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Comment by FL410 | Hacker News Reader

>It should just be a free-for-all. You see someone with a better mousetrap, you make a better mousetrap. You compete on actually bringing it to market, which is not the same thing as whatever you think the innovation is. Surely that creates the most value for society, or at least should be the default until the quite high hurdle of evidence for patents is cleared.

As I understand it, this is how IP is valued in China - not the idea, but the execution.

Yes, ultimately it means better mousetraps for the consumer. Maybe even cheaper, better mousetraps. But it sucks for the guy who actually designed and engineered the better, cheaper mousetrap if he doesn't have the knowledge or capital required to actually produce it better/cheaper.

So, it seems like neither the idea nor the execution alone carries the full value. There must be some happy medium.

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I have 4-5 patents owned by my companies. It doesn't suck for the guy who originally thought of it because while his competitors are busy trying to duplicate the work, (s)he is out working on the next thing. What it means is we can't invent, then sit back on our laurels and milk a cash cow. Personally, I'd rather continue innovating.

That’s legitimate, but I have two questions in response:

1, How effective are patents at protecting an under-funded inventor? (As I’ve been told by my lawyer) They cost tens of thousands to file and much more to enforce. It seems way more likely that a rich company will railroad you and eat the legal costs later.

2, As execution does matter, don’t patents leave the potential for a concept to be poorly executed and its value wasted during the period it might matter most? The lifetime of a patent is huge in the span of tech.

Given those questions and the other negatives, including patent trolls and the really broad assignment of patents, I really have to wonder what benefit we’re getting here.

> How effective are patents at protecting an under-funded inventor?

My own impression, "less than they used to be". I read patents from time to time, and there's a huge difference between, say, one of Tesla's patents for which he clearly wrote the application himself and a present-day patent, where the writing was clearly done by a professional unrelated to the technical field.

That said, I wonder how out of reach the self-filing route really is. My own patent cost me 2000 Canadian in consultant's fees, essentially to have them proofread my draft and make suggestions. I still had to have a bit of back-and-forth with the examiner, but none of it felt out of reach even today.

To my way of thinking, the whole idea of a patent hearkens back to a time when kings granted monopolies and the people getting them took care of the rest. It doesn't make much sense for an inventor today, who would ideally want everyone competing to execute on their idea. There are probably a lot of better alternatives to the patenting system that properly harness the tendency of data to be copied. Maybe some form of a value-added tax for getting into new business segments that automatically get remitted to the inventor? To no one's surprise, coming up with a better idea than the patent system isn't the hard part!

> How effective are patents at protecting an under-funded inventor?

Also, how effective is not having a patent at protecting an under-funded inventor?

There are ample cases of smaller inventors getting decent payouts from bigger companies stealing the invention, often after having been shown it be the small guy trying to find a way to bring to market.

And, if the patent is really valuable, small guys can often find bigger guys to fund patent suits for a cut of the return, just like any business.

Not having a patent is not a gain for a small time inventor. When I have done startup style things, I was constantly asked if I have patents. It enables investors to have more leverage to protect the startup from outright copying from bigger, better funded companies.

IMO, as a sibling comment mentioned, time is key here. Patents should be strictly enforced for 2-3 years, after that they're made obsolete. This gives you the benefit of being ahead for a while, or someone else to be ahead for a while if you want to directly sell the process. After that it's free for all.

Current situation is free for nobody but China.

I think in an oddly perverse way, it's worked out with Western countries innovating on the idea/patent side, and China optimizing production sides.

Inventor should publish it in a peer-reviewed journal of inventions.

At the end of the year, government decides which inventions were most valuable to society. Then these inventions are rewarded from an innovation budget.

(Related question: why are patents treated so differently from fundamental research?)

A similar scheme is called "retroactive public goods funding" and its a great idea. https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/lewis-carroll-invented...

You effectively defined the patent system.

All patent applications are published (not necessarily granted). Prior to publishing is review by a patent examiner. Someone who usually has to be knowledgeable of the related subject matter. Many examiners have advanced degrees.

Laws/policies are supposed to dictate which inventions the government is supposed to grant.

It’s supposed to be financially rewarding to publish a patent, for both personal and national commerce economics. Which we assume sparks innovation in the private sector and better science/technologies/anything for all.

It sounds like you want to flip the script. Some commercially funded capability to review the endless stream of patents - in which would need to be particularly formal and that can be regulated, and for the government to redefine the incentives.

Btw Governments do offer grant opportunities for various innovative/research areas before they are proven.

> You effectively defined the patent system.

The patent system offers a temporary monopoly on the tech to the patent holder. This is not the case here.

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