
My Own Patent Apologies (2014) - mariuz
http://blog.dustinkirkland.com/2014/06/elon-musk-tesla-and-my-own-patent-apology.html
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BinaryIdiot
Honestly I think the apology is a bit unnecessary but I'm glad many are
turning around on the ideal of technology patents. Yeah patents on obvious
designs not only hinder but hurt innovation (one click, anyone?) but even
patents on non-obvious but obviously-trending designs can slow progress in
many areas.

I'll be honest though I wish patents worked. It would be nice to have a way to
protect the "little guy" when they figured out a break through, showed it to
the "big guy" and was then ripped off. But in practice the "little guy" would
need millions of dollars just to create the case and go after the "big guy".
That practically makes the patent system a place where only the "big guys" can
play which defeats its purpose.

So maybe it's time to do something radical and just completely end or retard
its abilities. I'm not sure if the current political environment will change
this system any time soon though. Most patent holders have large sums of
political influence.

~~~
rayiner
> It would be nice to have a way to protect the "little guy" when they figured
> out a break through, showed it to the "big guy" and was then ripped off.

It was the "big guys" that lobbied for increased IP protections in the 1990's,
for a pretty good reason: protection from foreign competitors. I worked with a
big router company once, who told me that a Chinese company had ripped off
their router designs down to the English silk-screened assembly instructions
on the PCBs. All of the little-company versus big-company stuff is small
potatoes compared to that overarching concern.

That's why a lot of big technology companies are still strong supporters of
patents. They don't want Chinese companies copying their chips down to bugs in
the firmware and undercutting them on the market because they don't have any
need to recoup R&D costs.

~~~
jb613
your statement is contradictory - you claim large corps increased IP
protection yet what we see today is that patents are the weakest they've ever
been.

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rayiner
That's not true. While recent Supreme Court decisions have cut back certain
kinds of patents, the U.S. has successfully exported its patent system abroad
through treaties and the WTO. Protection of IP in say China is a lot stronger
now than a couple of decades ago.

~~~
jb613
sure, there are numerous jurisdictions outside of the U.S. where patents have
become stronger, but enforcing a U.S. patent is the weakest it's ever been.

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ddlatham
The fact I can sit down and solve a problem and then get sued for it because
someone else happened to solve it the same way without me even being aware of
it is terrible.

~~~
canam
Agreed. I believe a reasonably qualified engineer would produce similar
solutions to those same problems. With this patent system, you have to search
the patent databases before your start to implement your idea. I've had
several buzzkills on ideas because I found them to have been patented. Perhaps
my implementations would have made the world better, but we will never know
because of the daunting prospect of facing a legal battle.

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nickpsecurity
Releasing the patents is a bad idea. A prior discussion on Schneier's blog
about dealing with the patents came to a different conclusion: amass patents
to use in self defense. It's what all the big names do. Otherwise, you're just
going to be sued into oblivion by big names and the trolls with little
leverage to use.

So, if the concern is innovation, then it's best to patent everything possible
into non-profits and public benefit corporations that promise to never use or
charge any open developments. Not just promise but in their charters, etc.
Might have a small membership fee just to keep it going. Then, any threats to
open projects are made with lawsuits from this organization going against
them. I think there's already an alliance in OSS doing something similar.

Yet, the lesson from prior discussion was: "a good offense is the best
defense" given virtually anything can be patented and sued over. Too broken
for an avoidance strategy or even fair, payment strategy.

~~~
Zikes
I'm not sure leverage counts for much anymore, considering Oracle was still
able to go after Google recently despite Google's own massive patent holdings.

~~~
throwawaykf05
1\. Google likely had a much weaker portfolio when Oracle sued. It is much,
much stronger now.

2\. There's probably both much overlap in Google's patents and Oracle's
technology.

3\. The Oracle v. Google case is now primarily about copyright rather than
patents.

~~~
Zikes
Regarding point 1, what's stopping Google from leveraging those patents now,
if point 2 allows for even a sliver of potential? I mean, a single function
seems to be causing Google quite a bit of grief in this lawsuit, so that seems
to be enough.

Regarding point 3, I had forgotten that part, but I don't quite get the
distinction where it affects the "mutually assured destruction" feature of
patent libraries. Even though the sword Oracle swings at Google says
"copyright" on the hilt rather than "patent", can Google still not file
patent-based countersuits regardless? In other words, if Person A and Person B
are in a standoff with guns leveled at each other, why would Person A simply
allow Person B to stab them instead?

~~~
nickpsecurity
You're better off looking at Apple vs Samsung or another case where it's
apples to apples in the portfolio. Having leverage doesn't guarantee anything.
However, a smaller vendor would likely not have lasted that long or cut a
similar deal that preserved the bottom line. So, size of income plus patent
portfolio helps.

There's been a number of suits and countersuits between companies in similar
industries with overlap in portfolio that got resolved way differently than
big companies coming after startups or SME's with nothing. It would probably
be worth a law student in this area doing a full survey and analysis to see
how the variables involved contribute to the situation.

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robrenaud
Would Twitter's Innovator's Patent agreement have worked out better for him?

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Animats
It's amusing to see Canonical held up as a good example. Of course they're
anti-patent. They repackage the work of others and sell it.

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thinkcomp
I own a few patents, as I'm sure many on Hacker News do. As I write this, I'm
in the middle of a patent lawsuit with Square
([http://www.plainsite.org/dockets/24u13j6tr/california-
northe...](http://www.plainsite.org/dockets/24u13j6tr/california-northern-
district-court/think-computer-corporation-v-square-inc/)). I don't apologize
for it.

I'm not a troll. I'm an inventor and I made a real product. I'm also someone
well known for having dealt with intellectual property theft as a victim. I
also spent a year at Stanford Law School poking around as a fellow as I
developed what is now the most accurate patent assignment database there is--
far more accurate than the official one--on PlainSite.

I'll be deliberately terse with my comments here, but the upshot is that the
problem here isn't the _idea_ of patents. They are a lottery ticket to a
lawsuit as Elon Musk has said, but they're also an important insurance policy
for serious innovators. (Another such insurance policy is VC, but not every
serious innovator has VC backing.) The problem is the legal profession. Patent
trolls (and other sorts of IP trolls) are by and large the creations of
corrupt lawyers. Inventors are slighted in favor of large corporations because
of "upstanding" lawyers. Transparency is impeded everywhere you turn in the
patent world courtesy of the patent bar. And unlike the USPTO TTAB, where
corporations can represent themselves at virtually no cost, in the USPTO PTAB,
the patent bar has seen to it that you must hire a lawyer.

It's not a coincidence. The system is incredibly broken, but if you want to
blame someone, blame the lawyers for ruining what might have been a workable
and necessary paradigm.

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mikekchar
If anyone is curious about the patent the parent is suing for, it is included
in the documents he linked to. Here is an handier link:
[http://www.plainsite.org/dockets/download.html?id=132275042&...](http://www.plainsite.org/dockets/download.html?id=132275042&a=3&z=d3106d66)

I'm afraid that I (and surely many others on Hacker News as well) will not be
cheering you on. It's pretty much the definition of something I do not want to
be patentable.

I understand it will probably not be possible to convince you to change your
mind, so I won't insult you by trying. However, keep in mind that your stance
really _is_ diametrically opposed to many groups who do not want software
patents.

~~~
pc86
It's the "for payments" version of all those "but on a _screen_ " patents that
people here hate on so much. Prior work includes but is not limited to
Facebook tag suggestions, and and just about everything done in facial
recognition on any laptop in the world.

