The hacker news community, and more generally the computer technogolgy, often have this point of view. There's no doubt that patents for our industry could use some work.
However, go to many other idustries and you'll find that people have a much more positive view of patents. We hear about it when patents don't work. You don't often hear about patent success stories.
Lonnie Johnson invented the Super Soaker in his garage, while working for the USAF. He licensed the technology to Larami Toys (now Hasbro) and later used the same principle to develop the Nerf gun. After an arbitration hearing in 2013, he was awarded nearly $73m in unpaid royalties. He is currently working on a variety of technologies related to sustainable energy.
To give an extremely niche and rather longwinded example:
Fine engraving is done with a specialised reciprocating tool that works a bit like a tiny pneumatic jackhammer. There are two real choices if you want one of these tools. GRS were first to market and are the dominant player; they make a relatively complicated system of tools that use a bulky desktop control unit. The alternative is the Steve Lindsay Airgraver, a beautifully simple design that connects directly to a compressed air source.
GRS would easily have the muscle to push Lindsay out of the market if it weren't for his patents. They have an international network of dealers and training providers; he has little more than a great product and some very satisfied customers. Lindsay's sole commercial advantage is superior technology.
The original patents for both the GRS and Lindsay tools have lapsed, but both tools have been continuously improved over the intervening years with many subsequent patents. If either side stops innovating, they're likely to be decimated by cheaper knock-offs as soon as their last useful patent expires.
Thanks, those are good examples. I do want to point out however: these aren't exactly earth shattering inventions of the kind that justify the sentiment that patents are helping advance art and science.
Because the super soaker guy wants his patent, small software companies have to eat shit from patent trolls and millions (billions?) has to be spent by companies in litigation?
Software patents are obviously bogus, as shown by the Curry-Howard correspondence. Software is not patentable in many jurisdictions.
Abandoning the patent system because of software patents would be an egregious example of throwing the baby out with the bathwater. The USPTO and the American civil legal system is broken in a lot of quite fundamental ways, but that doesn't invalidate the basic idea of patent law.
To be fair, our civilization is built on accumulating such "small" inventions. Even such (literally) Earth-shattering invention as the atomic bomb required thousands of smaller inventions across many different areas of science and engineering.
I agree that software patents situation is shit, though it would be great if we could handle patent systems of different industries in isolation.
> There's a decent argument for drug patents (drugs cost a fortune to develop; makers only recoup losses if they can mark up the cost of drugs massively; competition gets in the way of that), but I'd argue this is a better argument against the whole industry and an argument for more public funding of drug research.
Got any others?
And/or since you brought it up, I'm legitimately asking: what's the best example in your mind of a drug that probably would not exist without patents?
However, go to many other idustries and you'll find that people have a much more positive view of patents. We hear about it when patents don't work. You don't often hear about patent success stories.