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Comment by dgb23 | Hacker News Reader

What immediately sprung out to me is that Amazon isn't held accountable for selling goods that directly violate patent laws, which should protect small business and reward innovation.

The current US administration claims to be concerned about domestic manufacturing and so on, but hasn't even mentioned this issue at all.

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I was going to manufacture a line of useful products here in the USA, but decided against it. I'd release the product, then a month later counterfeits would be on Amazon for 10% of the price.

As a small operation, there are 0 affordable resources at my disposal to fight IP theft.

Right, as a small operation patents are rarely worth your bother. You might eventually win in court with a patent, but by then your company is bankrupt. Just make the thing, and hope that you can develop a good name and reputation for quality that keeps you afloat, even if you only are 1% of the market, that can be a lot of money. Avoid selling on Amazon where you are more likely to be noticed by cloners, at least until you already have a business.

I thought Walmart was infamous for making a house brand of competitor products.

You're probably thinking about Target and their Up and Up label where they do that. They also place all of their knockoffs right next to the product they are imitating.

The US textile industry was built on ignoring UK patents though :)

The 19th century US cotton industry was built on far worse crimes than patent infringement.

Indeed, but patent infringement too. Although the Cotton Gin was patented, Eli Whitney famously was unable to enjoy those protections. Imitations sprung up all around.

Similarly: though William Jarvis wasn't the first American to import Merino sheep, he was the most successful because he was able to utilize an ongoing war in Spain to circumvent around the Merino export ban in the early 1800s and get a ton of them over here, too. He was even a diplomat to Spain and probably knew better, but did it anyway.

So one past illegal activity allows future illegal activities?

precedent is a real thing, de jure and de facto

No, but it does make people crying about competition very difficult to sympathize with.

Exactly. All that whining about "intellectual property" is at best funny.

Especially since the US patent office is mostly known for allowing anyone to patent anything, even if there is prior art from the Mayan and Roman empires.

> What immediately sprung out to me is that Amazon isn't held accountable for selling goods that directly violate patent laws, which should protect small business and reward innovation.

(IANAL) This may fall under a DCMA-like concept where sites are not responsible for 'user content'. The 'user' in question is the vendor and their 'profile' of sellable items is the content. Similar to how eBay is not (?) responsible for the items put up for sale.

(Not saying this is (morally) right, just describing the situation. I would really like to see some accountability as well.)

Which is funny because he could drive a stake through Bezos' heart with some sweet FTC rule making.

As far as I can tell, consumers have never benefited from patents, and they seem blatantly anti-competitive. Perhaps if only "small business" (whatever that actually denotes) were allowed to hold them it might make sense, but we all know that's not even remotely how patents are wielded today.

Personally I strongly prefer knockoffs. Same quality, but cheaper.

well innovation is where it helps consumer. Innovating new products over time, patents give them some runway to make a profit assuming one can defend those patents. why innovate the next iphone equivalent if someone is just going to steal your idea and make it in china for 1/4 the price

It was not patents that helped the iphone succeed, it was a massive river of cash and keeping the development mostly secret. All patents ensured was that android operated in a visually slightly different manner.

Anyway, where is all this "innovation" that's supposedly worth caring about? It seems to me that patents stymie innovation by holding competitors hands behind their back (or even in the case of medicine, holding it off the market).

> patents give them some runway to make a profit assuming one can defend those patents.

I'd be shocked if this actually described even 1% of patents issued.

Anyway, yea, fuck all intellectual property except maybe the first ten years of copyright held by actual humans.

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