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Comment by fxtentacle | Hacker News Reader

While I strongly dislike software patents, I believe they might be the only way left how a single person inventor can profit off his/her invention. Without patent protection, there's nothing stopping large companies from just using your algorithms without ever paying you, the inventor. I mean they do it to each other all the time because in many instances, racing ahead first and then settling lawsuits later is just more profitable than delaying your market entry until you negotiated all licencing agreements.

So yes, we should abolish software patents. But we do need a replacement or it'll incur a massive power shift from employees to companies.

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Software patents will not help you, big companies have more time, money and lawyers than a single developer.

On the contrary, your invention is more likely to be blocked because of a BS software patent such as the 1-click patent.

How does it shift the power from employees to companies?

I get your argument for non employed individuals.

But employees basically never retain their rights to the code they’ve written while employed.

Do you mean individuals rather than employees in the last sentence? As an employee, I already grant whatever patent rights my work for my employer creates (and I’m pretty sure that’s overwhelmingly common).

But an individual inventor (not an employee) is in a different situation.

We need a stronger system to buy out patents-- not just software patents-- for the sake of retiring them in the public interest.

The risk isn't just "we want 10 cents per consumption unit", it's that they have the ability to say "we won't license it for manufacturer ABC or purpose XYZ", and then they can change from being a tollbooth to progress to an actual roafblock.

There should be an easy way to blow the whistle-- invite a state mediator who can say "We've calculated a reasonable value of the patent as $x.y million, take an industry-wide collection and come up with that, and the patent is voided."

They can’t use your algorithms unless you disclose them, or they’re straightforward to invent or reverse-engineer.

The patent system is (supposed to be) a trade: you tell everyone how to do something you invented, and in return your are granted a monopoly on exploiting it for a while (whether by using or selling it yourself, or by licensing same to others), after which anyone can use it.

The alternative is trade secrets: you don’t tell anyone how to do it, so no one else can do it. And this works just fine with software.

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