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Comment by jabbawookiees | Hacker News Reader

On the other hand, if you're a startup founder with a brilliant new idea (say, some new way to synchronize audio across multiple speakers), why would you ever leave a cushy corporate job to build it if nothing protects you from large corporations copying everything you've made?

It seems, judging by how people have been complaining that their Google Homes have been doing worse, that maybe the system is working as intended and Google ought to pay for patent licenses to the people who first took the risk to build these multispeaker systems and proved that it was a good idea.

It's possible that the solution isn't to scrap intellectual property entirely but update the numbers to reflect the more innovative and interconnected world of 2022 instead of the 1600s when it was officially conceived.

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> On the other hand, if you're a startup founder with a brilliant new idea (say, some new way to synchronize audio across multiple speakers), why would you ever leave a cushy corporate job to build it if nothing protects you from large corporations copying everything you've made?

The fact that your product will be on the market for years before competition arrives and you'll be a step ahead.

Instead, we're now stuck in a situation where jackboots for corporate lawyers break the neck of any startup innovator before they can even launch new products.

It’s true. Many pro-patent people say “think of the little guy”, but in reality the little guy regularly gets the shaft on matters of patent monopoly.

I think you're missing the fact that our entire world is being slowed down by this system, and a few tweaks are not going to change that. Yes it is true that in the current system Google could ask for permission to license this one patent, but what about the broader implications of patents as I have laid out? What about the people all over the world living in worse conditions than necessary due to intellectual property restrictions? How many people could have been enjoying a worldwide free library if Project Gutenburg had been allowed to continue? How much cheaper would cars and auto repair be if manufacturers cloned and copied each other to settle on a set of standard designs, as has been done in 3D printers? How many lives would have been saved in Swaziland/Eswatini in the 1990's if the WTO had not outlawed low cost clones of effective AIDS medications? [1]

For every potential startup founder who will only work on their problem if they can get paid, there are IMO 100 people who will work on a problem because they care about solving it. I don't think we would lose much if those motivated only by profit had less incentive. And keep in mind they would still have first mover advantage. Plus huge companies often don't care about little corners of the market, and there is lots of room for companies to serve market needs the bigger companies are ignoring. But if another company wants to compete and they can actually do a better job? We are hurting society if we restrict their ability to do that.

[1] https://www.mmegi.bw/features/the-neoliberal-plague-aids-and...

I don't believe you're correct that intellectual property has slowed down progress.

Linux and the GNU project use copyright and they're doing well. Arguably better than the permissive BSDs for which copyright law might as well not exist. But even GNU/Linux falls far behind Windows and MacOS for regular desktop users.

Software is already the ultimate gift-able creation where you can make something for yourself and everyone else. It's cheap to make at home and it's free to distribute. Yet even here commercial products protected by IP are still far superior to things made by hobbyists just wanting to share with the world.

Medicines? Most biotechnologists I know are working at university research labs aiming to churn papers or they're working at a company that exists because of patent law. I don't know anyone researching new drugs in their spare time just to gift it to the world.

So I guess as a counterpoint, I know a hundred startup founders who made something looking to make a buck. I know zero people working on expensive technical problems purely because they care about solving it.

Literally every new drug approved between 2010 and 2016 came from NIH funding.

https://www.pnas.org/content/115/10/2329

The biotechnologists I know tell me "patent law is totally screwed up for biomed, but I guess because it works for traditional tech it's near impossible to remove". They're flabbergasted when I tell them tech says the inverse. Everywhere seems to have this idea that this other niche absolutely requires it.

On the other hand without patents the little guys could copy existing products, make them better (big corporations are slow) and be paid for that.

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