Oh boy, another awesome e-Ink design we'll never actually see due to eInk's bullshit monopoly practices
* Invented a novel, physical device[1]
* Granted monopoly from the government for 20 years to extract monopoly rent from sale of the product in exchange for making the design publicly available
Now, personally, I bite the bullet here and say "maybe we should come up with a better incentive system than patents". But I find it hard to fault eInk specifically since this is exactly how patents are supposed to work.
[1] I mention it's a physical device because there are other more controversial types of patents like software patents and patents on genes which are more widely understood to be bullshit.
What makes these displays so different?
(Edit: to be clear, I don't mean to sound snarky or rhetorical, I'm genuinely curious since these displays seem to be in a pretty unique situation)
Patents were created as an incentive not only to do research but to publish the results of the research. So that many companies would have access to the technology and can license the patents when producing products based on that technology. That is not quite aligned with a company reluctantly marketing their technology.
E Ink could have been the ARM of low-power display technology, raking in a billion dollars a year in royalties while the ecosystem flourished, but they couldn't let go of being the monopoly provider for their technology. What a waste.
Is there something commercial players realize about e-ink that the rest of us don't? Or do they lack vision (seems unlikely under current market conditions)?
> Is there something commercial players realize about e-ink that the rest of us don't? Or do they lack vision (seems unlikely under current market conditions)?
What I know is that their technology is limited by the physics of moving large particles. Their volumes are not high enough to achieve high scale. There was another post that explained this very well by showing the multi-billion cost of a typical LCD factory. I think E-ink can only re-purpose existing LCD factory lines and they can't get good yields on their products doing that.
With a battery and a gsm modem it could probably stay unattended for years as a billboard.
This has already been covered repeatedly. There's no "had they allowed". The problem is physics! Please read about electrophoresis. It is pigment particles moving physically in a fluid! If you make them move fast then they're not going to be stable. You can look at the past 20 years of electrophoretic products and you'll see that there's been pretty much 0 improvement in speed. Startups like Clearink even gave up on bistability meaning they decided we don't need the pigment to stick, we'll just continuously refresh it like LCD and look how the investor and consumer market treated them.
Again, this "had they allowed more innovation" seems to be coming from people who have little to no knowledge of the industry.
If eInk is really missing out on so much profit from the activities you describe, then a buyer might swoop in and put the company under new management. It's not the patent's fault.
Even the founders of modern capitalism warned us of rent-seeking behavior like this that is actually counter to the goals of markets.
It's perfectly fair to condemn this, as well as the patent system that enables and encourages it.
What they choose to do with it is up to them. It's a property right that they own. It's specifically mandated as a monopoly power that they have been granted.
After 20 years, anyone can make an eInk display.
You can argue that 20 years is too long, or that the patent is invalid, or that they aren't exploiting their idea in the most community oriented way, but calling this "rent seeking" and "counter to the goals of markets" is flat out wrong.
The "free market" is entirely about each individual making their own behavioral decisions, within the regulations of the market, to promote their own benefit.
You might not like the way the idea of patents has been reduced to practice, but that doesn't make the idea of patents a bad one.
Alternately, product designers and consumers seem to have a preference for LCD or OLED devices because they are better for common use cases and they have no need for the niche features that EInk provides.
Have anything to back that claim up, or is this your opinion? Because considering there’s only one major category of consumer devices with eInk displays and they are used in all the leading devices in that category, I’m not sure I personally agree. Without additional product categories available to purchase and because there is a pent up desire to buy them despite them not existing, I don’t feel your conclusion can be proven categorically.
"Kindle Sales – The E-Reader Device Is Dying A Rapid Death" https://justpublishingadvice.com/the-e-reader-device-is-dyin...
I'm aware that many people find reading on an E Ink display e-book reader preferable to reading on a tablet or phone. When consumers pull out their wallets to make a purchase, however, they prefer tablets and phones.
I don’t think there’s a conspiracy at EInk or among its shareholders to intentionally make less money or sell less products. Their annual report, which describes a strategy and goal of improving the technology and expanding sales, suggests the opposite. [0]
[0] https://www.ir-cloud.com/taiwan/8069/irwebsite/financials.ph...
That's correct, I do. Patents should protect the rights long enough to bring a product to market, not stop all competition in an entire field of technology for decades
They are indeed using patents as originally envisioned: They have an effective monopoly on epaper displays. However their poor business decision of ultra-high pricing has prevented a serious market for their product from forming. Had they lowered their price per display, or done some kind of affordable licensing scheme with manufacturers, it's totally possible for them to have made tons of money while still allowing epaper displays to flourish in the market.
But that's not what they did; who knows what kind of money they're actually making, but the fact that the epaper market is basically on Kindle life support isn't the patent's fault.
(Edit: Perhaps Amazon had a hand in preventing wide adoption of epaper, in order to more effectively squash Kindle competitors?)
I have seen contracts between large manufacturers where one pre-purchases exclusivity variants, like: 1) Exclusive licensing for x years 2) Exclusive licensing for x years after the first time buyer deploys tech not to exceed W years (usually 10) 3) Very limited sales/licensing to others
This smells like (3) + (2) here.
I work in the display industry and what I know for sure is that they can't make big 20", 32", 42" displays. Something about factory production issues so they're literally like hand making the big displays which to me seems like the reason why they cost so much. So I'm suspicious of your claim. Could you let us know which ultra-high prices you're referring to? What panel size? What DPI? What bin range and contrast range? Do you actually work in the industry and have knowledge of costs and pricing?
> Perhaps Amazon had a hand in preventing wide adoption of epaper, in order to more effectively squash Kindle competitors?
I'm sorry to be harsh but you sound ridiculous when you say that. And now I'm pretty certain you don't have industry knowledge. You do realize that Amazon spent hundreds of millions trying to scale up Liquavista to produce fast colour displays for the Kindle. It failed because again physics of electrowetting is complex especially when you go from handmaking 100 demo displays to trying to produce 1000 on a rolling production line. Maybe a billion and maybe then they could have succeeded but I guess Jeff had other cost issues or personal reasons that ended that.
But yes I agree that patent reform is sorely needed, for this reason amongst others. There has to be a middle ground where ideas can flourish while their creators can still extract profit.
What in the world? So I can't agree that the patent system is net positive, and disagree with a company's specific business decisions under that system?
What a blatant false dichotomy.
Patents are on ideas. Does anybody in this planet actually believe that, without an artificial incentive, ideas won't happen?
The biggest thing wrong with patents are the logistics (lengthy, expensive filings and 20y monopolies are ridiculous today) and the lack of oversight in identitying prior art or vague, overreaching scopes.
Or the holder can charge so much for their idea that yours, which depends on theirs, is effectively worth nothing because it's priced above its value.
That they "might", "maybe", be an incentive to creativity is not exactly a strong justification.
It is highly likely patents are doing more damage than good.
“To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries.”
You can argue the meaning of "limited times" and "discoveries" and the interpretation of all that, but the justification is that by providing a limited monopoly, the inventor gets a period to make money uncontested, after which the invention is available to the community.
The alternative, a "trade secret", means that the invention may die with the death of the inventor and be lost to the community.
>That they "might", "maybe", be an incentive to creativity is not exactly a strong justification.
Whereas your constitution quote does express intent, but does not provide justification. It's not backed on hard science, but just a guess.
Also countries without strong rigorous patent protections are swiftly outmanoeuvring those with protections.
When copyrights were extended in 1976 and 1998 for example, there was no measurable effect to the amount of copyrighted works being produced. If the incentivize hypothesis held, there should be a measurable increase in the velocity of copyrighted works pivoting on the dates of those extensions. No such increase was observed. Where is the data to back up the claim? There is none.
So the incentivization hypothesis is not only disputed by evidence but also lacks any supporting evidence, so it's incorrect. It's a testable hypothesis that's been tested.
It doesn't exist, no matter how much you close your eyes and think it's true, it's simply not real. Patents and protections simply do not incentivize innovation, the evidence suggests they stifle and hamper it.
No amount of fundamentalist dogma of desperately clutching wrong answers can change this reality.
[1] I'm just judging on the reaction here and on how competitive the prices are
It is generally not. Fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory licensing terms are often contractually required from holders of standards-essential parents that are participants in standards-setting organizations responsible for the relevant standards, but are generally not required by law outside of such contracts.
I can imagine alternate patent systems that would better encourage innovation. I can also imagine that no patent system at all could work fairly well.
Could you explain this? Because which patent is discouraging useful innovation? I'm actively working in the display industry and have no idea what you are referring to. I've asked this question before and I only get conspiracy theory answers like "secret consortium", or lazy answers like patent thicket. If you aren't actually working in the display industry, then how exactly do you know what is blocking useful innovation? Because if you were to ask me what's blocking useful innovation, it is the fact that investors are much more willing to put billions into AI/ML or an internet service startup than they are into scaling up a niche display technology or improving yields so that the price can come down.
And yes, if I were an investor in display technology, I would be quite hesitant to touch electronic ink style displays due to patents.
Here’s a fascinating paper on the usefulness of patents:
https://s3.amazonaws.com/real.stlouisfed.org/wp/2012/2012-03...
Yes, I've read that as well from magazines but I must admit I've never checked the journalist claims or seen what critical patent expired that made the 3d printing industry flourish. Because it could just have well been access to open source designs that only flourished in the 2000s but I know nothing about 3d printing so I'm just speculating and making it clear that I'm doing that. So when it comes to posts here about my own industry which I feel I know pretty well, I see claims that seem farcical to me so I've been asking, which critical patent does EInk have? So far, I've not had any answer.
> And yes, if I were an investor in display technology, I would be quite hesitant to touch electronic ink style displays due to patents.
If I was your boss, I'd again ask a simple question. Which patent? If you can't identify it, then do you think it is possible it is an incorrect belief based on perhaps a lack of understanding of the display industry?
They reward deep pockets, those who have enough money to fight a long, expensive, court battle.
They do not reward innovation. I know startups who have failed to get a patent because their invention was not "specific enough", and some who have failed to protect their invention because their patent was too specific to defend.
They maintain the status quo, which is entirely antithetical to their purpose.
They maybe work in biotech, and other industries where the capital investment is colossal and needs protecting. In most other industries, especially web tech, they're a net negative and need to be abolished.
>They do not reward innovation.
I suppose, although I think an eink display is reasonably innovative, and I don't think the company has particularly deep pockets in comparison to the companies we generally complain about around here.
As others have said, they're chasing a monopoly on these types of displays, aided by their use of patents. That's not something we should be encouraging. The point of patents was to give a limited window for the inventor of a thing to exclusively capitalise on the thing, in return for making the details of the thing public so that others could in turn expand and improve on the thing. This is not what's happening here.
You have just described the legal system as a whole.
Not necessarily; having a problem with the way someone uses a legal property right is not the same thing as having a problem with them having the legal right to do what they are doing, i.e., the property right itself.
The problem with eink is that patents are not sufficient to produce the desired tech, there is some secret ingredient which is not open, rendering all benefits useless
Most other competitors to eInk (e.g. Qualcomm/Mirasol, Gyricon, etc.) had viable products and have completely failed in the market.
Is this really "einks abusive practices" or is it just complete consumer disinterest in the technology outside of these extremely niche markets?
can you add some links to back up this claim? asking for a friend.
Nick Sheridon, inventor of the first ePaper display, suggested the watershed moment for ePaper would be in 2012 where it would gain mass adoption. It's been almost a decade and that watershed has yet to occur.
Many believe that the difficulty in dealing with them and their licensing requirements are stifling the widespread adoption of the technology.
That appears to be nonsense as far as I know. And I'm actively involved in the display industry. I keep seeing this kind of comment in HN which is surprising and each time I always ask give us some evidence or links we can read to verify and I get no answer. Same when I ask what patents are apparently blocking innovation or keeping EInk displays expensive, no answer or non-verifiable answers like patent thicket, secret conspiracy. As a person actually involved with displays, the biggest problem with E-Ink displays is they can't get to the next level of scale because they can't solve yield issues and they can't solve those because they can't get higher volumes. If someone like Apple suddenly put in a pre-paid order for 10 million E Ink displays, I bet you they could get to the next level.
I really doubt that theory, either. This world has just way too much money completely idle waiting. It would be extremely easy for them to get really big money if they really had anything that would be world-changing.
The problem is that, once you really look into it, there is absolutely nothing in eInk that is world changing.
Consumers have problems distinguishing the supposedly better contrast from cheap reflective+monochrome LCD displays (like the Pebble or stuff sold in amazon for $10 these days). But they can easily recognize it the moment the slow refresh comes in. So your average customer only sees disadvantages and high price. They will choose reflective LCD any day over pure eInk. And thus all use cases where eInk might have succeeded are perfectly covered with plain old reflective LCDs (e.g. week-long battery life, primarily outside use such as smartwatches).
So your only other benefit about eInk is the passive power usage when not refreshing. Which is why they are making some in-roads into this type of market, e.g. sales price tags, signs, etc.
But consumer market? There is just no interest whatsoever from consumers. None whatsoever. Only a handful of geeks know what benefits eInk brings over reflective LCDs (angles, polarity), and out of them only a handful care enough about them to buy.
> Many believe that the difficulty in dealing with them
I already mentioned that... but is there any actual evidence? It's very easy to claim "oh but they're evil! they're so evil they hide their evil actions behind NDAs!". It's a textbook example of non-falsifiability.
But what I see from my side is a shitton of chinese manufacturers (not very well known for their respect of NDAs or trade secrets overall whatsoever). So I have a hard time believing such an accusation.
I wasn't aware Mirasol ever made it out of handmade demo units. Maybe they did manage to produce some production level small displays like 4" but I heard from a fab guy in Longtan that they just couldn't get the process to work reliably.
> consumer disinterest in the technology outside of these extremely niche markets?
Consumers would be interested if they could be cheap and fast like LCD. But E-Ink is probably never going to get fast because you can't bypass physics unless they find a different way to get pigment particles to move. It won't get cheap either because you need huge volumes to get there. So unless someone with Applesque bank account makes that order, E-Ink will always be more expensive than LCDs.
I still have my Qualcomm Toq watch. So yes, they did manage.
A recurring meme from people who meet one or more of the following conditions:
a) Don't understand business
b) Don't know anything about the display industry
c) Don't know anything about manufacturing anything at scale
d) Don't have any real information other than repeating something someone said
e) Never take the time to do enough research and gather enough data with which to support their opinions
f) Don't seem to care about the truth
As someone who worked in the display industry for over ten years, conducted seminars for thousands of engineers and business professionals on the design and manufacturing of display systems (down to pixel-level electronics) and, generally speaking, considered myself an expert in the domain...these kinds of comments come off as --to be kind-- terribly misplaced.
It would behoove HN commenters to at least exercise enough restraint to only comment in domains they have either researched profusely or understand to a good level of proficiency. That is, if they care about HN signal-to-noise ratio not degrading to Twitter/FB food fight levels.
Why hasn't E-Ink display tech gone mass-market? lots of other commenters are arguing the reasons for and against.
There's been a bunch of comments making really strong claims. Here's some examples just from this post.
"They're famous for patent-trolling and disrupting anyone elses effort's to do anything with the tech".
When asked for proof of this, there was no reply.
"E Ink is part of a consortium that owns all the patents around the technology used in their ePaper displays."
When asked for proof of this, there was no reply.
"Because there's no real market, the only company "innovating" on the original technology is E-Ink. With a 20-year head start locking down iterative improvements, the technology may never get out of the tarpit. "
When asked to back up the claim, at least the response was better in that they accepted it was an assumption based on other comments rather than actually being based on facts.
" It is all just an assumption, and I don't have any evidence. Thank you for pointing that out, challenging me, and forcing me to take reconsider my opinion. "
So his/her point is that people are alleging a company is a patent troll, even perhaps part of a consortium seeking to control the market and when challenged, they are unable to defend their claims. So your question appears to be asking him for reasons to backup his questioning of other people making claims. Eg, you are acting as Dan in the following itemized list.
Alice: We are making a product at price X and volume Y with features Z
Bob: Alice is preventing anyone else from making similar products using your patents. Alice is part of a consortium that is evil. A is making enormous profits. A is a patent troll. A is an example of patents gone wild.
Charles: Uhm, Bob and buddies? Why are you saying that about Alice? I work in Alice's industry and see nothing like that. You guys shouldn't make such baseless comments as it brings down the quality of our technology forum and level of discussion.
Dan: Charles, you're making ad-hominem attacks and appealing to self-authority.
> Why hasn't E-Ink display tech gone mass-market?
Because their technology (ie: the physics they're reliant on) can't do what competing products like LCD, OLED are able to do. You can't magically make electrophoretic particles that stay in a stable position AND move fast. You can't magically fit millions of color pigments in a pixel when there is NO backlight. Until they can switch to a different technology or physics, they can't compete against LCD/OLED and will never reach high enough volumes to scale to a lower cost structure.
You got that wrong. Listing the many ways in which someone doesn't know what they are talking about is a statement of fact, not a personal attack.
If I argued a bunch of nonsense on HN about an article on biology and someone called me for not having a clue, that would not be a personal attack, they would be factually accurate. Biology is not my thing.
Sometimes we just need the truth.
The entire fucking world of government and business runs on paper. I have to print out literally reams of shit for regulatory requirements, shit that could be easily stored in multiple locations, on tiny ass microSD cards that could be filed away into a single filing cabinet, potentially holding billions of records, damn near indefinitely, and near-immediately accessed on ePaper displays, with the color documents being displayed on color ones and the black & whites being displayed on greyscale displays... instead we have an enormous off-site filing warehouse to retain documentation for up to seven years. Hell, my corporation probably has several of these.
And it sure as shit isn't the legal framework holding all this up... everyone I deal with in government and business hates having to shuffle all this shit around, and would much rather be tossed an 8.5" x 11" eInk display with all relevant documents than having to shuffle through manila folder after manila folder of printed pages, and they'd all gladly lobby to have these laws and regulations changed and revised to allow for that.
I guaran-goddamn-tee you the market for eInk is there.
If there's a fetish for a "this document is an actual physical object" somewhere (with all the usual security theater about security from theft and alteration), it's not going to be helped by taping eInk to a disk.
About thirty years ago I worked on a sizeable archival project. Technology deemed "modern" at the time was very hard to justify. Why? Because nobody could truthfully answer a simple question: What happens when the hardware/readers go obsolete?
Well, the first thing that happens is that you have to migrate ALL of your data from the old medium to a new medium before the old one goes out of style.
That's all the bean counters had to hear to know they'd rather keep things on film. Film, as the argument went, is good for a long time if stored properly and all you have to do is shine a light through it.
The started a slow transition to digital some 20 to 25 years after that conversation. Guess what? They were right. The film was --and still is-- in pristine condition.
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interferometric_modulator_di...
I think they are mostly focused on Micro LED or Mini LED these days. Mirasol is abandoned.