Comment by freejazz
24 days ago
>For software Copyright is a far better instrument. Let the one with best implementation win... That's where the cost is: Implementing, testing, shipping, maintaining. Protect that.
But this is minimally protectable, and you can copy the idea just not the exact implementation. Copyright does not have a 'doctrine of equivalents' equivalent. It also supports independent creation. Copyright also does not cover functional elements. You cannot copyright an idea, only the expression. So maybe you can elaborate more on why your point makes sense?
Yes. And that was exactly my point. If an idea is just an idea that anyone can have under the shower, there is no value to society in granting a monopoly to that idea. There was no cost to said idea. In that case is better for society to grant a monopoly on a particular expression of that idea (an implementation).
If that idea had cost (say) a billion dollars (like in some medical research or physical research), there absolutely is value in granting a temporary monopoly in order to encourage such research in the future.
Are you saying Mistral didn't invest a lot of money in discovering the invention this patent covers? I'd bet they'd say otherwise. How is the patent office supposed to tell the difference?
I don't think a "pay-to-play" system works. There's already trade secrets that allow corporations to invest lots of money in protecting things that aren't even inventions. You just seem like you're trying to figure which patents are good or bad. But if a patent is widely infringed, by the same kind of logic, it must have tremendous value as an invention.
The "invention" was first published in 2024, by Chinese researchers: https://arxiv.org/abs/2402.01030
Beyond that, it's a trivial batching pattern. Any remotely competent systems engineer developing an agent would immediately reach for it, it's the most basic tool in the toolbox to deal with latency. If Mistral "invested a lot of money in discovering" this, man I'm in the wrong line of work.
You are still missing my point. It does not matter - at all - whether an idea has "value as an invention". All that matter is whether it cost a lot of money to come to that invention and whether that cost is worth is worth protection to encourage further research.