Comment by GrandMasterBirt | Hacker News Reader

Comment by GrandMasterBirt | Hacker News Reader

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GrandMasterBirt

These cases are very tricky. Patents in general are. The question is: Do patents currently assist the small companies fight the big ones OR do they only hinder innovation?

Can I paten a technique for saving people's lives that requires no tools and anyone can learn, but no human being has ever done it before (intentionally)?

The paten question is no triviality and should not be treated as such. Don't think "oh why don't they just revoke it". Perhaps what is wrong with our system is the time given, 7 years in software terms may as well be a lifetime, while 7 years in physical product terms is hardly anything. Thats the problem with our system. And copyright is a whole nothing monster. They mingle often, but are not the same.

      Do patents currently assist the small companies fight the big ones

I think everybody knows the answer to that one and it's as asking if the US went to Irak on valid concerns for WMD: official answer is Yes; and when that will change hell will freeze.

> Can I paten a technique for saving people's lives that requires no tools and anyone can learn, but no human being has ever done it before (intentionally)?

The fact that anyone would even ask this is a far more dire social commentary than an oddly unoriginal patent. If something has a $0 cost outside of basic education and consistently saves lives, but you patent it and make money off it, what kind of person are you?

On the other hand, you may just want to patent something to prevent exactly that from happening. Holding a patent does not require you to make money off of it, but it does prevent others from doing so. It's a bit sad that one has to go this far, but there you have it.

You want to ensure the technique remains available to anyone freely: patent it and publish it along with permissive licenses.

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