Comment by logicallee | Hacker News Reader

Comment by logicallee | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

>Functionally, these patents are effectively more like patenting the concept of changing linear motion into rotational motion than patenting a particular mechanism for doing so.

And one thing is clear: if the industrial revolution had started 20 years later due to some over-broad patent on a whole class of devices, then today we would be lawless cavepeople without electricity.

I mean just think it through! Surely whatever incentives the patent system created - including for Watt, or, for that matter, the wright brothers, pales in comparison to the fact that as a species we came this close >< to losing it all. There was a race against time and we won that race.

If the hundred thousand year old history of science had been delayed by just twenty years, surely we would have lost it all. The fact that the industrial revolution happened under a broad patent system that produced Watt, the wright brothers, and others, is the purest coincidence.

If the patent regime had been even slightly broader, the twentieth century would have been one very long, very boring appendix to Archemedes' screw.

Thank God that it happened to be just right! And alas, that nothing has been invented in the digital domain since 1997, since, alas, this system simply does not work there. :( :( :(

Can you imagine if things had been invented since 1997?

Imagine if people could communicate or innovate without patents coming and beating them up like a school bully.

one can dream. . .

(Sorry for dripping with sarcasm, you're just so wrong I cannot express it in any other way. who cares if a few patents are granted which are too broad -- big deal. literally a twenty year wait solves that problem forever. the contract with society works.)

Well it's entirely possible that if overly broad patents had killed the initial market for steam engines the industrial revolution could have been delayed far longer than 20 years, or perhaps not have even happened at all.

For instance, the Romans had toys that used steam, but the technology never made the leap to a productive use in the form of steam engines. One theory is that the vast use of slave labor in Rome meant that there was no economic impetus for the discovery of labor saving technologies. By the time the market was right for labor saving technology the basic technology used in the toy had largely been forgotten.

Another example is metallurgy in pre-Columbian America. To our knowledge, the Native Americans in North America never developed the technology to melt, smelt, cast or alloy metals. This was despite the fact that bronze alloys had been in use in the old world for over 6000 years by the time Columbus landed on the New World, and iron smelting had been in use for nearly 2500 years.

Innovation and invention do not exist in a vacuum. They are closely tied to the time and place where they occurred. So, yes, it would be entirely possible that electricity never would have existed if patent law was different 200+ years ago.

The lazer was patented after several products had hit the market. So, each single patent might block 20 years, but it's easy for a cluster of bad patents to block progress indefinitely.

great example! It's probably why the Laser was never commercialized and is not used anywhere in anything. Good example.

(/s - sorry. your example is a great example of patents working exactly and precisely like they should. I have a cheap and perfect laser in my mouse next to me right now, that's perfect and great and cost its manufacturer pennies. couldn't have picked a worse example.)

"Finally, in 1987, Patlex won its first decisive enforcement victory, against Control Laser corporation, a manufacturer of lasers.[29] Rather than be bankrupted by the damages and the lack of a license to the technology, the board of Control Laser turned ownership of the company over to Patlex in a settlement deal"

I am not sure that's working as intended in any way shape or form, considering the invention was "Gould's name for the device was first introduced to the public in a conference presentation in 1959"

But note the law has changed, in fact been flipped on its head, now. It's first to the patent office now, regardless of who created the invention; and defensive publication is almost impossible thanks to a recent decision that most practioners have to be aware of an invention for it to be prior general art.

oh I see, by "indefinitely", where you wrote,

>it's easy for a cluster of bad patents to block progress indefinitely

you meant like from 1959 to 1987. Sure is indefinitely. Imagine, if the world had ENDED in 1988 or 1989, then the world never would have gotten a patent-free laser.

/s - nothing else to reply to you. get some perspective before throwing words like indefinitely around. I remember when I was 12 I thought like 4 years ago was an eternity ago, I poo-poo'd books published more than 2 or at the most 3 years ago and I thought everything was instantly out of date.

turns out societies actually operate on a different timescale from 12 year-olds.

but otherwise everything you wrote makes sense. and if the world were to end in the next 24 months, then a lot of patent-encumbered technologies simply will NEVER be brought to market by certain companies, due to patents and patents alone.

I absolutely do believe that. The only thing is that I plan on the world existing longer than this time-frame - but if not, you're totally right and a lot of technology is being held back. only time will tell which of us is right.

Gould was issued U.S. Patent 4,161,436 in 1979, covering a variety of laser applications including heating and vaporizing materials, welding, drilling, cutting, measuring distance, communication systems, television, laser photocopiers and other photochemical applications, and laser fusion.[25]

So 1979 + 20 = 1999 - 1959 = 40 years which is twice the nominal 20 year patent terms.

Critically the original patent was overturned based on a private notebook from 1957. So, the public gained NOTHING from these patents because someone else had already published and others where actually creating the product and bringing it to market, but no based on a notebook which nobody saw suddenly the world changes.

As a member of the public believe it or not I don't actually benefit from every invention scrawled anywhere in some notebook.

I do benefit from having a precision component in my mouse that cost its manufacturer pennies. Which is the end game of the patent process.

So it's just not a great example. Overturned or not, the public has come out very strongly ahead.

What did you gain? Remember the chain of people leading to your mouse had nothing to do with this guy as he did not disclose his idea before people started making lasers.

I gained the laser. There are lots of ideas in notebooks all over the world that I have zero access to. Their inventors don't know about or use the patent system. They have no incentive to prototype, research, and publish their findings, license them to manufacturing partners, or go through the tens of thousands of steps that the laser went through to become a component that costs pennies, available to everyone in a variety of applications.

Sketches in notebooks don't help me. Inventors going through the patent process do.

It's that simple.

But the guy who got the patent was the guy with the notebook who never showed it to anyone. Then when someone else got it to market he showed the patent office his notebook and then got a lot of money.

Note: We changed to a first to file in part to avoid this issue. But, now someone else can publish or even sell something, then after reading it you can submit a patent using their idea which is arguably far worse.

:)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com