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Comment by randallsquared | Hacker News Reader

I believe "use" means "bring suit or threatening same", here, not "apply for a patent".

OK, if so, who is going to pay the $10k+ in costs to get each of these patents? Whoever pays to get a patent and not enforce it does society a service, but bears the cost themselves.

They also do it defensively, to protect against someone else getting that patent and using it against them.

The idea is own the patent for defensive purposes, not aggressive. "Patent pacifism," if you will.

This line is repeated everywhere now, and it is hard to swallow. A deterrent is only useful if you employ it from time to time to demonstrate its power.

If you have offensive capacity you will be bound to use it.

Guns don't kill people, People kill people. Sure, but guns make it much easier, and by design, have the capacity for landing in the wrong hands.

A deterrent is only useful if you employ it from time to time to demonstrate its power.

Are you suggesting people who own guns should kill someone from time to time so nobody will fuck with them?

Are you suggesting that this is not how guns usually get used?

I'll suggest that.

Over 50 million households in the US own 200 million or more guns, collectively. If these guns were usually used this way, the US would be depopulated by gun violence in a decade or two.

Thank you, I wasn't gonna bother

I don't understand how one would defend their patented innovation without suing someone else? Or are you suggesting that the patent only be used as a counter-suit after being sued for infringement of a different patent?

I mean, the whole point of a patent is to be able to sue people who are competing with you. How can that ever be defensive?

Unlike trademarks, you can hold a patent without having to defend it. You are not legally required to use it. So the choice to use it is yours. The logic behind defensive patents is similar to creating nuclear weapons as a deterrent and the theory of mutually assured destruction.

Except the superpowers with all the nukes routinely fling them at each other. Where is the deterrence?

If IBM is not deterred by Microsoft's patents, why would they be deterred by mine?

I think you're mistaken about superpowers flinging nukes at each other. Only two nuclear weapons have ever been used in war, and that was 65 years ago.

It was analogy / metaphor. All the superpowers == all the big companies (Google, Apple, Samsung, etc) routinely fling nukes == lots of patent litigation.

Good call. That interpretation seems obvious in retrospect.

If you patent an invention, no one else can. Your patent prevents other people from patenting the thing that you depend on.

If your next question is that the existence of your invention would invalidate their patent due to prior art, that would take costly legal maneuvering to establish. Is there a shortcut around that legal maneuvering? Yes, patent your invention first.

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