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Amazon owes $525M in cloud-storage patent fight, US jury says

reuters.com

41–50 of 222 posts

Re: Amazon owes $525M in cloud-storage patent fight, US jury says

#41
post #39
post #35

The concept of intellectual property is antithetical to how humans have progressed socially and technologically for millenia. It's a wasteful aberration that strangles innovation with red tape and hands control of our culture over to those with the financial mean to claim to own it. The day we wrest back that control will be a good day.

> antithetical to how humans have progressed socially and technologically for millenia I'd argue the opposite. It has been one of the primary driving forces behind human progress for the past 300-400 years. The world today would be a much bleaker and more miserable place if IP rights never became a thing. Imagine writing or any type of content creation without copyright. Even after the printing press was invented it…

Books are fancy, but let's not mix up progress with being able to live off writing them.

We see innovation in open source every day from small startups, from various sized communities, and from hobbyists.

That said, the startup selling IP model works somewhat in the pharma sector, but that's patents, and you mentioned books, where the whole IP regulation game got abso-fucking-lutely captured by the industry (with their ridiculous 100+ years of copyright).

Re: Amazon owes $525M in cloud-storage patent fight, US jury says

#42
post #38
post #35

The concept of intellectual property is antithetical to how humans have progressed socially and technologically for millenia. It's a wasteful aberration that strangles innovation with red tape and hands control of our culture over to those with the financial mean to claim to own it. The day we wrest back that control will be a good day.

The first patent was issued in the 1400's — it is exactly how humans have progressed technologically and sociality. Let's stop being so absolutist about these topics. The problem here isn't that patents exist, intellectual property protection is critical to investment and research. The issue here is two fold: 1. Patents usually involve a lot of research — and existed as a way to ensure that competition couldn't imita…

>1. Patents usually involve a lot of research — and existed as a way to ensure that competition couldn't imitate your product without also making that investment, licensing it from you, etc.

I agree with the gist of your comment, but a fundamental issue with patents is that your investment in research can be destroyed if someone else independently did overlapping research and filed first.

Re: Amazon owes $525M in cloud-storage patent fight, US jury says

#43
post #39
post #35

The concept of intellectual property is antithetical to how humans have progressed socially and technologically for millenia. It's a wasteful aberration that strangles innovation with red tape and hands control of our culture over to those with the financial mean to claim to own it. The day we wrest back that control will be a good day.

> antithetical to how humans have progressed socially and technologically for millenia I'd argue the opposite. It has been one of the primary driving forces behind human progress for the past 300-400 years. The world today would be a much bleaker and more miserable place if IP rights never became a thing. Imagine writing or any type of content creation without copyright. Even after the printing press was invented it…

It would be interesting to see which generates more value for humanity -- closed source software or open source.

Re: Amazon owes $525M in cloud-storage patent fight, US jury says

#44
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The first patent was issued in the 1400's — it is exactly how humans have progressed technologically and sociality. Let's stop being so absolutist about these topics. The problem here isn't that patents exist, intellectual property protection is critical to investment and research. The issue here is two fold: 1. Patents usually involve a lot of research — and existed as a way to ensure that competition couldn't imita…

>1. Patents usually involve a lot of research — and existed as a way to ensure that competition couldn't imitate your product without also making that investment, licensing it from you, etc. I agree with the gist of your comment, but a fundamental issue with patents is that your investment in research can be destroyed if someone else independently did overlapping research and filed first.

It feels like you could overcome this by awarding a patent to both, if they can prove the research was independent?

Re: Amazon owes $525M in cloud-storage patent fight, US jury says

#45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>1. Patents usually involve a lot of research — and existed as a way to ensure that competition couldn't imitate your product without also making that investment, licensing it from you, etc. I agree with the gist of your comment, but a fundamental issue with patents is that your investment in research can be destroyed if someone else independently did overlapping research and filed first.

It feels like you could overcome this by awarding a patent to both, if they can prove the research was independent?

Yes, but how do you prove that it was after one of the teams publishes their work? It seems nearly impossible.

Re: Amazon owes $525M in cloud-storage patent fight, US jury says

#46

Links to two of the patents that were infringed https://patents.google.com/patent/US7103640B1/en https://patents.google.com/patent/US7233978B2/en I really hope Kove loses, I don't know too much about networking, but a few header fields don't really seem patentworthy to me.

Aren't those patents expired? It's been >20yr since application.

Re: Amazon owes $525M in cloud-storage patent fight, US jury says

#48
post #35

The concept of intellectual property is antithetical to how humans have progressed socially and technologically for millenia. It's a wasteful aberration that strangles innovation with red tape and hands control of our culture over to those with the financial mean to claim to own it. The day we wrest back that control will be a good day.

It would be an interesting experiment - a world where no patents exist, only production (though corporate espionage / theft is still illegal).

Some argue that this will effectively kill R&D, because the second you've created something - others would start reverse engineering, and copy the product. In some areas, like pharma, R&D is notoriously expensive, and the pharma companies have only that many years to recoup all that cost, before their patent runs out.

Would it lead to more money spent on making reverse engineering difficult? Both the products, and the manufacturing process.

Re: Amazon owes $525M in cloud-storage patent fight, US jury says

#49
post #38
post #35

The concept of intellectual property is antithetical to how humans have progressed socially and technologically for millenia. It's a wasteful aberration that strangles innovation with red tape and hands control of our culture over to those with the financial mean to claim to own it. The day we wrest back that control will be a good day.

The first patent was issued in the 1400's — it is exactly how humans have progressed technologically and sociality. Let's stop being so absolutist about these topics. The problem here isn't that patents exist, intellectual property protection is critical to investment and research. The issue here is two fold: 1. Patents usually involve a lot of research — and existed as a way to ensure that competition couldn't imita…

> The first patent was issued in the 1400's — it is exactly how humans have progressed technologically and sociality.

The last 600 years is a rounding error in the history of humans. Imagine if the different methods of lighting a fire were patented. Those humans also burned witches and imprisoned people for criticizing the church.

We would have a better world if our goal was progress for all over profit for a few.

Re: Amazon owes $525M in cloud-storage patent fight, US jury says

#50
post #41
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> antithetical to how humans have progressed socially and technologically for millenia I'd argue the opposite. It has been one of the primary driving forces behind human progress for the past 300-400 years. The world today would be a much bleaker and more miserable place if IP rights never became a thing. Imagine writing or any type of content creation without copyright. Even after the printing press was invented it…

Books are fancy, but let's not mix up progress with being able to live off writing them. We see innovation in open source every day from small startups, from various sized communities, and from hobbyists. That said, the startup selling IP model works somewhat in the pharma sector, but that's patents, and you mentioned books, where the whole IP regulation game got abso-fucking-lutely captured by the industry (with the…

Human Progress is a lot more than open source software innovation.
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