
Almost No Patented Discoveries Get Used - Libertatea
http://www.wired.com/2015/01/fixing-broken-patent-system/
======
DannyBee
Jay has a huge stake in this, of course.

[http://www.patentproperties.com/](http://www.patentproperties.com/)

He is also the guy who created walker digital.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walker_Digital](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walker_Digital)
(look under "patent lawsuits and disputes")

Despite his claims, he is in fact, a troll - he buys broad patents completely
unrelated to his company solely for the purpose of suing deep-pocket companies
for infringement.

He has 719 patents, and cares heavily about monetizing them, having sued
almost everyone under the sun.

He sued Facebook for friending, for example.

He realizes he is finally starting to lose the war, and writes pieces like
this because he is afraid trolls like him are starting to finally get what
they deserve.

(Jay certainly is a smart guy, and he is certainly an innovative entrepreneur.
I take serious issue with his business models around patents, though)

~~~
Animats
Right. He wants to become the Uber of patents. With his plan, patents aren't
worth much individually, and they would be sold cheaply, in bulk, with his
brokerage getting a cut.

------
Karunamon
This speaks to the patent system being so far perverted from its original
purpose that I feel it's time to seriously begin considering if we want to
support it in any form. Are patents in 2015 being used more for "promoting the
useful arts"[1] or more as a weapon for large enterprises to use against their
large and small competition?

This same broken-ness applies to another system of legal monopolies too:
copyrights. Are those used more to "promote the useful arts" in 2015, or are
they used more by rightsholders to stamp out that which they don't like?

I wonder what our economic, artistic, and technological landscape would look
like if we decided, as a society, that these legal monopolies are causing more
harm than good, and that they should be severely curtailed, if not outright
abolished? I wonder if it would really be as bad as the people who have a
financial interest in these things say it would be?

[1]: [http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-
bin/ampage?collId=llsl&fileName=00...](http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-
bin/ampage?collId=llsl&fileName=001/llsl001.db&recNum=232)

(interestingly, the copyright laws use the same "useful arts" wording almost
verbatim)

~~~
ams6110
The thing about patents is that they are public. They encourage sharing
inventions in exchange for a period of protection for the inventor. It is
generally fair, I think, for an inventor to be able to see a return on his/her
investment of R&D effort and expense. Without such a system, inventors would
keep their work secret under "Trade Secret" protection or just not bother at
all. I think abolishing the patent system would slow technological progress.

The problem with patents is that they seem to be awarded for many "inventions"
that do not seem to really be novel. Patent inspectors have not kept up well
with the rapid pace of innovation that software allows. Fix that problem, and
I think a lot of general unhappiness with the system would go away.

Copyright? I'm not aware of any general problem with that. It's pretty simple,
the original author has a period of protection for their work. What's wrong
with that?

~~~
speeder
I am from Brazil, here piracy is widespread, also I make games, a industry
that loves copyright.

First, it must be understood that the "official" original explanation of
copyright was to prevent people not authorized by the author to sell the
author stuff, ONLY that, it was NOT intended to prevent the general public
from getting free stuff. (the actual explanation was that the first copyright
laws were made to allow censorship, but I don't have enough information to
explain that now).

Today what I see is lots of people on the "First world" frankly believe they
are entitled to earn money from pure intellectual work and that poor people
should stay uneducated/ignorant/cultureless if they can't pay.

I personally had lots and lots of pirated games, books, and media in general,
because then there was no other choice, I was one of the first "gamers" in
Brazil, I was also poor, and stuff was mostly not available here, even to get
a pirated copy of Doom (the first one) was hard, very hard (my dad had to make
some engineering work for Kia Motors, and asked as part of the payment a copy
of Doom, after he learned that the factory manager had a copy).

I am very sure, that if I went with the route of obeying copyright laws, I
would be a very, very different person today, probably I would be a cashier,
and would contribute to society much less than now, and the same applies to
almost all programmers from the third world.

Or you frankly believe a random indian/pakistani/brazillian/peruvian that is a
WinAPI programming master had a legal copy of windows and all the tools when
he was first learning as a kid?

~~~
vacri
_because then there was no other choice_

I spent a long time pirating games, but seriously, 'no other choice' is
nonsense. You could just 'not play the game'. I don't think that software
piracy is the great evil that it's made out to be, but neither do I think it's
harmless and that there's justice in people just taking entertainment because
they don't have enough money at the moment. It's not like video games are a
staple required to sustain life.

I guess what I'm saying is that I don't care that you pirated software, but I
think it smells bad that you paint it as some sort of social justice issue or
class war.

 _frankly believe they are entitled to earn money from pure intellectual work_

Work is work and consumes effort and time, whether it's shifting bricks or
squashing bugs.

~~~
speeder
By the way, I was in my post talking about people with your exact argument.

The choices you are giving me are: pirate, or be ignorant and cultureless.

You thinking the second is a good choice, is frankly stupid, games are not
just entertainment, they are part of popular culture, they showcase
interesting technologies, and may even have actual uses (example: simulators
that teach real skills).

And I was not talking only about games, but all sorts of media, or you think
all the coding books that curious people (including teenagers) here have are
legal?

------
gsg
Considering Walker is described as a heavy patent holder, I'm not sure his
enthusiasm for the wonders of patents are entirely objective. Is he concerned
here with informing his audience or the value of his holdings?

> it will be aimed at smaller and mid-sized businesses that need a low-cost
> way to mitigate their infringement risk. It will also offer universities and
> other smaller patent owners a way to finally earn some revenue from their
> inventions

Maybe I'm cynical, but "mitigate their infringement risk" sounds like a
euphemism for "pay Walker a bunch of money or get taken to court".

~~~
unreal37
He says he's the founder of priceline.com and 11th on the list of living
patent holders. Good for him. Sure, it's not objective, but there's no such
thing as unbiased opinion.

It sounds like he thinks one problem with the current system is that, even if
you do use a patent as it's intended (license it properly), you can still get
taken to court by someone else for infringing on their similar patent. Using
patents is like walking across a minefield. Small businesses just do not (and
should not) play in the patent game because of legal risk.

If his company provides insurance that using their patents protect you against
liability against violating other patents, it sounds like a great idea. Like
the "anti-patent troll".

Like how some app developers are being sued for using some feature of Apple's
SDK. [1] Imagine if Apple provided free insurance against all such lawsuits.

[1] [http://www.macstories.net/news/lodsys-starts-filing-
lawsuit-...](http://www.macstories.net/news/lodsys-starts-filing-lawsuit-
against-app-developers/)

------
will_brown
Here is a true story I have not previously shared on HN...

While in law school, in attempt to defray tuition costs, I would order
_Livestrong_ style silicone bracelets and sell them at Daytona Beach bike
week. After tinkering I began working with the manufacturer to mold the
silicone bracelets with RFID chips and file a patent.

As a law student, I found the patent filing process to bring real world
practice to my classroom theory, plus I learned a lot about RFID technology in
the process (mostly researching prior art, such as, RFID shopping carts; RFID
one time use hospital bands; ect...). However, as a law student I had no
practical (financial) way of bringing my idea to market.

Nevertheless, I contacted Disney's director of park operations to discuss the
potential of my RFID silicone bands acting as park tickets, monetary accounts
and the general efficiency RFID bands could have of park operation efficiency
(tracking lines, ride times, open seats, ect...). As one might expect I was
blown off, given a nice generic response that there is no interest...but sure
enough 7-8 years later the parks have incorporated RFID technology through the
use of...silicone bands.

I think such a story highlights the various positions one could take on our
patent existing system. Some might say I was a patent troll, filing a patent
where I knew I could never financially bring a product to market, others would
argue that situation is why patents exist where the inventor needs to protect
an idea where often times but for being the inventor/patent filer a giant
corporation might come along and simply take an idea without any benefit to
the inventor...finally some may say I should not have received a patent in the
first place as RFID silicone bands are not _non-obvious_ in the first place.

Though I never sued, my own experience brings a certain bias to the table, and
I would simply ask in countries that do not have a similar intellectual system
to the US, is there an example of an inventor actually bringing an invention
to market where they were not simply beat out by an existing corporation?

~~~
soup10
You invented neither peanut or jelly or bread, should the pbj sandwich be
patentable? The chances of you being the only source pitching RFID tech to
Disney is zero. Sorry you didn't get their business. Did you pitch to any
other companies? Did you expect Disney to license your patent and figure out
the technical implementation themselves? Does your patent apply for non-
silicone bracelets? Seems like RFID tech is and still is a legitimate business
opportunity for many.. sounds like you gave up on it, why?

~~~
logfromblammo
You're thinking about the invention process backwards.

Edison, according to legend, patented the light bulb. (He actually patented an
improved filament, and the screw-in base.) Once the thing exists, it is easy
to trace the process back to the origin, just as it is easy to trace from the
leaf of a tree back to the trunk at ground level.

Edison did not patent the thousands of experimental filament failures that he
tested before reaching a viable consumer product. His task was to climb the
tree and find one particular leaf.

The PB & J sandwich seems simple. All you had to do was add two ingredients
together!

But you also had to not add any of the other possible sandwich ingredients. No
lettuce. No tomato. No mayonnaise. No mustard. No ketchup. No roast beef. No
jalapeno slices. No pickles. No cole slaw. You also had to pick the right
variety of bread. Pumpernickel doesn't work out quite as well. Sliced bagel
favors different sorts of sandwiches. Cornbread doesn't work at all.

You can't just permute every possible combination of sandwich-able foods and
expect the good combinations to be obvious. But once identified, they are
obvious in retrospect, thanks to a quirk of human psychology. It wouldn't have
been obvious that phonograph needles could be made from peanuts, or that light
bulb filaments could be made from bamboo until after inventors had done it for
the first time. So don't confuse simplicity with obviousness.

The problem with patenting a particular sandwich, or any other type of food
recipe, is enforceability. Once the recipe is known, you have no way of
knowing whether unlicensed cooks are making your dish.

The fact that Disney is using RFID bracelets, on the other hand, is
immediately discoverable and verifiable by anyone who visits their parks.
Furthermore, they have pockets deep enough to afford even unreasonable license
terms. The problem was not even technical. It has always been human
acceptance. Stick an RFID on a hospital-style plastic band, and no one wants
to wear it. Embed it in an exclusive park souvenir, and people will even pay
extra for the privilege of having one.

The bracelet is how you get the guest to carry the same RFID tag for their
entire visit without losing it, breaking it, or shorting it out. Previously,
Disney has used paper tickets, hand stamps, biometrics readers, and mobile
applications to manage guests, and they still had problems with loopholes,
fraud, and innocent accidents.

If someone were able to patent a PB&J sandwich, somewhere like a Disney theme
park might be one of the few places on the planet where its licensing could be
enforced profitably. They cannot hide what they do, as anyone present could
read a menu and watch a sampling of trays exiting the serving line, then
figure out the numbers on a napkin.

This is exactly what the patent system was made for; so the little guy could
have an incentive to invent without being crushed by a copycat with more
clout. So he doesn't have to be the only person to pitch it. He only has to be
the first to offer patent licensing terms.

~~~
praxeologist
>This is exactly what the patent system was made for; so the little guy could
have an incentive to invent

I think this is completely false despite it being "common wisdom". I've
challenged people who say this to provide some sort of evidence that patent
systems aid innovation and seen none that was anywhere near convincing so far.

Nobody so far has so much as ventured an answer except one person who pointed
to a study that measured innovation solely by the increased use of patent
systems in countries where the regime of legal monopolies strengthened over
time. I see that as evidence of the insidious nature of patent systems if
anything, but to each his own I guess. Got anything?

~~~
logfromblammo
In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice.

In practice, there is no legal construct that cannot be employed to the
advantage of the party that can hire better lawyers. In the battle of ironclad
patent versus fully funded legal war chest, the latter wins.

The implication of my post, in context, was that the patent system _does not
accomplish_ that idealistic purpose. And indeed, the article itself says that
most actual innovation avoids patents. I interpret this as the network of
innovators recognizing the flaws in the system and routing around them.

------
VanL
(Disclosure: IAAPL, but this is my view and isn't reflective of any former
clients or my current employer.)

The key problem with the patent system is the problem of _disclosure._ We
always say that the patent system is a bargain between the inventor and the
public. The public gets new knowledge and the inventor gets a period of
exclusivity for the using/making etc that knowledge.

Where the system falls down is in the "disclosure to the public" part of that
bargain. Patent language has become so abstracted that most of the time it
fails to inform someone of skill in the art how to actually make the promised
item. This has some corollary effects:

\- The patent system becomes less useful as a source for knowledge (as argued
by the article) \- Novelty and obviousness (and later, infringement) all
become less certain. This results in poor quality patents coming out of the
patent office and high costs to litigate for infringement.

In the end, though, the result is that the patent system is (for most of the
computer arts where I spend my time) not very useful as a store of knowledge.
If there is a choice, I will almost always seek out a paper (or source code)
rather than an accompanying patent to get an understanding of new technology.

This is due to the incentives associated with each type of publication. The
source code is designed to convey certain algorithms to the computer in an
unambiguous way. Papers are designed to get read and cited - and they don't do
that unless they communicate what is new and meaningful to an audience of
peers.

In contrast, patents are designed to cover a range of possible solution
spaces, with as much room for reinterpretation later as is possible without
being insoluably ambiguous.

This problem is hard to undo because the push to abstract the descriptions in
patents was done with the best of intentions. \- Congress wanted to allow new
things to be described without constricting the form of the language used. \-
Prosecuting lawyers (and their clients) wanted to get the maximum coverage for
their new ideas. \- Courts want to reward inventors and disallow trivial
workarounds (nail->screw) not addressing the core inventive concept.

All of these points are valid ones - but in combination, the result is that
patents have become too vague, particularly in anything computer-related.

As an aside, the mechanical arts (and some others, such as many bio/chem arts)
don't suffer from this problem to nearly the same extent, and so you usually
don't see the same problems.

~~~
rogerbinns
I can substantiate this. I've done a few patents (all owned by employers)
which take years to go through. When finally granted, I go and read them, and
even though I am the "inventor" I can't make any sense of what the heck they
are about! They are in no way disclosed in a form and language that makes it
easy to fundamentally understand.

------
jonas21
It's worth pointing out that the author of this piece is considered by many to
be patent troll.

[https://gigaom.com/2011/04/13/419-jay-walker-goes-nuclear-
pr...](https://gigaom.com/2011/04/13/419-jay-walker-goes-nuclear-priceline-
founder-sues-more-than-100-companies/)

[http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2011/04/priceline-
founder...](http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2011/04/priceline-founder-
sues-100-companies-including-google-apple-over-patents/)

~~~
mawburn
Oddly enough, I think that gives him more credibility in my book.

Who better to talk about a system being broken than someone who makes a living
exploiting it?

~~~
jonas21
Another way of looking at this is that his trolling has not been going so well
lately [1], so he's trying a change in tactics.

The "brokenness" that he sees in the patent system is not that it's too easy
to profit from patenting obvious things, but rather that it's too hard.

[1] [http://www.law360.com/articles/573649/google-wins-
invalidati...](http://www.law360.com/articles/573649/google-wins-invalidation-
of-walker-digital-patent-claims)

------
logicallee
What a mess. Starting at the title, there's no such thing as a patented
discovery. ([http://www.legalmatch.com/law-library/article/what-cant-
be-p...](http://www.legalmatch.com/law-library/article/what-cant-be-
patented.html))

Secondly, it really doesn't matter if "almost no" patented innovations get
used, just as (to make an analogy) it doesn't matter if "almost no founders
get VC funding" (!). There are over twenty million founders in the United
States alone who would take $100k into their 'startup business' from a VC
tomorrow. So what. "Almost no founders ever get VC funding" is a useless
observation (even if it's true), and I make this analogy because here on HN we
have a lot of experience with the cases where they do, and could rightfully
see the sentence as a useless observation.

There is less experience with using the patent system here, but what matters,
of course, is patented innovations that do or did require the patent system.
And anyone who has any experience whatsoever with this subject knows about
what kinds of cases this applies to.

I am not going to elaborate but I found the article basically totally
worthless and clearly written by someone who has no information on the
workings of the system. Clearly there is a systemic cost to having a patent
system at all. But perhaps the reason the author had to write that no patented
discoveries get used (which is a truism, since there is no such things as a
patented discovery) is that the same is not true for innovations and
inventions.

------
Htsthbjig
Patents in the US and Europe need serious reform:

1- They should update to the current world. That means using computer files
like 3d CAD drawings or STLs. Today most patent's drawing are way worse than
drawings 100 years ago(on purpose of course, as they don't want people to
really understand the patent).

Patents today try to obfuscate as much as they can so they give the less they
can to society, but try to claim everything under the sun, so they receive the
most from society.

They should also let other types of documentation be presented, like audio, or
video.

Obfuscation should be taken care of, using standard formats for documentation,
using standard terms. They try to patent already patented tech just changing
the terms, so it looks different for the examiner.

2-Business and software patents should be banned. But this will take a fight,
some court has declared business patents void.

The software patent situation is surreal. Someone comes to your house and
tells you you have to pay them for patents, but they can't show you!! If you
don't pay they will sue you with a football team of layers.

------
mpdehaan2
I think, due to the high number of patents that simply aren't valuable, this
would be true regardless of the case.

In the only possible good case for the system, it prevents two rivals from
sueing each other because they very likely infringe on each other already.

The patent troll problem is of course absolutely terrible. Anybody can sue
anybody, they don't have to be right - they might not _win_ , but there's
costs and time involved. And we also have "practiced" court systems in a
certain area that make money basically exclusively off of this.

I think it's safe to say that most software most companies produce violates a
large number of existing patents - whether they know it or not - because
dilligence around rejecting incoming patents for novelty or prior art is so
bad, and patent language is so terribly obfuscated.

Once, I knew some folks at a three-letter computer company who basically
patented a scroll bar. In the late 90s.

It may provide somewhat of a chilling effect to people starting new
businesses, but it doesn't seem to be that rampant.

But do patents provide a useful library for sharing technological ideas after
X years? Not in most cases.

------
dalke
This isn't useful without knowing the same numbers for 100+ years ago. Lincoln
filed a patent on a mechanism to lift a boat over shoals and obstacles, which
almost certainly wouldn't have worked and was never used.

If almost no patented inventions were used in the 1800s then it's hard to use
that as a metric for determining if the patent system has gotten worse.

------
tedunangst
> 95 percent of all patented discoveries from ever being put to use to create
> new products

Is this really assuming that every patented idea is a good one? Doesn't
everyone assume the opposite, that most patented ideas are crap? I'm not
surprised to learn that 95% of crappy ideas never turn into new products.

> More than likely, you won’t be able to put it to good use unless you have
> the multi-million-dollar resources required to launch a startup

How is this worse than starting a business _without_ a patent? I don't think
patent law was also supposed to be a guarantee you'd get a small business
loan.

~~~
derf_
> How is this worse than starting a business without a patent?

The argument in the article is that if _you_ don't have the resources to
commercially exploit a patent yourself, then _no one else_ will pay you for
your invention, because a) the frictional costs in licensing from you are too
high, especially when b) they can just steal the idea, since you are too poor
to defend yourself in court.

That creates an inefficient market.

Personally, I think the effect of b) is smaller than implied, since an
inventor could always sell the patent to a troll who _can_ afford to defend it
(though discounted by some large risk premium)... nevertheless I've heard of
it happening.

The effect of a) is very real. Just consider any software product given away
for free... even a requirement to _count_ how many copies are distributed for
the purposes of computing a royalty may be inimical to the business model.

------
AndrewKemendo
When we talk with investors one of the top questions is "What is your IP?" and
that can mean a range of things but typically means "Do you have a patent?"

When we were starting out I did a lot of reading on patents, the system of
patents litigation etc...and decided that the best thing for us would be to
ignore the whole patent system and just push forward our technology into the
marketplace hoping that we would be moving so quickly that trade secrets would
keep us covered for the foreseeable future.

The thinking was: A patent only gives us the ability to argue our case for
infringement in court. As a startup there is no possible way that we would be
able to afford a lengthy IP court battle without serious VC money or revenue,
at which point we should have been able to get the patent stuff figured out
easily. Besides, a patent just tells the world how to do what you are doing
which makes it easy to rip-off or change slightly as the ability to cover
every single use case/implementation in a patent is basically impossible.

I still believe this, but we had so much pressure from investors (that usually
didn't invest) that I spent a good 80+ hours writing/drawing our patent and
getting the provisional done. Seemed like a good compromise.

~~~
throwawaykf05
_> As a startup there is no possible way that we would be able to afford a
lengthy IP court battle without serious VC money or revenue..._

This is essentially why many NPEs exist. You can approach them, and if they
think your IP is being infringed by somebody worth suing, they will litigate
it on "contingency". That is, they will charge you almost nothing but will
keep the lion's share of any settlement or damages.

As bad as NPEs are when they target startups, they are often the only recourse
when faced with a big, well-funded infringer. The current widespread negative
rhetoric against "patent trolls" does well in distracting startups from this
fact.

~~~
AndrewKemendo
This is a good point and was actually the argument that pushed me over the
edge to actually doing it. The issue remains however that, even if our legal
fees are paid for, the time and effort that goes into the defense is a HUGE
distraction for an early stage company and enough to give the big company time
to grab market share.

------
rhino369
Un-litigated or un-licensed patents still have value, even to smaller
companies.

One huge use for patents is a like a nuclear arsenal between competitors.
Competitor A has 500 patents, competitor B has 500 patent, both covering the
product range they both make. Neither is going to sue based on it because it
would be a huge mess. The Smartphone wars is something of a rarity. Usually
industry leaders don't go at each other.

Google found this out because of their late development of patents related to
Android. Not having the arsenal made Google weak. It's why Google acquired
Motorola. Google paid billions for patents that never got used.

IP portfolios also are an asset you can borrow against.

Commercial litigation is always expensive. Doesn't matter if it is breach of
contract or patent infringement. The little guy is at a disadvantage.

~~~
mpdehaan2
True -- unfortunately this doesn't work against a patent holding company with
no actual assets.

It's likely they hold thousands of patents but have nothing to return fire
against.

Thus, a very GOOD public company can be attacked by someone who has simply
bought IP, and does not have recourse against them.

~~~
rhino369
In my mind, the issue isn't the ability to buy IP and sue, but the fact that
there is shitty IP out there that can be bought and misused.

The best IP a non-practicing entity gets is from legit companies who sold off
their IP or lost it in bankruptcy. When that happens, it's just monetizing the
R&D the company invested in.

The big issue is dogcrap patents that granted to garage inventors with way too
big a scope or after there was already a ton of prior art. The trolls take
those patents and then extort the shit out of everyone they can.

------
TrainedMonkey
I think article completely skips over important point when quoting the
statistics - majority of patents are virtually useless. If you account for
that fact, 95% of patents never seeing use suddenly does not seem as bad.

------
throwawaykf05
I'll preface this by saying that IANAL, but I've been tangentially involved in
the licensing and sale of patent portfolios and have read hundreds of patents.
I'm also an inventor on many.

Most patents (including mine!) don't get used simply because there's no one
practically using those inventions. The comment at
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8838681](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8838681)
hits the nail on the head. It's not usually because they are too expensive or
risky to license or that the inventions themselves are not technically
interesting. It's just that the market or industry ends up using technology
(which itself is often patented) that does not infringe the vast majority of
patents.

As an example, I once saw a patent on sale that was a precursor to DHTs and
could potentially read on systems like Amazon Dynamo. But the way they did
DHTs was completely different from Dynamo, and in fact, different from Chord,
CAN, Pastry, Kademlia or any of the other DHTs in academia and practice (all
of which the patent pre-dated). Hence, as interesting as it was, it had no
commercial value.

I've seen this pattern repeat in many other fields of technology. The fact
that only < 1% of patents are ever asserted simply reinforces this notion.
This is not surprising, since in most engineering there are many ways to
implement the same idea, and each of these ways can be patented. But typically
an industry converges on a few ways of doing things and the other approaches
lay unused.

Does this mean the system is broken? Consider academia. Think of all the
hundreds of papers that get published in computer-related fields alone. Then
think of how many of those actually make it into production. Does that mean
academia is broken?

The patent system may be flawed, but this is not why. This article essentially
is an ad for the author's new venture, simply using the "broken patent system"
meme to get some free publicity.

As an aside, the "create efficient market for patents" language TFA uses at
the end is oddly similar to the rhetoric Intellectual Ventures started off
with. Initially IV was adamant that they would only license and not litigate,
but more experienced people in the licensing business knew that was laughable.
After all, a patent is nothing but a right to sue.

------
minthd
For a detailed analysis of this, look:

[http://www.iam-
magazine.com/blog/detail.aspx?g=af22f2c6-e794...](http://www.iam-
magazine.com/blog/detail.aspx?g=af22f2c6-e794-4e5b-9599-33a8055eebae)

------
fsloth
In rare instances patents allow keen individuals to cash in with their skill
and grit. Most of the time this does not happen.

With companies, they are generally happy selling the old stuff with lipstick
since it's easier, rather than innovate.

I would claim that for businesses with less than astronomical R&D budgets
trademarks and brands are far more valuable than patents, while patents act
mostly as an outside markets legal leverage (i.e they provide a big stick
against competitors but the only effect it has on customers is a slightly
higher price).

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pavlov
I don't know. It seems easy to find counterexamples where the expiration of
core patents was the catalyst for a boom of new low-end competitors, for
example in 3D printers a couple of years ago.

Isn't that how the patent system is supposed to work?

~~~
pjc50
That's a pro-example rather than a counterexample, surely? Nobody _licenses_
the patents, usually because they're not available on FRAND terms, instead the
field is held up for 20+ years waiting for them to expire.

(Is a patent that has expired still counted as a "patented discovery"? This
changes the meaning quite a bit)

~~~
Spooky23
People and companies always want a competitive advantage, often at the expense
of the industry as a whole.

Why is it "bad" if patents are the reason things are held up, but "not bad" if
it's a common trade secret or proprietary application? Didn't Google hold back
the entire industry by not making their secret sauce for large scale
management of IT infrastructure broadly available?

IMO, the patent problem is a scoping problem -- we allow patents that aren't
appropriate. The concept of patents makes it possible to make large capital
investments to actually invent things. We need that imo.

~~~
pjc50
Trade secrets and proprietary applications can be independently re-invented.

~~~
Spooky23
That's exactly the issue that the previous poster brought up -- with a patent,
the "secret sauce" is public. The lessons learned by Google all need to be re-
learned again and again, which slows progress for industry as a whole.

In the pharmaceutical case, generic manufacturers are often able to start
producing a medicine on the day the patent expires. In the Google/trade secret
case, the world may forever lose valuable tools and techniques that are kept
proprietary once, but cease being useful to Google.

~~~
pjc50
It seems the usefulness of this varies from field to field. It's generally
easier to reverse engineer software from binaries or even rewrite it from a
plain English description than it is to reverse engineer the patents.

Whether it "slows progress" has got to be an empirical question with results
that vary from field to field. The "with patents" case in software forces not
only rediscovery but reinvention and engineering _around_ patents (which
exists in the pharma case as well).

Now, a software patent system that involved filing a copy of the source code
with the patent? _That_ would be a great way of preserving tools in the public
record. But that's not how it works at the moment.

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diminoten
At this point do any of you really feel you can talk about patents in an
unbiased manner?

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golemotron
I'm so put off by the title I can't even read the article.

 _Discoveries_ aren't patented - inventions are.

