntoshev »

pg wrote: post #39
Estragon wrote: post #24

I suppose it would be a good start, but the self-interest in this proposal stinks a bit. What's the distribution of employee numbers in companies in which Y Combinator has a stake?

Actually most of the value of our portfolio consists of companies with over 25 employees.

Of course, the bulk of the valuation is in the startups that have grown enough. You still have vested interest to protect startups while they are small, this is when you add most value anyway.

Re: The Patent Pledge

#179

Post by nailer »

artursapek wrote: post #44
nailer wrote: post #32

Patent trolling big companies is just as unethical as trolling small ones. PG: Red Hat, a multibillion dollar business, already has a working patent pledge - they won't use patents except defensively against people who attack them first. Copy that and use it.

I disagree. Patent trolls often just aim for a comparatively meager payout for licensing from their victims, who are usually too small to be able to afford the much more expensive option of taking it to court (and perhaps winning). Therefore a loophole in justice.

I understand that some victims are weaker than others. However that doesn't change the ethics of the matter: stealing from a poor old lady is as ethically bad as stealing from a rich kid. The impact may be greater, but the ethics are just as dubious.

Consider ID discovering a mathematical transform. If Creative signed up to PG's meaningless patent promise, they'd still be asking ID Software for protection money as they have more than 25 employees.

Re: The Patent Pledge

#180

Post by studentrob »

tgriesser wrote: post #88
pg wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IIRC none have actually been sued, but one has been sent a letter saying they're violating a competitor's patent. What made me start thinking about this idea was a combination of that letter, this story: http://k9ventures.com/blog/2011/04/27/modista/ and the fear that YC applicants working on education software have of the notoriously litigious Blackboard.

Interesting, it looks like Blackboard has their own interpretation of a "patent pledge," but it only covers open-source and non-commercial software. http://www.blackboard.com/About-Bb/Patents/Patent-Pledge.asp...

Here's a pledge, fuck software patents. I used blackboard in multiple schools and it was terrible, so screw anyone who tries to impede those who improve upon that system.

Given that PG cannot think of "anything that would have turned out for the worse without software patents", what-say-you we hold out for what is really needed, no software patents. That is, let's wait until this problem gets worse, get even more outraged, and effect our own change by getting businesses for whom we work to stop engaging in these vaine battles

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