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Am I evil, or is killing patents just plain fun?

inventropy.us

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Re: Am I evil, or is killing patents just plain fun?

#51

Post by xroche »

PythonicAlpha wrote: post #39
robotys wrote: post #4

Why on earth i did not have read anywhere about USPTO officials return a letter to this so called patent troll with simple reply: "Explain this pattern in layman language." USPTO officials should have the power to inquire pattern applicants about their pattern until complete understanding, not to work alone and try to understand it by them self. It is hard to understand something technical, and it is utmost difficult…

The problem is deeper. The USPTO just does not want to ask further questions. The reason: It is funded from granted patents. If patents are not granted, the funds are down. And no director will like it to say at the end of the year, that US companies are less innovative than in the last year -- or worse, less innovative than ... (name a country).

Exactly. They have incentive in accepting any possible ridiculous patent (money) and they do not take any legal risks accepting these bogus patents (can you sue them if you can prove the patent was bogus ? short answer: NO). Why on earth would they become "ethical" and "good" (and other kind of nonsensical adjectives) and refuse the money people want to give them ? It's like asking a prostitute not to accept money based on a client reputation.

Re: Am I evil, or is killing patents just plain fun?

#52

Post by Expez »

bbarn wrote: post #41

Why is it with patents everything has to be nothing ever, never a good reason? I'm sure my perspective here might get this downvoted to oblivion, but really, think for a second what would happen if tomorrow, no software was patentable? Why would a large company focus any effort on R&D, new idea development, vs investing that money in just ripping off the competition and scaling it better? (not that that ever happens…

There are no software patents in Europe. I've seen nothing to suggest that European software companies are less competitive. In my daily work as a developer I've not once heard anyone talk about the competition 'stealing our ideas'.

The reason I think software patents are a net negative is that it's the sum of the parts that make a software product valuable. Patenting some of the algorithms used to develop this software product is not going to protect you from the competition in any meaningful way.

Contrast this with pharma where the end-product is simple, often a single easily reproduced compound.

Re: Am I evil, or is killing patents just plain fun?

#54

Post by benjiweber »

wyager wrote: post #14
dropit_sphere wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Worse, patent obfuscation is baldly contrary to the purpose of patents, which is to make the knowledge contained in them available to the public. Were someone to start a startup where users got paid-by-the-view for making educational videos, that would not be too far off from the original intent of patents .

>Were someone to start a startup where users got paid-by-the-view for making educational videos, that would not be too far off from the original intent of patents. What makes you say that this was the "original intent" of patents? I've never seen anything to suggest this. See the U.S. Constitution: "To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusiv…

The intent was to incentivise /publishing/ of inventions/mechanisms rather than keeping them a secret. Thus allowing others to build on top of that knowledge.

One way to incentivise this is to grant a /temporary/ monopoly, and require people to publish in exchange. When the temporary monopoly expires everyone else can fully benefit from the invention.

Re: Am I evil, or is killing patents just plain fun?

#55

Post by comex »

bbarn wrote: post #41

Why is it with patents everything has to be nothing ever, never a good reason? I'm sure my perspective here might get this downvoted to oblivion, but really, think for a second what would happen if tomorrow, no software was patentable? Why would a large company focus any effort on R&D, new idea development, vs investing that money in just ripping off the competition and scaling it better? (not that that ever happens…

But what kind of patent infringement cases and/or notable patent avoidance in computing do we actually see in practice? Off the top of my head:

- patent trolls, lots and lots of patent trolls, throwing around patents for things like in-app purchases and SSL

- Samsung and Apple throwing random patents at each other and mostly not accomplishing anything

- file systems - FAT LFN, exFAT

- machine instruction sets

- video codecs

- ClearType

Out of those examples, the first two are clearly awful, and the second two are pretty bad because they prevent compatibility/competition. The last two are relatively OK - with video codecs patent uncertainty is very damaging, but as long as we're hypothetically revamping the system we can fix that.

But the last two are also pretty unimportant compared to the software industry as a whole; keeping or abolishing them wouldn't make a huge difference to anyone other than MPEG LA. I'll make a bit of an extrapolation and claim that after factoring out undesirable use of software patents, the same would apply to abolishing them entirely: there would be little effect, because patents never effectively prevented ripoffs in the first place. Yet in the present, plenty of companies focus plenty of effort on R&D. Why they'd do so without patents is the same as why they do so today: most significant functionality takes a lot of time and work to implement, so being first is a large competitive advantage.

I guess we're not restricted to looking at what's currently patentable; if you really wanted to discourage ripoffs, you could expand the patent system along those lines at the same time as weakening the current system. But personally, today's patents are dangerous enough that any thought of expansion really scares me.

Re: Am I evil, or is killing patents just plain fun?

#56

Post by gmisra »

Maybe we should consider whether software patents are necessary at all? There are disciplines where the core content is not itself patentable (or "intellectually protectable"), primarily because obviousness is hard to prove. The most accessible examples are food recipes and fashion designs - how do you demonstrate that a specific recipe has never been conceived of in the past? For disciplines that rely on the assembly of existing ideas, this actually seems like the rational thing to do.

Alternatively: can you think of any software patents that make sense to you?

Re: Am I evil, or is killing patents just plain fun?

#58

Post by neolefty »

gmisra wrote: post #56

Maybe we should consider whether software patents are necessary at all? There are disciplines where the core content is not itself patentable (or "intellectually protectable"), primarily because obviousness is hard to prove. The most accessible examples are food recipes and fashion designs - how do you demonstrate that a specific recipe has never been conceived of in the past? For disciplines that rely on the assembl…

Sure, but the site in question is about current law, which does allow software patents. No doubt, many of the people working on invalidating them would agree that they are unnecessary.

Re: Am I evil, or is killing patents just plain fun?

#59

Post by shmerl »

comex wrote: post #55
bbarn wrote: post #41

Why is it with patents everything has to be nothing ever, never a good reason? I'm sure my perspective here might get this downvoted to oblivion, but really, think for a second what would happen if tomorrow, no software was patentable? Why would a large company focus any effort on R&D, new idea development, vs investing that money in just ripping off the competition and scaling it better? (not that that ever happens…

But what kind of patent infringement cases and/or notable patent avoidance in computing do we actually see in practice? Off the top of my head: - patent trolls, lots and lots of patent trolls, throwing around patents for things like in-app purchases and SSL - Samsung and Apple throwing random patents at each other and mostly not accomplishing anything - file systems - FAT LFN, exFAT - machine instruction sets - video…

Video codecs patents aren't OK. They are one the worst things used to keep the Web locked into proprietary technology. And not only the Web. It's clearly an anticompetiive tool of control, and not a way to return investments spent on innovation.

Re: Am I evil, or is killing patents just plain fun?

#60

Post by PeterisP »

Expez wrote: post #52
bbarn wrote: post #41

Why is it with patents everything has to be nothing ever, never a good reason? I'm sure my perspective here might get this downvoted to oblivion, but really, think for a second what would happen if tomorrow, no software was patentable? Why would a large company focus any effort on R&D, new idea development, vs investing that money in just ripping off the competition and scaling it better? (not that that ever happens…

There are no software patents in Europe. I've seen nothing to suggest that European software companies are less competitive. In my daily work as a developer I've not once heard anyone talk about the competition 'stealing our ideas'. The reason I think software patents are a net negative is that it's the sum of the parts that make a software product valuable. Patenting some of the algorithms used to develop this softw…

European software companies do [ab]use patents widely - a historically sensitive example is Fraunhofer institute (Germany) and patents on their invention of the mp3 encoding methods; it brought significant revenue for them, making them competitive; and the patent restrictions also had significant effect on the music software&device market.
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