Comment by jandrese
16 hours ago
It's telling that before the Patent system the solution was secretive guilds that jealously (sometimes lethally) guarded their secrets to avoid competition. This was obviously terrible since it greatly slowed down innovation.
I'm not sure what the correct solution is to this problem. We want to avoid anything that causes a return of the guild system, but at the same time we don't want small inventors steamrolled by large corporations.
That said, I think corporations should be much more limited in their Patent powers. In fact it's questionable how much value society gets out of large corporation patents. If another large corporation "steals" the idea and capitalizes on it first that is their own fault. The only people who profit are the lawyers.
(Repeating for umpteenth time:) I wish patent fees were exponential. Pay $10 the first year, $40 the second year, $160 the third year,.. $10,485,760 the tenth year, etc. The patent expires and goes to public domain the first year when the fee has not been not paid.
This way there'd be enough time to commercialize an invention for basically peanuts, so the small guy won't be dissuaded from doing so. OTOH holding on a patent for a very long time would only be possible if it brings gobs of money, end even so, only for a reasonably limited time, because on 15th year the fee would be $10,737,418,240.
This is an excellent idea. I would still limit the time though. Also inflation should be taken into account (maybe) not that in 10 years 10M dollars is a chocolate.
Thanks! The idea is not mine :)
I think that the exponent grows so fast that it completely dwarfs normal inflation. If the inflation goes out of hand, Zimbabwe-style, then I won't expect patent enforcement to matter or work either. But well, a term like 15-20 years could be added just in case.
This is actually a ... solid idea upon short consideration!
I like it! Thank you for posting it: I hadn't seen it before.
That still seems pretty easy to game by re-filing slight variations of the original patents
That would only protect those variations, not the previously published original version. And if the variations are too obvious you could even challenge their patents with a good chance of overturning them (which brings us back to the issue of the legal system being too slow and expensive)
Won't these be invalidated by having prior art already in public domain?
Why not make it so there is a limit to how many patents you can hold? So if you have 10 patents, to register an 11th patent you need to release one of the patents you already have.
Who is "you"? The company? The subcompany? The CEO? Each individual employee? Patsy #1281?
I feel like patents are nowadays only used for things that would be easy to reverse-engineer or must be made public anyway. You can't recreate any modern technology by looking at patents, from semiconductor manufacturing to food processing.
So if patents have lost their original purpose, I don't see any value left in perpetuating the system.
I think relying on trade secrets for many things would actually be an improvement over what we have now.
You could still keep your recipe secret, but someone else could come up with something similar with no risk.
Not to mention that patents are so (intentionally) difficult to understand that even patented technology is basically trade secrets now anyway. And the useful designs are protected by NDAs.
You can't put a NDA on a Patent. NDAs are basically the modern version of guilds. Imagine a world where absolutely everything about your job is kept under a strict NDA. This is true of startups, but it doesn't scale, especially once you start actually selling product and need to make customers happy to get the sale.
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Where I work it takes months of lawyers, just to understand of one idea we have is an infringement or not. Is a mined field, on purpose.
“ In fact it's questionable how much value society gets out of large corporation patents”
I think it’s overwhelmingly negative. They are killing innovation by small players and don’t produce much innovation compared to their size.
Was really so (specifically “lethal”? Do you have sources?
I know trade secret was much more important. Also the spirit of patents is to allow development by making all public.
But do they?! I’m tired of trying to extract useful information off patents, they are empty of content and full of BS is laywer language. Real important details are kept secret, as long as possible.
The current system is de facto not working properly. I’m not saying is the worst, or I have better ideas, but is clear that the system is being heavily abused in all corners.
It could be lethal if a guild member attempted to share secrets or sell methods to a competitive guild. An example:
"In 1754 the State Inquisitors of Venice learned that a worker at Daniele Miotti's factory had fled abroad with a copy of his master's books. Fearing that he would divulge secrets—especially in Bohemia, where there were important glass factories—they ordered his death."
Source: Zecchin, P., (2025) “Una condanna a morte di dubbia utilità: Sarebbe stato molto grave, per i vetrai muranesi, se il seicentesco ricettario Miotti fosse caduto nelle mani dei Boemi?”, Journal of Glass Studies 66: 7. doi: https://doi.org/10.3998/jgs.6939
Just how widespread it was for violent and lethal actions to be carried out in pursuit of maintaining guild secrecy, the evidence is murky.
> Was really so (specifically “lethal”? Do you have sources?
Pretty famous example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venetian_glass#Island_of_Muran...
> Glassmakers were not allowed to leave the island without permission from the government. Leaving without permission, or revealing trade secrets, was punishable by death
Though importantly this was enforced by state.
> it's questionable how much value society gets out of large corporations
ftfy
It ain't just patents
I mean, with limiting the allowed use of force to guard secrets, we are probably nowhere near as at risk for the worst of the past? As you said, the competition to guard secrets could be quite severe, and they were not exactly good at knowing actual leaks of their secrets versus someone else independently arriving at them.
That is, I think having the assumption of independent discovery would go a long way to preventing abuse.
I could see some hazard that small shops can't protect their secrets from partner manufacturers and such. But that is exactly where we are with a lot of stuff today?
Ah yes, if only murder had been illegal back then! Yes, making murder illegal must have been what was missing.
Sorry, but your argument has a bit of a silly premise.
That is silly. My point was that we have better law enforcement period. Are we currently perfect? Of course not. But to use that as your argument is, amusingly, a silly premise for an argument.
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>It's telling that before the Patent system the solution was secretive guilds that jealously (sometimes lethally) guarded their secrets to avoid competition. This was obviously terrible since it greatly slowed down innovation.
Nowadays HFT technology is extremely competitive, with firms investing tens of millions in custom harder to achieve nanosecond latency improvements, but all this has happened entirely without patents. As an industry HFT is way less monopolised than tech, suggesting trade secrets alone are enough to achieve growth and competition.
I don't think I would use HFT as a stand-in for companies that produce useful goods or services.