371–380 of 530 posts
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Yeah, this is a big one. How'd that happen in the first place?
FDR froze wages during WWII while excluding insurance benefits. That plus tax subsidies for third-party insurance and we ended up in the current mess.
A good example of disastrous 2nd order effects.
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CA already makes non-competes unenforceable and aren't most FAANG employees in CA?
CA isn't federal law and this involves the FTC. Sure they could have taken them before but I think a nation wide limit might stir up the hornet's nest. FAANG have offices and data centers all over the country
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Definitely agree — software patents should be abolished, full stop. They serve no purpose but to impede innovation and progress. I’d argue the same applies to all patents; the world would be better off without them in general.
Maybe software patents require releasing the source code and last for a shorter term related to the pace of technological change. Then the incentive to share the advance is preserved instead of everything being a trade secret.
Isn’t it premature to get excited before the proverbial ink is dry?
I’m very much in favor of a total ban of noncompete agreements.
That said, it seems like all the parties that stand to benefit from them will fight tooth and nail to see this doesn’t come to pass.
Thoughts?
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> I've always thought of that as representing a stifling of innovation. Sadly, over my long career as a tech startup entrepreneur, my experience has been that your assumption is correct the vast majority of the time. Now when I teach or mentor young tech entrepreneurs I'm often explaining why they probably don't want to prioritize filing patents as part of their startup strategy. While there are certain exceptions, e…
Pardon my language but the patent thing has turned into a **** measuring contest, and serves no useful purpose. When I worked at FAANG you had a whole class of PE engineer who literally couldn’t build anything to save their lives. But they would constantly file patents with a frenzy like IT guys rack up certifications. Of course when the patent office gets an application from $FAANG they approve it. And people who ar…
Wouldn't that mean they are accurately identifying ego-driven candidates that aren't actually engineers? :P
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Pass, repeal, and revise laws, yes. That's literally what the word "legislator" means.
Legislator is a person that can write laws, it does not mean it's their duty to write laws. In the United States their duty is to uphold the constitution and represent their constituents. Not to create more rules.
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> FTC doesn't really have the ability to do this, since contract law is part of state law The federal government can absolutely regulate both employment and contract law. (Merger agreements are contracts. The FTC was established to block bad mergers.) Whether the FTC can do this is untested. But that’s more a Chevron issue than a federal powers one.
> The federal government can absolutely regulate both employment and contract law Where in Article I Section 8 does the Constitution grant that power?
The Commerce Clause, when interpreted expansively — as federal courts have largely done. (We'll see what happens with the 6-3 conservative majority of this SCOTUS incarnation.)
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These are pretty strange arguments. Why should an overworked USPTO lead to more patents? That assumes that the default is to grant the patent. If the default is to reject the patent, then an overworked office would not lead to more patents. An overworked Supreme Court does not lead to more Supreme Court decisions.
> Why should an overworked USPTO lead to more patents? That assumes that the default is to grant the patent. If the default is to reject the patent, then an overworked office would not lead to more patents. Former USPTO patent examiner here. I'll answer why an overworked USPTO will lead to more patents at present , but I make no claims that it should be this way. The effective default is to grant patents. Why? Becaus…
The path of least resistance makes appearance once again. If we don't understand that this guides the default final state, we would argue about nothing constructive.
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> leading to an estimated average increase of 17,000 to 29,000 more patents each year Insane to me that they use this as a measure of innovation, when almost by definition it is the antithesis of innovation.
What definition is that? Because the legal definition of patent I’m familiar with requires each patent to be a unique innovation.
I suspect this is bad for California, its lack of noncompetes was a huge differentiation for a while. (how bad? I don't know.)
It's not bad when people are copying you, it signals that California is ahead of the curve on the issue and - upon further examination - others too like decriminalization of cannabis including removing it from background checks and drug testing for most employment, as well as certain tenant and landlord rights other states don't have. Some of those non-competes were ridiculous with their "in perpetuity throughout the…