Comment by jamesbyrdjr | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jamesbyrdjr | Hacker News Reader

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> E Ink is a great example of how the patent system stifles innovation.

I don't see how this is an obvious fact. I don't even see how this is a valid example.

> every comment in this thread is looking forward to finally seeing some innovation in this space "once the patents expire

It is telling, very telling that when asked, none of those comments are even able to describe which patent it is that is blocking "innovation in this space".

Here's the facts.

The physics of bistable displays is complex. Many have tried with very different technologies. Electrowetting. Interferometric. Other types of electrophoretic. Electrochemical.

The investors in all of these realized it was too expensive to get it to the finish line. Even Amazon decided to trash Liquavista.

The truth is that investors would rather invest in some new consumer internet service, or AI/ML, which is a simpler problem that will give a quicker return on their money rather than try to create a bistable display solution.

If you go to SID, you'll see that there's tonnes of startups that try to solve the "fast" or "color" bistable display chalenge, and they all fail due to fundamental physics problems and burn out their funding. That's also probably why E Ink isn't able to get past their limitations.

I genuinely hope this helps people understand that this is not "patent system stifles innovation".

> none of those comments are even able to describe which patent it is that is blocking "innovation in this space".

That's because there are over 700 of them:

https://patents.justia.com/assignee/e-ink-corporation

None of what you said about the physics of low power displays is wrong, but you're giving E Ink Corporation a pass when they really don't deserve one. They've been unreasonably hostile to basically everybody that has wanted to work with them over the years. No volume price breaks, no prototype-quantity orders (at any price), no partnering with other manufacturers, no shared development projects, absolutely no sharing of the proprietary driving waveforms to groups that want to use a different controller, etc.

Many, many embedded, tablet, even IoT projects that started out wanting to use an eInk display for power reasons had to settle for other technologies because the company just wasn't interested in exploring new leads that weren't one of their existing eBook partners. I can understand having priorities, but you're not supposed to be able to sit on a patent hoard this large while behaving this badly (FRAND requirements, etc.).

Yeah this is why a lot of battery-powered electronic shelf labels use LCD. E-Ink's product is great but they're impossible to actually build into a working product line because their terms are so odious.

Even trying to purchase one as a hacker to use with a Pi to create a “modern day” HP 200LX palm-top required so much legal complexity bullshit and painful terms that it literally wasn’t possible.

I could buy the part on the grey market from China, but the documentation was literally non-existent (as in, there was zero, none. At least from the seller I wanted it from).

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/HP_200LX

Does anyone have any suggestions for a screen that would fit this sort of use-case? The UI/UX I planned on being a straight Linux TTY1 to begin with.

If you're online interested in limited quantities, this Sharp display might well fit the bill:

https://www.adafruit.com/product/4694

It's a "memory LCD", which has very low no power drain when idle, but has an LCD's refresh speed (i.e., fast enough to display video).

You can also get some decently-documented eInk boards from Waveshare in 1" to 13" sizes, though the costs are definitely too high for anything but one-off Maker projects:

https://www.waveshare.com/product/displays/e-paper.htm

You may also find the PaperTTY project interesting for your TUI:

https://github.com/joukos/PaperTTY

> That's because there are over 700 of them:

And... what's wrong with that specifically please? Tonnes of companies have hundreds and even thousands of patents. The original claim that innovation is being blocked needs a clear example to support it.

> No volume price breaks, no prototype-quantity orders (at any price), no partnering with other manufacturers, no shared development projects

None of this sounds like blocking innovation. Sounds more like a difference in perception about costs. It would be like me expecting to get preferential treatment from one of the LCD vendors to develop something.

> but you're not supposed to be able to sit on a patent hoard this large while behaving this badly

I see a lot of superlatives but googling doesn't give me any hint of what you're referring to as their bad behaviour.

There is no point in even trying to improve the technology right now because the patent holder would just take it anyway.

If you had constructed a new technology that is an improvement of a patented technology, the original owner doesn't gain ownership over your improvement. They only have the right to prohibit use of the original technology. If you patent the improvement, then anyone who wants to use it would have to license both your patent and the base patent's inventions. There isn't a concept of "derivative works" (like in copyright law) where if you didn't license the base patent, you lose ownership over the improvement. If you had failed to patent the improvement, then yes, the patent holder could conceivably use your improvement without paying you, but that's a different scenario.

In very large and complicated fields, you'll often have a minefield of conflicting patent claims, much of which are minor improvement patents. These often coalesce into patent pools, assuming all participants in the pool are interested in playing ball. (Looking at you, H.265.) You don't see certain players looking to invalidate patents on the basis of not having been paid for the right to improve their invention, because such a right doesn't really exist.

The original owner can just refuse to license their patients however, leaving the improvements useless.

They can charge you so much for the license that you'll never be competitive even if your technology is a great improvement on the process.

It's generally not good for your business plan to include the ability for your direct competitors to shut you down if you become too competitive.

> There is no point in even trying to improve the technology right now because the patent holder would just take it anyway

I don't follow your thesis. Are you claiming there's someone out there who is being blocked by the eink manufacturer with a threat of a patent?

You would have to be insane to put yourself in the position to start with, so as long as the threat of the patent looms over the industry nobody is going to bother.

The comparison earlier to FDM 3D printing is spot on. The entire industry stagnated for over a decade under Stratiasys, who had no interest in pursuing the consumer market. It was only after the patents expired that the explosion of affordable printers and innovation in filaments happened.

But why are we switching topics to FDM 3D printing? The claim that 2nd OP made was that the eink manufacturer was being nasty and was suing other companies. But when I googled, I found no such evidence and I don't see any reply from anyone explaining what nasty stuff they did so it seems like that claim might be total BS. I see lots of other startups even in electrophoretic, like Clearink which won some awards but is struggling to get money. It seems like the real issue is that no one out there wants to put money into making these displays as it is low profit compared to software startups.

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