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The Case Against Patents (2013)

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Re: The Case Against Patents (2013)

#31

Post by kajumix »

The case against patents has a moral dimension as well as a utilitarian one. This article is about the latter. Stephan Kinsella makes a good argument for both [1]. Ideas are free and can't owned.

In a way, enforcement of intellectual property rights infringes on physical property rights. If you come up with a process P to assemble certain kinds of physical widgets together, your claim on the patent for P prevents others to use those kinds of widgets in a certain way, even when they own those widgets fully.

[1]: https://mises.org/library/against-intellectual-property-0

Re: The Case Against Patents (2013)

#32

Post by epicide »

js8 wrote: post #22

I am against (all) patents on the following grounds: The article talks about first-mover advantage.. it seems to me that the case for or against patents depends on how you model it. If you model it as a single-shot prisoner's dilemma, then without patents, there is no incentive to make result of research public. This is a classical argument in favor of patents. On the other hand, if you model it as a many-rounds pris…

This dovetails with the case for enterprise open source quite nicely.

We continually make more and more complicated things. The time in which we iterate also decreases. I can see the argument that patents were useful at a time where an iteration could take decades or more. However, I'm sure we're well past the point of usefulness for any patent system.

A lot of decision makers in companies are stuck in the mindset of trade secrets because that made sense at one point. Your company made a widget. Your goal was to make that widget better than the other widget makers. You (at least believed that you) had some breakthrough that made your widgets better and continued to make widgets in that style for years without much change. In that time, you protected how you achieved the breakthrough. Patents helped with this.

Today, a lot of the money is not really in creating widgets. It's in creating digital recreations of widgets (e-widget) that accomplish the same task [0]. You don't pay much overhead per copy of e-widgets, so prototyping and "mass production" is fast and cheap. You can iterate at increasingly faster paces. It is not worth it to you to protect how you differentiate your e-widgets once it comes out [1]. You're already working on the next version. If you spend a lot of resources on protecting how you achieved your previous iteration(s), you are doomed to fall behind [1].

Once a company falls so far behind, it makes more sense (but only in the short term) to double down on your protection efforts. This is how we end up with the cable company ISP situation in the US. It is easier [2] to fight in the legal system than it is to a) spend on the R&D to improve your networks and b) actually roll out those changes.

These are just my observations. I have some ideas on solutions but obviously don't really know what would work. I doubt any one thing would work for every company, but I know (long term) a lot more are either going to need to adapt to a more open mindset or continue to spend more and more to protect their closed mindset. The latter is probably more likely for the foreseeable future.

[0]: Realistically, the real money is in trading investments in potential value of creating digital recreations of widgets, but that's a different conversation. At some point, you usually have to create the widget / digital recreation, so we'll continue to talk about that.

[1]: Unless you're a patent troll.

[2]: Cheaper.

Re: The Case Against Patents (2013)

#33

Post by kauffj »

This seems like as good a thread as any to mention one of my favorite unrealized enterprises: Patent Trolling for Good (PTG)

The idea is simple: take the traditional model of a patent troll, but alter the settlement terms to create a cascade that ultimately ends or significantly reduces the exclusive ownership of facts (aka IP).

Patent Trolling for Good acts like a traditional Patent Troll in that it takes any IP it has and aggressively uses it to make claims against other firms/entities.

However, instead of just seeking cash, PTG offers two options:

- Pay us a lot of cash

- Join PTG. By joining: 1) all of your IP can be used by PTG to sue others and 2) everyone in PTG has automatic rights to any IP held by others in PTG

And of course, anyone is welcome to join PTG at any time. You don't have to wait to be sued to join :)

I've brought this idea up with VCs and lawyers a few times across the years but I've never gotten any bites. If anyone was ever seriously and credibly interested in pursuing it, I would give such an entity any and all IP owned/claimable by LBRY (https://lbry.io) and potentially a small amount of initial funding as well.

Re: The Case Against Patents (2013)

#34

Post by rayiner »

enriquto wrote: post #27
api wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference is between a specific invention vs. a law of mathematics or nature. The latter absolutely should not be patentable. The negative opinion of patents around here comes from the fact that most people here are programmers and the vast majority of software patents are trash. I've seen very few patents on software that are not "obvious to anyone skilled in the art," patents on abstract mathematical concepts,…

> The difference is between a specific invention vs. a law of mathematics or nature. The latter absolutely should not be patentable. I do not understand the difference between the two. As a mathematician with an interest in philosophy, I would say that about 50% of mathematicians would agree that algorithms and theorems are discovered, not invented. Thus, your example of RSA as a "good" patent sounds preposterous to…

That's a bit of reductio ad absurdum. The RSA algorithm is a "law of [mathematical] nature" as much as a log cabin is natural. The composition of natural building blocks into something that performs a function is a work of human ingenuity.

That said, RSA itself probably would not be patentable today. The Supreme Court's decision in Alice probably precludes pure algorithm patents. You need an algorithm in the context of a specific use case. For example, a cell phone that uses RSA to encrypt keys to protect data in flash memory.

Re: The Case Against Patents (2013)

#35

Post by learc83 »

andrewla wrote: post #11

The authors summarize as: > ... there is no empirical evidence that [patents] serve to increase innovation and productivity ... This seems to be a fundamental misunderstanding as to what purpose patents serve. The public benefit of a patent is that the information is public -- inventions which might previously have been kept secret are instead put into the light where others may use them. The cost to the public of pa…

“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.”

>That is, patents don't increase innovation or productivity -- that is by design.

Yes one part is to prevent trade secrets, but the idea is that by making trade secrets public, other people will have the ability to improve on the idea and make innovations that wouldn't have otherwise been possible had the knowledge been kept secret--not just that society gets to use that one invention.

The other purpose has nothing to do with trade secrets. There are many inventions that wouldn't be possible to protect with trade secrets. Patents are designed to make this kind of invention profitable to create--encouraging people to invent them.

Btw I'm not arguing that patents necessarily fulfill their purpose.

Re: The Case Against Patents (2013)

#36

Post by jpadkins »

wtdo wrote: post #29
jordigh wrote: post #9

I never thought that the case for patents was to increase productivity. I always thought that their purpose was to eliminate trade secrets: people are going to invent stuff whether you want to or not, but without patents, they'll take the secrets to the grave. My favourite patent of all time is Michael Jackson's smooth criminal patent: https://mashable.com/2015/03/28/michael-jackson-shoe-patent/... This is the patent…

Not that this would be an efficient use of anyone's time but... Assuming the purpose of patents is 1) to eliminate trade secrets, 2) that patents must be novel, and 3) that patents must be non-obvious to someone skilled in the art, then perhaps a solution would be: take a handful of people skilled in the art, tell half of them to implement the patent and tell the other half only the end goal and see if any of them co…

the costs of your system are probably way more than the value created for society via patents.

Re: The Case Against Patents (2013)

#37

Post by matz1 »

jordigh wrote: post #19
beefield wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The public benefit of a patent is that the information is public -- inventions which might previously have been kept secret are instead put into the light where others may use them Can you come up with siginificant patented innovations that are not easy to reverse-engineer? I have thought that the raison d'etre of patents is to foster innovation.

I always mention the Michael Jackson smooth criminal patent. Is it easy to reverse-engineer? I don't know, it seems obvious once you see what it is, but it seems awfully clever if you don't know about it. A lot of people seem to believe that it would involve electromagnets, but the actual invention is more low-tech.

Maybe it was hard back in the days but nowadays good luck trying to keep it secret.

Re: The Case Against Patents (2013)

#38

Post by AmIFirstToThink »

jpadkins wrote: post #36
wtdo wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not that this would be an efficient use of anyone's time but... Assuming the purpose of patents is 1) to eliminate trade secrets, 2) that patents must be novel, and 3) that patents must be non-obvious to someone skilled in the art, then perhaps a solution would be: take a handful of people skilled in the art, tell half of them to implement the patent and tell the other half only the end goal and see if any of them co…

the costs of your system are probably way more than the value created for society via patents.

The cost of creating artificial exclusivity, enforced by the state against natural human learning/discovering capabilities, is even higher.

Re: The Case Against Patents (2013)

#40

Post by wtdo »

jpadkins wrote: post #36
wtdo wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not that this would be an efficient use of anyone's time but... Assuming the purpose of patents is 1) to eliminate trade secrets, 2) that patents must be novel, and 3) that patents must be non-obvious to someone skilled in the art, then perhaps a solution would be: take a handful of people skilled in the art, tell half of them to implement the patent and tell the other half only the end goal and see if any of them co…

the costs of your system are probably way more than the value created for society via patents.

I agree. I probably should have stressed that more in the initial disclaimer. It is possible (though, again, unlikely) that it might not be as bad as it initially sounds simply due to fewer bad patents being submitted if the submitter knows the patent application would go through such an extensive process. There'd be a lot fewer vague patent applications and a lot fewer applications for stuff that's obvious.

I generally feel that the cost of patents isn't worth the value they've created. Once one factors in the costs of lawsuits over stupid/obvious patents, patent trolls, the cost of patent attorneys, the increased cost of goods due to patents, etc, etc, the value of patents generally shrinks considerably. Being sure only good patents get through could go some way to increasing the value of patents to society, and thus might be worth the extra cost.

Then again, I'd rather patents just be dumped unceremoniously.

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