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Film: "Patent absurdity"Film: "Patent absurdity"Posted Apr 19, 2010 5:43 UTC (Mon) by bojan (subscriber, #14302)In reply to: Film: "Patent absurdity" by dlang Parent article: Film: "Patent absurdity"
> after all, if reverse engineering is acceptable, why not industrial espionage
Because industrial espionage is usually a breach of contract or some kind of law. Reverse engineering is not.
Patents come from a very dubious place - a very old law called Statute of Monopolies, which essentially limited crown given monopolies to new inventions only. I'm sure it was very progressive in 1623. Whether this remains the case in 2010 is a subject of many debates.
I can understand that there could be areas that are helped by giving out monopolies. However, we should do that sparingly. Current practice where every man and his dog can patent practically everything has gone way out of hand.
PS. I'm not sure why there would generally be a problem with using other people's ideas. Humans learn by copying. If we were stripped of that ability, we would not be ourselves any more. I cannot see why it should follow that whenever someone has an original thought, it should not be available to others freely. In fact, in many fields of endeavour this is the norm.
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Film: "Patent absurdity" Posted Apr 19, 2010 6:04 UTC (Mon) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313) [Link]
as I see it the problem isn't using other people's ideas, it's giving people enough of an incentive that the develop those ideas to where they are useful.
the entire idea of the patent system is to make it so that those ideas are available for other people to use freely after the patent expires. If there was not such a system then there would be the risk of such ideas being lost, or locked up through trade secrets (with all the inefficiencies involved with maintaining such secrets, even where they are possible) for much longer time periods.
Our world today is what it is due to technologies that could have been locked up with trade secrets that are instead now freely available to use. Think of such things as how we make Steel or Aluminum and consider what would have happened if those were trade secrets of one particular company, with every employee being locked up under contract to not reveal the secrets.
Those are a couple examples where the process could be kept secret while selling the result. Prior to the patent system it would have been likely that such ideas would have died with the inventor, and had very little effect outside the immediate area (remember that if secrecy is your only protection against being flattened by your rivels you don't want to let many people in on the secret, which limits how large you can grow)
by giving out a temporary monopoly the patent system is designed to trade the short term advantage to the inventor for the long term advantage of society by making the inventor document the details of the invention. In the worst case (where the patent owner uses the patent to squash all use) society gets the invention a generation later, in the best case, not only does society get the invention free to everyone a generation later, the inventor is able to make good use of it in the meantime.
Film: "Patent absurdity" Posted Apr 19, 2010 6:24 UTC (Mon) by bojan (subscriber, #14302) [Link]
Yes, I think I understand the theoretical underpinnings of why all patents should be wonderful things. In practice, however, many of them are used just to squash unwanted competition and do not contribute to innovation one bit. Software patents and patents on business methods are prime examples of this.
Compare the situation to, for instance, general principles embedded in our (western) laws. Most times we err on the side of caution when someone's rights are to be squashed to gain something else. With patent law we do the opposite - we let broad monopolization of ideas to gain a very dubious outcome.
So, I remain sceptical whether we should be giving these things out like lollipops. It seems like suppression on a grand scale.
As for trade secrets, they exist right now and are enforced right around the world. If they were the all powerful tool to keep everyone out, create monopolies and endless profits, companies would just use them instead of patents, now wouldn't they? However, they don't last - people are inventive. They either figure out what you're doing or they come up with a better way.
So, no, I don't think that use of trade secrets would ultimately have a monopolistic effect. And if it would, we could simply adjust the duration of trade secrets via legislation. That would be really simple.
Yup - and this is where it all falls apart... Posted Apr 20, 2010 21:05 UTC (Tue) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] The entire idea of the patent system is to make it so that those ideas are available for other people to use freely after the patent expires. If there was not such a system then there would be the risk of such ideas being lost, or locked up through trade secrets (with all the inefficiencies involved with maintaining such secrets, even where they are possible) for much longer time periods. Yet most patents cover ideas which can not be lost for they are embodies in millions of copies around the world and can be easily reverse-engineered. Our world today is what it is due to technologies that could have been locked up with trade secrets that are instead now freely available to use. Think of such things as how we make Steel or Aluminum and consider what would have happened if those were trade secrets of one particular company, with every employee being locked up under contract to not reveal the secrets. Sure. If you can not guess how the product is made even if you have it in your hands - then it's fair justification for monopoly. How many patents describe things like THAT? 0.1%? 1%? Those are a couple examples where the process could be kept secret while selling the result. Prior to the patent system it would have been likely that such ideas would have died with the inventor, and had very little effect outside the immediate area (remember that if secrecy is your only protection against being flattened by your rivels you don't want to let many people in on the secret, which limits how large you can grow) Nobody argues agains these patents. But why keep all the software patents around? The "great idea" embedded in software can not be easily lost: even if nobody has the source you can still use the same old implementation via emulators and recompilers. The initial justifications for patents is bogus in 99% cases for physical patents and 100% cases for software.
Yup - and this is where it all falls apart... Posted Apr 20, 2010 21:40 UTC (Tue) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313) [Link]
I am not supporting software patents, I am arguing against people who say that all patents should be eliminated.
Yup - and this is where it all falls apart... Posted Apr 20, 2010 21:50 UTC (Tue) by jordanb (guest, #45668) [Link]
So you're arguing against a straw man then?
Yup - and this is where it all falls apart... Posted Apr 20, 2010 21:54 UTC (Tue) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313) [Link]
no, I was arguing against people who were saying that all patents were evil. I have said several times that I am against software patents, and all the examples I have used have been for physical devices or processes with the people answering me saying that those aren't valid cases either.
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