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Comment by dylan604 | Hacker News Reader

The act of receiving a patent doesn't make one a dick on it's own. You could file for the patent, but freely license it and not be a dick. You could even license it at a very modest fee and still not be a dick. There are ways of doing things without being a dick, just most chose to be a dick. It's not the patent's fault.

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>You could file for the patent, but freely license it and not be a dick. You could even license it at a very modest fee and still not be a dick.

If the patent system has to rely on corporations "not being dicks" it doesn't sound like a very functional system.

Serious patent and IP reform is long overdue.

A patent is license to be a dick. If you’re not going to be a dick, you don’t bother with the license in the first place.

Unless you’re trying to protect yourself from somebody else patenting it and being a dick.

You don't need to patent something to prevent somebody else from doing it. Just make it public and prior art applies.

Prior art only applies if the USPTO agrees to review the patent and the examiner considers it prior art; neither of these are guaranteed.

Does patenting it yourself put you in a better spot than having blatant prior art?

The mere act of having to ask for a licence already has a chilling effect, and the legal uncertainty just makes it worse.

For example, if Google ever gets into a patent war with Microsoft, would their 'free' licence be revoked? Does that mean the moment they'd use this coding they risk having their own patent portofolio be unenforceable? If so, they would have an interest in not using the technology from the 'free' licence, and software would be set back.

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