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Comment by deelowe | Hacker News Reader

I personally know several people who were able to start successful careers solely based on their inventions and the protections afforded to them via patents. This seems extremely short sighted. In fact, the bigger issue to me is that patents don't matter for companies located in countries where they are not recognized (e.g. China). The biggest issue with "some little guy in his garage" inventing stuff these days is that within weeks of selling it on amazon, it'll be copied, cost reduced to a essentially non-functional version, and sold for 1/3 the price all while pushing him down in the search results via borderline illegal SEO strategies.

The patent system needs to be fixed, not done away with.

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A bigger issue with for the little guy is his garage is that if his actually innovation contains some trivial subcomponent that's part of a patent troll or large competitors portfolio, they can can sued into the ground, either to leech of their success or to prevent competition. patents favor big companies and trolls, and as a legal instrument it's basically impossible to change that because the costs and complexity always favor large incumbents. I agree it's time to drop them

Would it be better to make patents have shorter lifespans before entering the public domain from companies of a certain size? Maybe that would level out the playing field and allow small players to be more competitive against behemoth corporations and patent trolls.

Heavily penalize patent trolling with patents that never should have been granted, prevent mafia-esque lawsuits from districts like east Texas, and drastically reduce the cost for someone to defend themselves through some form of pre-trial mediation where independent experts review the validity of a claim.

Exactly, you have so little leverage as an individual or small group. The pack of wolves that are patent trolls relentlessly look for small targets who can’t afford to defend themselves, and larger companies courting a deal or a buyout can implicitly threaten a similar situation.

It’s also a slightly depressing reason why I refuse to publish source for a commercial game I built, despite wanting to. The likelihood of being sued is very tiny, but why risk it when you’ve had enough success to be noticeable.

Show me where this has happened? You present a theoretical against an actual. I know more people who have been enabled via patents than have been squashed (I know of zero squashed who were actually doing something new/novel).

Arithmetic coding?

That's why it's good to be an inventor for things that people do in America. For example, food processing techniques.

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