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Comment by rmrfrmrf | Hacker News Reader

I say the same thing about software and hardware patents, though. What incentive will any company have to innovate if they're constantly getting copied?

IMO too many people let their emotions dictate their thoughts about business -- Company X is big enough, so it doesn't deserve patents. Company Y sues everyone in the sun for using their technology; what a horrible company! For every high-profile case like these, though, there are stories of small businesses and new inventors getting screwed by distributors who outright steal product ideas and resell them for cheaper. We need to make sure that whatever system we have can allow for invention but also not stifle progress of entire industries.

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Fine, let's use your example of the small business. Suppose that this company invents a revolutionary technology, such as a cure for cancer or a teleporter. That company is perfectly within its rights to just sit on the technology for 20 years. Even if it does decide to produce the technology, there is no way that it could keep up with demand, so it ends up shipping very small numbers of a very expensive and exclusive product. There really is no situation in which patents make sense.

Do you know why 3D printing is finally taking off? The parents are starting to expire. The technology has been around since the 80's. Try to let that set in how much patents have held back a very important innovation.

> Do you know why 3D printing is finally taking off? The patents are starting to expire.

That same history happened with almost every technology since patents existed. Some quite famous examples are the steam engines, electronic valves, and airplanes. It's an easy to spot pattern, new tech just takes off only a patent length interval after it leaves the labs.

That alone is not evidence that patents are bad. But coupled with the fact that most of those techs were concurrently invented by several people (who often got bankrupt, because they couldn't sell their inventions) it becomes very strong evidence.

Does that make patents bad or patents in their current form?

What if you restrict them to organisations using them in at least one actively marketed and supported product?

What if you make it so a company has to show genuine investment to be granted a patent?

What if you raise the bar on what constitutes innovation to cover a certain degree of complexity?

What if you make it so all patents have to be licensed to a FRAND (genuinely fair, not the current "fair") basis?

I would say the term length is too long, especially for software patents. And non-obviousness is not a precondition anymore, especially for software patents. Otherwise we'd be fine. Instead, nobody can scan-to-email for twenty years.

Empirically, we know that in, say, the 1990's, when hardly any software patents happened, software companies still innovated. Are you trying to suggest that there has been some kind of fundamental economic shift since then that has made innovation impossible in the absence of patents? What is that shift?

What are these stories about small businesses and new inventors getting screwed by people who steal their ideas? It seems to me that you're the one arguing based on emotion -- your post is full of dire warnings without any attempt to back them up.

The one that comes to mind is the FuzziBunz brand of reusable diapers. If you follow Shark Tank, you may have seen the owner on there lamenting about patent infringement -- an employee of hers that was responsible for coordinating the outsourcing of her product to China then abruptly left the company and started her own line of FuzziBunz clones using the same factory.

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