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Supreme Court Should Say No to Patents That Take Old Ideas Away from the Public

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Re: Supreme Court Should Say No to Patents That Take Old Ideas Away from the Public

#21

Post by Endy »

bluejekyll wrote: post #20
pitaj wrote: post #19

I haven't seen anything good about patents in years. Maybe the government should just get rid of them, along with copyright. The idea of granting someone a monopoly to an idea is crazy to me.

I agree about software patents. But I disagree about all patents, and I especially disagree about getting rid of copyright. I think copyright needs to be reigned in, the DMCA is horrid, but the concept itself generally protects artists and creators (and gets abused by the likes of Disney, etc.). If I make something, I should be capable of earning money with it if I want to. Copyright protects software in that regard,…

If you want to make money, offer it to people who consider your work valuable. Establish a patronage and paywall yourself. Those of us who believe in decency and social good will continue to create and distribute for free.

Re: Supreme Court Should Say No to Patents That Take Old Ideas Away from the Public

#22

Post by Endy »

pitaj wrote: post #19

I haven't seen anything good about patents in years. Maybe the government should just get rid of them, along with copyright. The idea of granting someone a monopoly to an idea is crazy to me.

You know, those of us with sense about this need to start working together and lobby the government actively to demolish patents, copyrights, and trademarks. Ideas need to be free for society to grow.

Re: Supreme Court Should Say No to Patents That Take Old Ideas Away from the Public

#23

Post by Sir_Cmpwn »

Endy wrote: post #22
pitaj wrote: post #19

I haven't seen anything good about patents in years. Maybe the government should just get rid of them, along with copyright. The idea of granting someone a monopoly to an idea is crazy to me.

You know, those of us with sense about this need to start working together and lobby the government actively to demolish patents, copyrights, and trademarks. Ideas need to be free for society to grow.

Perhaps running for office would be more effective.

Re: Supreme Court Should Say No to Patents That Take Old Ideas Away from the Public

#24

Post by cityzen »

I recently watched the documentary The Patent Scam with the XPlane guy... it was disturbing to say the least. My question is this... With "method" patents being an absolute joke, what would stop me from patenting, "A method of acquiring patents for the sole purpose of litigating infringement without actually creating a licensable alternative"? I'm serious, these patents seems so stupid, I don't see why you couldn't just get that patent and sue all of these people?

Then again, if it is patentable, I'm sure some troll owns that one too.

Good documentary, though. It's currently on Hulu.

Re: Supreme Court Should Say No to Patents That Take Old Ideas Away from the Public

#25

Post by pitaj »

bluejekyll wrote: post #20
pitaj wrote: post #19

I haven't seen anything good about patents in years. Maybe the government should just get rid of them, along with copyright. The idea of granting someone a monopoly to an idea is crazy to me.

I agree about software patents. But I disagree about all patents, and I especially disagree about getting rid of copyright. I think copyright needs to be reigned in, the DMCA is horrid, but the concept itself generally protects artists and creators (and gets abused by the likes of Disney, etc.). If I make something, I should be capable of earning money with it if I want to. Copyright protects software in that regard,…

There's a lot of evidence that copyright doesn't actually help most creators, and significantly holds back progress.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3198147

The same arguments generally apply to patents. There are monetization models like live shows, subscriptions, Patreon, advertising, sponsorships, etc that work very well for creators.

Especially in the internet age, we shouldn't act like copyright and patents do anything to stop people. Creators would likely do better if the publishers weren't in the middle controlling access to their works.

Re: Supreme Court Should Say No to Patents That Take Old Ideas Away from the Public

#26

Post by chrismcb »

pitaj wrote: post #19

I haven't seen anything good about patents in years. Maybe the government should just get rid of them, along with copyright. The idea of granting someone a monopoly to an idea is crazy to me.

Because it is crazy. Ideas aren't patentable, nor are they copyrightable. You haven't seen anything good about patents in years? Look around you, do you like the objects you see? Many of them exist because of patents.

Re: Supreme Court Should Say No to Patents That Take Old Ideas Away from the Public

#27

Post by pitaj »

chrismcb wrote: post #26
pitaj wrote: post #19

I haven't seen anything good about patents in years. Maybe the government should just get rid of them, along with copyright. The idea of granting someone a monopoly to an idea is crazy to me.

Because it is crazy. Ideas aren't patentable, nor are they copyrightable. You haven't seen anything good about patents in years? Look around you, do you like the objects you see? Many of them exist because of patents.

Not true. Patents play very little role in consumer products. Large corporations hold patents to defend themselves against other large corporations, just so they can compete against each other. Think of the Samsung-Apple fiasco.

Re: Supreme Court Should Say No to Patents That Take Old Ideas Away from the Public

#28

Post by sushisource »

pitaj wrote: post #19

I haven't seen anything good about patents in years. Maybe the government should just get rid of them, along with copyright. The idea of granting someone a monopoly to an idea is crazy to me.

Patents for software are fairly nonsense. Patents for drugs, for example, are absolutely crucial to incentivizing complex drug development that may take billions of dollars of research to create something that can be copied easily without patent protection.

You can't get rid of those types of patents unless you also start either handing out massive research subsidies or perform research with government money.

Re: Supreme Court Should Say No to Patents That Take Old Ideas Away from the Public

#29

Post by fipple »

pitaj wrote: post #25
bluejekyll wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree about software patents. But I disagree about all patents, and I especially disagree about getting rid of copyright. I think copyright needs to be reigned in, the DMCA is horrid, but the concept itself generally protects artists and creators (and gets abused by the likes of Disney, etc.). If I make something, I should be capable of earning money with it if I want to. Copyright protects software in that regard,…

There's a lot of evidence that copyright doesn't actually help most creators, and significantly holds back progress. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3198147 The same arguments generally apply to patents. There are monetization models like live shows, subscriptions, Patreon, advertising, sponsorships, etc that work very well for creators. Especially in the internet age, we shouldn't act like copyri…

I can say with confidence that >90% of new small-molecule pharmaceuticals would not be created in a patent-free world. Now, not every new small molecule drug is important, in fact probably the majority aren’t. But those that are, save a lot of lives.

Re: Supreme Court Should Say No to Patents That Take Old Ideas Away from the Public

#30

Post by bbcbasic »

cityzen wrote: post #24

I recently watched the documentary The Patent Scam with the XPlane guy... it was disturbing to say the least. My question is this... With "method" patents being an absolute joke, what would stop me from patenting, "A method of acquiring patents for the sole purpose of litigating infringement without actually creating a licensable alternative"? I'm serious, these patents seems so stupid, I don't see why you couldn't j…

You should at that patent then troll the trolls out of existence.
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