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Mueller: Apple's iterative approach to FRAND abuse is not for the faint of heartMueller: Apple's iterative approach to FRAND abuse is not for the faint of heartPosted Feb 6, 2012 20:27 UTC (Mon) by drag (subscriber, #31333)Parent article: Mueller: Apple's iterative approach to FRAND abuse is not for the faint of heart
> it would merely serve to exclude new entrants without large patent portfolios
This is why large corporations support patents even when they are the ones getting sued most often.
Patent lawsuits are less of a threat to their profits then free and open markets.
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Mueller: Apple's iterative approach to FRAND abuse is not for the faint of heart Posted Feb 6, 2012 21:12 UTC (Mon) by hitmark (guest, #34609) [Link]
Indeed. Until Apple got back into the game in recent years, the sides involved in a dispute would sit down and agree on a tit for tat exchange of patents.
It also demonstrates how much of a pipe dream the idea of a unregulated market really is.
Mueller: Apple's iterative approach to FRAND abuse is not for the faint of heart Posted Feb 6, 2012 22:11 UTC (Mon) by jcorgan (subscriber, #47213) [Link] It also demonstrates how much of a pipe dream the idea of a unregulated market really is.Heh, imagine that--someone thinking that patents, which are government-granted monopolies, are part of an "unregulated market."
Mueller: Apple's iterative approach to FRAND abuse is not for the faint of heart Posted Feb 7, 2012 0:33 UTC (Tue) by dgm (subscriber, #49227) [Link]
Patents, like many other goods, are traded. And those movements are not subject to any kind of law, limit or regulation. Prices change freely responding to supply and demand. That's the definition of "unregulated market", and the fact that they are government-granted is irrelevant.
Mueller: Apple's iterative approach to FRAND abuse is not for the faint of heart Posted Feb 7, 2012 1:01 UTC (Tue) by bojan (subscriber, #14302) [Link]
Actually, if you read Florian's analysis, you will in fact find that many patents (at least in Germany) and their "trade" is subject to many rules.
Mueller: Apple's iterative approach to FRAND abuse is not for the faint of heart Posted Feb 7, 2012 1:36 UTC (Tue) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link]
> Patents, like many other goods, are traded. And those movements are not subject to any kind of law, limit or regulation. Prices change freely responding to supply and demand. That's the definition of "unregulated market",
No it is not. Being able to buy and sell and change prices based on demand is just the definition of 'market'. It does not indicate whether or not there is regulation present. You seem to be ignoring the definition of your adjective (at least in the context), or are using it in a bizarre manner.
> and the fact that they are government-granted is irrelevant.
No... the fact that they are 'government-granted' means that it's regulated. It is _extremely_ relevant.
Saying that government granted monopolies on the ability to distribute and use software in a marketplace is not regulation on software marketplaces because you have the ability buy and sell these monopoly rights just doesn't make a lot of sense.
I am very sorry, but the level of absurdity here makes it difficult to even refute. One has a hard time even figuring out were to start!
Mueller: Apple's iterative approach to FRAND abuse is not for the faint of heart Posted Feb 7, 2012 4:06 UTC (Tue) by ghane (subscriber, #1805) [Link] > I am very sorry, but the level of absurdity here makes it difficult to even refute. One has a hard time even figuring out were to start!Das ist nicht nur nicht richtig, es ist nicht einmal falsch! -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_even_wrong
Mueller: Apple's iterative approach to FRAND abuse is not for the faint of heart Posted Feb 8, 2012 10:37 UTC (Wed) by alecs1 (guest, #46699) [Link]
A candidate for quotes of the week, but a bit too serious.
I wonder if drag had "not even wrong" in mind, or at least had prior knowledge of it. I surely hear about it for the first time.
Patents are a form of regulation Posted Feb 6, 2012 22:15 UTC (Mon) by david.a.wheeler (guest, #72896) [Link]
Patents are a form of government regulation. They certainly don't exist in nature; they are a governmental construct intended in the U.S. to "promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts". Just being a regulation is not a disaster; sometimes regulation of behavior is needed. However, governments should regulate only when necessary. If patents do not promote progress as currently constructed, then they need to be abolished. I believe it is clear that software patents are not helpful, and thus, software patents need to be abolished.
Patents are a form of regulation Posted Feb 7, 2012 0:21 UTC (Tue) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link]
> Patents are a form of government regulation. They certainly don't exist in nature; they are a governmental construct intended in the U.S. to "promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts".
Yes. That's absolutely correct.
Patents are, by definition, monopolistic legal instruments. The central government hands out special privileges based on the fact that a person is able to be the first one to pay their fees and navigate the government bureaucracy. It's a money game and the person who pays the most money, has the most lawyers, is able to get a huge advantage.
In fact it is even less legit now then it is in the past. President Obama, relatively recently, signed a bill* that got rid of the first-to-invent system of deciding patent awards and replaced it with a pure first-to-file system. This streamlines the system (and in a legal sense it is a superior system), but all it really amounts too is that even if you did invent something first you can get your sued if you didn't happen to think that it wasn't important to pay the government off.
*(this bill was signed in 2011 and will go into effect March 2013)
Free and open software proves that it is not necessary to have market intervention in this way. In fact it probably proves that it is damaging. Every time free software progress bumps into this type of regulation it retards progress and wastes valuable resources as significant effort must be expended to work around this or that road block or jump this or that hoop to keep the software free.
Patents are a form of regulation Posted Feb 7, 2012 1:40 UTC (Tue) by xaoc (guest, #54140) [Link]
> but all it really amounts too is that even if you did invent something first you can get your sued if you didn't happen to think that it wasn't important to pay the government off.
Except if you have proof of your prior art it becomes just that 'prior art'.
Patents are a form of regulation Posted Feb 7, 2012 1:59 UTC (Tue) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313) [Link]
how far prior to the filing of the patent does it need to be to qualify as 'prior art'?
the old patent system required that prior art be at least two years before the filing date. I haven't looked in to what these changes do to this.
Patents are a form of regulation Posted Feb 9, 2012 17:05 UTC (Thu) by Wol (guest, #4433) [Link]
In TROTW prior art needs to predate either the filing date or, in some cases!, the publication date!
I gather the new law didn't alter the prior date in the US, so their new patent system now combines the worst bits of prior art from their legislation and elsewhere.
"First to file" is far better than first to invent. It gets rid of a lot of argument and fraud about when something was invented. And in most instances I believe trade secrets are protected - if somebody else comes along and patents what I've been doing for years, they can't sue me. But if I didn't publish they do have a valid patent and can sue anyone else.
The whole point about "first to file" is not that the first person gets a patent. It's that if there is NO PRIOR ART then it assumes that the person who gets his application in first is the true inventor. Any previous publication (including by the applicant!) is classed as prior art and will block the patent.
Cheers,
Most patents are drag on the innovation Posted Feb 7, 2012 0:22 UTC (Tue) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] Actually most patents fail to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts. The only kind of patents which actually make sense are pharmaceutical patents - and this is because there are yet another government-regulated institution: drug certification. Companies spent hundreds of millions (and sometimes billions) to get certificate - and without patent there will be no way to recoup these costs. Few will argue that unregulated sales of just-invented drugs will be beneficial to society and that means that pharmaceutical patents make sense (even there it's not clear if it's the best way to solve certification issue, but at least it's clear where money you need to later recoup with patent license go to). All other patents just help incumbents in fight with newcomers. More information in a book.
Most patents are drag on the innovation Posted Feb 7, 2012 3:09 UTC (Tue) by wahern (subscriber, #37304) [Link]
I'd be happy to argue that unregulated sales of new drugs _could_ be beneficial. We'd just need a little thing called transparency; something which the current regulatory system hardly engenders. Instead, we get secrecy and liability protection for the pharmaceutical companies, all in the name of progress.
For example, in the book you cited, the authors note that they believe it would be more efficient for the government to simply pay for tests directly, rather than using an indirect system of taxation, viz patents. But you could have that independent of drug controls. The only regulation you'd need is for clear labeling, such as labels which say "FDA tested and approved for XYZ condition" and the like.
That would dramatically bring down the cost of pharmaceutical treatments. Theoretically the overall incidence of harm in the population could go up; but my guess is it that it would go down. It's hard to put numbers on such things anyhow, because of hidden abuses in the current system, as well as coming up with reliable and credible counter factuals.
Most patents are drag on the innovation Posted Feb 7, 2012 13:43 UTC (Tue) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link]
If you believe that than I have a little bottle of thalidomide. Perfect for morning sickness in women.
Drug design and testing is HARD. It's not uncommon for a very promising drug to fail the first or the second phase of the clinical trials, even though drug designers sincerely believed that it should work. No amount of transparency can fix this, alas.
Most patents are drag on the innovation Posted Feb 8, 2012 12:16 UTC (Wed) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]
Quite. Things which can kill people if insufficient care is taken need to be regulated, simply because if they're not, sharp operators will exploit the fact that the man in the street knows little about the subject (inevitable: nobody can be an expert in everything), and will exploit their lack of knowledge to sell them things that will, sooner or later, kill them. They'll do that *even if they know it is lethal*.
We know this because we see it happening in countries where regulation of pharmaceutical sales is relatively unregulated. Heck, if it happens with *alcohol*, whose imbibing is never a life-or-death matter, and which is a heck of a lot easier to manufacture ("no open flames, keep the methanol out" being the only real human-safety rules), it sure as anything would happen with pharmaceuticals too.
Software routinely critical for life and limb needs regulation too, and is regulated (e.g. medical device software, avionics software).
Most patents are drag on the innovation Posted Feb 9, 2012 1:17 UTC (Thu) by rahvin (subscriber, #16953) [Link]
You can do better than thalidomide. There's so many drugs every year that make it to the phase 3 clinical trial and they find out that it just doesn't work but actually kills X% of people that take it that you would have an impossible time even listing them.
And that's AFTER computer models, rat studies, primate studies and early human testing, a process that typically takes a decade to even get to the phase 3. Current estimates are that including the Phase 3 clinical trial a drug from discovery to post phase 3 costs $250 million (yes a quarter billion dollars). This doesn't include factory certification, production line certification, ongoing inspections and quality control or long term studies (becoming far more common due to the Vioxx scare).
And that's just the US. Then you do the same thing for Europe, Japan and pretty much every other country in the world if you want to sell the drug there.
Getting a drug to market is HARD. Last numbers I saw said less than 1% make it to market. So on top of that $250 million dollars you probably have another billion or two in failures that also has to be recouped by the successful drug.
As others have said, drug patents make sense. They make a LOT of sense given the government regulation. Now if you want to suggest that companies can drug test on the unsuspecting population I suggest you line up first.
Most patents are drag on the innovation Posted Feb 9, 2012 18:54 UTC (Thu) by dmarti (subscriber, #11625) [Link] There's no clear-cut division between drugs that work and drugs that create risks. Example: Tegaserod (Zelnorm®). Yes, it might kill you, and it's risky enough that the FDA had it pulled from the market. But for some people it was the only thing that ever let them go anywhere without an immediately available toilet. Would you take it? Would you give it to someone without informed consent? Should an informed adult be able to take it?
Most patents are drag on the innovation Posted Feb 9, 2012 19:46 UTC (Thu) by Wol (guest, #4433) [Link]
And actually, the tests PROVED that thalidomide was perfectly safe. Which the VERSION BEING TESTED was.
When they manufactured thalidomide for testing purposes, they got pure L-thalidomide. Which is safe. When they scaled up, the process made 50/50 L- and R-thalidomide (which are chemically identical). It was the R-thalidomide that did the damage.
So if you gave me a "bottle of thalidomide, perfectly safe for pregnant women" it's quite possible you're telling the truth ...
Cheers,
Most patents are drag on the innovation Posted Feb 9, 2012 22:46 UTC (Thu) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link]
No, thalidomide is racemic - it spontaneously flips between L- and R- forms.
However, it's a great and simple example of reasons beyond the extensive drug testing which begins with the toxicity tests, and with the compound which will later be certified and sold.
Most patents are drag on the innovation Posted Feb 10, 2012 13:23 UTC (Fri) by Wol (guest, #4433) [Link]
Exept that's not what "racemic" means. All racemic means is "50/50 L and R", not "L and R spontaneously flip". Actually, that flip is pretty much impossible without something there to catalyse the reaction.
But it's normal to get a pure L or R isomer or a racemic mix, depending how you produce it. And it's quite likely, similar to what you assert, that when they produced commercial quantities one of the production steps contained a catalyst that converted from "all L" to "racemic mix". Which they wouldn't have picked up unless they were actively looking for it.
Cheers,
Most patents are drag on the innovation Posted Feb 10, 2012 13:41 UTC (Fri) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link]
>Exept that's not what "racemic" means. All racemic means is "50/50 L and R", not "L and R spontaneously flip". Actually, that flip is pretty much impossible without something there to catalyse the reaction.
Well, it does interconvert at least in-vivo: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15080764
Most patents are drag on the innovation Posted Feb 13, 2012 11:54 UTC (Mon) by nye (guest, #51576) [Link]
>Exept that's not what "racemic" means. All racemic means is "50/50 L and R", not "L and R spontaneously flip". Actually, that flip is pretty much impossible without something there to catalyse the reaction.
Thalidomide will racemize in the body. From http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15080764: "Thalidomide interconverts between the (R)- and (S)-enantiomers in plasma"
I think it's quite common for enantiomers to flip. For example, get some fresh caraway, and note that it smells *very slightly* like spearmint. Then leave it in a jar for a year or two, and note that it now smells rather *strongly* of spearmint as some of the s-carvone has become r-carvone.
Most patents are drag on the innovation Posted Feb 13, 2012 11:55 UTC (Mon) by nye (guest, #51576) [Link]
And now I notice somebody else has posted the same link. That's what I get for not refreshing the page after the weekend.
Most patents are drag on the innovation Posted Feb 8, 2012 22:43 UTC (Wed) by oever (subscriber, #987) [Link]
"it would be more efficient for the government to simply pay for tests directly"
If the government did that, then pharmaceutical companies could outsource all high-throughput experiments to the government.
The government does not do the tests themselves, because they are expensive and the outcome is unsure. Private investors are more motivated to minimize the costs for testing. The government needs to specify the requirements that the drugs should meet.
Most patents are drag on the innovation Posted Feb 8, 2012 13:12 UTC (Wed) by niner (subscriber, #26151) [Link]
> The only kind of patents which actually make sense are pharmaceutical patents
Could we please stop reiterating this completely unproven assumption?
Mueller: Apple's iterative approach to FRAND abuse is not for the faint of heart Posted Feb 7, 2012 23:40 UTC (Tue) by kunitz (subscriber, #3965) [Link]
I second this. There is no such thing as an unregulated market. There is always one or several entitities regulating the market. If it is not a democratic government (or several of them), it may be organized crime, a totalitarian regime, or a few oligopolists or a mixture of all of them.
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