> I'm not sure I agree that patents really help progress. When I have time, I try to write directly, with a minimum number of words (years ago, I was impressed by this sentence from Blaise Pascal: "I am sorry to have wearied you with so long a letter but I did not have time to write you a short one").
When I wrote "First, patents are important, and help progress", I did not mean to imply that they are either necessary for progress, nor that they always help progress. I meant that at their best, patents are important and help progress. (Similarly, I might say "People help other people." This does not mean that people so not do great harm to other people as well, nor that all people help other people.) Then I gave examples of good and bad aspects of patents, which I expected would make that point clear. I believe that they do help progress in cases of difficult breakthroughs that will become obvious once revealed (and thus can't be protected as trade secrets). So, I don't disagree with anything you said Al--you make good points; but I just wanted to clarify that point. And yes, I agree that the vast majority (maybe your 99%) of patents don't help progress. However, most don't really matter either way in the big picture of "progress", so I don't think most hinder it either. (I'm going to be intentionally vague here, but these do regard actual cases I have intimate knowledge of) For instance, maybe a maker of implantable medical device, through expensive research and difficult medical trials (where lives are at risk), develops techniques and algorithms that improve the quality and length of peoples' lives. Another device maker could copy that and have a much quicker and cheaper road to approval, if not for patents. So, the obvious thing is that the first company is protected and can make a profit--and knowing this in advance allowed them to take the step towards progress to begin with. Not only that, but the second company, if it is to compete, must do their own work, and perhaps come to an even better solution--driving more progress. Now, on the less important-to-society front: A company comes up with an idea for tactile feedback in video games. This sort of thing is immediately obvious once demonstrated, so trade secrets are of no use. There is nothing especially difficult about this technique they developed, but they did come up with a really successful application of the idea, because it's cheap to implement, is an easy feature for game developers to include support for, and game players take to it right away and will pay extra for controllers using it. Video games machines these days are controlled by a few large players, and if they want to incorporated this technique themselves, the original developing company would get nothing. Of course, some would consider this as unimportant, and having nothing to do with progress in the greater sense, but others might consider this legally-aided fairness that would otherwise probably not play out fairly in the market place. Again, I also think the term of patents is excessive in modern context. On Jan 29, 2011, at 10:42 AM, Al Clark wrote: > I'm not sure I agree that patents really help progress. > > As a founder of several small companies, I have a somewhat different > perspective. FWIW, I have only applied for (and received) 1 patent. It was > for work I did when I was 20. Since that time, I try to protect some ideas as > trade secrets instead. > > First, I don't think its hard to have many patentable ideas. The hardest part > is posing a problem that needs to be solved. Most of the patentable ideas > that I have came from looking at a new application. I remember a Saturday > afternoon where 3 of us where brainstorming on a project where I think we > came up with maybe 20 patentable ideas (or at least candidates). It wasn't > that these ideas were earthshaking. We were looking at an application that > only a few companies were thinking about and one was our customer, another > was their partner. When I see someone with 100 patents, I don't see someone > who is exceptionally brilliant (might be - might not be). I see someone who > works for a large company. > > The problem with patents is that they are very expensive to obtain and > incredibly expensive to defend. They are mostly used by large companies to > monopolize markets. The large companies cross license to each other and keep > everyone else out. If I had to defend a patent against a large company, I > would have to sell my company or at least the rights to the patent to someone > else. The cost of winning would be prohibitive and losing would be worse. > > Maybe the only reason for a small company to pursue patents is if they want > to sell out to a larger entity (harvest). > > Software patents are the worst. Most prior art is not clearly exposed to the > general public. > > I'm not sure where the partitioned convolution part of this thread started > out. I have read the Microsoft partitioned convolution patent and I can't > tell what they actually think they patented. Most of their claims are already > expressed in the prior art they list. > > The idea that someone should be able to hold the world hostage for 17 years > is crazy. That is forever in today's technological world. If I have a patent, > there is no specific requirement for me to do anything with the patent at > all. I can just sit on it and theoretically freeze the idea for the length of > the patent. I don't have to let anyone else license the idea, etc. > > Of course, non obvious ideas as Nigel mentions can be expensive to create. > The catch is that 99% of the patents I have seen are not that special. They > are awarded by reviewers who probably don't know what prior art exists > outside the patent record and almost certainly haven't been long time product > designers in the field they are reviewing. More likely, they are 20 > somethings that went to college and just got a degree. > > Anyway, this is just another rant. Nothing is likely to change. > > Al Clark > Danville Signal > > > > > > On 1/28/2011 3:47 PM, Nigel Redmon wrote: >> I've been on a number of patent cases (as software expert, sometimes >> electronics), big players, on both sides... >> >> First, patents are important, and help progress. Non-obvious advances often >> come from expensive and lengthy research. Imagine a situation where company >> A invests in research, and makes a breakthrough. Imagine companies X, Y, and >> Z, who wait for researchers to make a breakthrough, then flood the market >> with products that compete with company A. Company A must recoup their >> investment, so it's unlike they can compete with the research-free >> companies, so they go out of business. Who spends the big research money >> next time? >> >> Of course, the problem is that patents are being given to trivial >> inventions. They are also often given to things that have been in use for >> some time, but never patented; although this falls under "prior art", and >> should invalidate the patent, good luck on coming up with the funds to fight >> the patent if it's owned by a major company. >> > -- dupswapdrop -- the music-dsp mailing list and website: subscription info, FAQ, source code archive, list archive, book reviews, dsp links http://music.columbia.edu/cmc/music-dsp http://music.columbia.edu/mailman/listinfo/music-dsp
