Comment by drannex
2 days ago
This is why patents are Regressive and should be done away with. They no longer protect small-time inventors, only corporations. They stifle all innovation.
2 days ago
This is why patents are Regressive and should be done away with. They no longer protect small-time inventors, only corporations. They stifle all innovation.
The original point of a patent is a good one: document your work publicly and in return get a window of time to profit from said work. It was intended to improve innovation by making people not hide their work.
It wasn't really designed for people patenting vague concepts, math or ideas.
If you build a better mousetrap, a patent is pretty good. If you have a vague idea you might show ads in elevators, you should A: just be shot, and B: not get a patent
But today with software you can publish just a generic description and do not disclose actual algorithms and formulas, so there is no value for everyone else. For example, you could patent a program that "chooses the best investment options using AI" without describing any details even if you don't know how to actually implement this.
(Well after I posted this comment you can't anymore)
"Add something to a digital shopping cart", "Minigames on a loading screen". If I can replicate it without reading any details in your patent, it's not patent worthy.
> For example, you could patent a program that "chooses the best investment options using AI" without describing any details even if you don't know how to actually implement this.
That’s not true. I have several issued US patents and while you don’t publish the code, you certainly have to disclose enough high level details that another person versed in the art would be able to implement it.
Patents come from a quaint time when startup capital was non-existent.
Today, they are simply a giant anchor on the speed of innovation.
The software world has flourished with effectively very little patent protection and very lax IP enforcement.
And in the hardware world China quickly commoditizes and copies everything, regardless of US patents anyways.
The only real moats in modern capitalism come from talent, marketing, distribution, and regulation.
Patents are now just a weaponized form of regulation useful for kneecapping domestic competitors. They hurt the local economy more than helping it.
No, this has had extensive research. Patents slowed down both inventors and industries deploying new technologies. The story that it would enable a period of time for direct profits turned out to be false. There is more to be made by simply moving forward with adoption of new inventions.
If they exist, they should be 3 - 5 years. Not 20. That's insane and creates monopolies.
At least it’s not as terrible as the US copyright system, which is more than 90 years.
Copyright should be shorter, but IMHO it's a lot less bad than patents.
If copyright worked like patents, Disney wouldn't have a monopoly on the Star Wars franchise
Patents tend to be super-broad, so instead they'd have a monopoly on all space-related fictional media.
There's a pretty fundamental difference between patents and copyright that I think justifies copyright being longer: a copyrighted work could not exist without its creator. IE, the Beatles catalog would not exist without the 4 Beatles, specifically. However patents are discoveries and can be discovered by other people.
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That should also be three to five years.
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An R&D cycle itself can be 5 years, a 1-2 year patent approval time is typical. Industrializing research for production is at least a year, not to mention finding a market fit. And you are supposed to recoup all that in 3-5 years? Just tooling amortization can take that much.
Lots of small companies only get funding because investors believe the IP will be worth something even if the company fails. I’m not wild about our current patent situation, but we have to recognize that a less restrictive recision would impact small business pretty hard.
Shoe goes on both feet though. Lots of companies are not viable due to the legal burden of one small neccesary part being patented.
For sure. It’s complicated, and it’s different people and companies when you get to the specifics.
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I don't care about the impact on small business. I care about the impact on real people being able to access life-saving technology.
Well, you can live in that world by observing China. IP doesn’t exist. All things are open source. You have to be careful doing things but people still do them and a cheaper product shows up on Aliexpress the next day.