This meme shows a complete misunderstanding of patent law. A patent is a social contract that allows for a limited amount of protection for an invention being copied (usually 20 years) in exchange for it becoming public domain after that. This enables people to make a living inventing things. Are games played with the system, sure, does it work perfectly- no, but it’s better than the alternatives. (Source, am inventor)
This comment shows a complete misunderstanding of patent practice. Patents exist not for inventors, but for companies. Destin, from Smarter Every Day, has a recent video trying to make a grill scrubber in which he talks with many people about how Amazon for example constantly avoids patent claims from small inventors.
Humanity progressed from hunter-gatherers to the industrial revolution without the need for a judge to determine whether I can arrange atoms in a given way or not without giving a canon to someone else who decided to arrange atoms like that before me.
I understand what you are saying but i hope you never invent something that can solve a current day crisis.
We are already behind schedule to solve things like climate change. If someone invents breakthrough tech then we need that today and open so other minds can quickly iterate and improve. Not after 20 years of stalling on a bureaucratic advantage.
If it wasn’t for capitalism chaining survival to productivity there would be no reason for this system to exist and we can move on to teach that “all good ideas should be copied”
And “the same ideas can emerge in multiple different minds”
If it were a misunderstanding, why do we always see a spike in innovation once a patent expires? According to capitalist ideology, isn’t competition the best that could happen, instead of having an unlimited monopoly for 20 years?
I think their point was that in a way, patents are supposed to be more equitable because it allows the inventor to meet their basic needs by being the one to invent the patent.
There’s also the argument that while innovation skyrockets after a parent opens up, there would be less incentive to invent new things if Walmart could just copy it for cheaper the day after you show how you make it.
Or people would be super secretive with instructions for how to make their products that innovations could die with their creators since they have no incentive to release it.
I think we need to differentiate between the potential of something versus the reality of something. We see people being super secretive of innovations right now and because they’re patented they cannot even be reverse engineered. Innovations do die all of the time because the thing that is patented is a black box and even people who would reverse engineered it would get copyright trolled to hell.
My favourite example is spare parts for trains. Because the parts themselves are encumbered, it is illegal to repair trains yourself, thank you Siemens and Bombardier. Because if you get caught manufacturing spare parts, which are the intellectual property of someone else, you’ll get into big trouble. How exactly does this behaviour help with innovation?
Another example are video codecs. AV1 was specifically engineered to avoid any sort of patent trolling. How much better would AV1 be if all of that engineering time could have been spent on innovation instead of trying to avoid encumbrance?
Also in your example, if there was a small invention and Walmart would just copy it, would the small inventor really have the resources to pursue Walmart in court for years on end? Best example is Amazon. They steal innovations all of the time and because they’re doing it with small inventors, they face zero consequences because they do not have the resources to compete with a megacorporation.
But the biggest problem I have with patents is that it’s not even internally consistent with capitalism. Example being, capitalism says competition is an objective good, while a monopoly is an objective bad. So why grant an unlimited monopoly for something if competition is good? Because if people were competing, then everyone would try to make the best version of something.
I mean, the theory may be pretty neat from some perspective, but the reality is we get the worst of both worlds. Innovations get killed off because everything is super proprietary and reverse engineering is prohibited and megacorporations can do whatever they want because, well, it’s a free country. If you don’t like it, just sue the megacorporation for years on end and just maybe get recourse for their transgression.
Corporations will do whatever is most profitable for them. If the strategy to patent something and then copyright troll the world to hell and back is the most efficient thing, that will be done. If the strategy to make the best product possible and get the most customers possible is the most efficient thing, that will be done instead. This would be internally consistent with the ideology of capitalism. " Why should the big government intervene with the free innovation of the free market? Let the invisible hand guide the innovation and may the best innovation win."
Edit: Also about trains. Train companies with the resources repair them all of the time, luckily. Because try to piss off someone who holds the power to just annihilate hundreds of millions worth in contracts overnight if they wanted.
As low as that, eh? I got my first mobile (Nokia 3310) in 2003, and I felt like I was the last of my peers to get one (my classmates had mobiles around 1999, I remember Snake being big during my GCSE years). I expect at that time they were just more common among millennials than the older generations? I’m sure I was the only one in my year group from Year 11 to the end of Year 13 to not have a mobile.
Technically IP law covers patents, trademarks, copyright, and designs (sometimes also called design patents). Patent protection is 20 years (plus a little bit extra under certain conditions. Trademarks is indefinite in theory. Copyright (in many jurisdictions) is 70 yrs after death or 50 yrs for certain works (e.g., music recordings). Designs, I’m not really sure.
This meme shows a complete misunderstanding of patent law. A patent is a social contract that allows for a limited amount of protection for an invention being copied (usually 20 years) in exchange for it becoming public domain after that. This enables people to make a living inventing things. Are games played with the system, sure, does it work perfectly- no, but it’s better than the alternatives. (Source, am inventor)
This comment shows a complete misunderstanding of patent practice. Patents exist not for inventors, but for companies. Destin, from Smarter Every Day, has a recent video trying to make a grill scrubber in which he talks with many people about how Amazon for example constantly avoids patent claims from small inventors.
Humanity progressed from hunter-gatherers to the industrial revolution without the need for a judge to determine whether I can arrange atoms in a given way or not without giving a canon to someone else who decided to arrange atoms like that before me.
Patents are available to all. It protects the individual as well as the corporation.
I understand what you are saying but i hope you never invent something that can solve a current day crisis.
We are already behind schedule to solve things like climate change. If someone invents breakthrough tech then we need that today and open so other minds can quickly iterate and improve. Not after 20 years of stalling on a bureaucratic advantage.
If it wasn’t for capitalism chaining survival to productivity there would be no reason for this system to exist and we can move on to teach that “all good ideas should be copied” And “the same ideas can emerge in multiple different minds”
In that case literally every court also shows a complete misunderstabding of patent law
So…
If it were a misunderstanding, why do we always see a spike in innovation once a patent expires? According to capitalist ideology, isn’t competition the best that could happen, instead of having an unlimited monopoly for 20 years?
I think their point was that in a way, patents are supposed to be more equitable because it allows the inventor to meet their basic needs by being the one to invent the patent.
There’s also the argument that while innovation skyrockets after a parent opens up, there would be less incentive to invent new things if Walmart could just copy it for cheaper the day after you show how you make it.
Or people would be super secretive with instructions for how to make their products that innovations could die with their creators since they have no incentive to release it.
I think we need to differentiate between the potential of something versus the reality of something. We see people being super secretive of innovations right now and because they’re patented they cannot even be reverse engineered. Innovations do die all of the time because the thing that is patented is a black box and even people who would reverse engineered it would get copyright trolled to hell.
My favourite example is spare parts for trains. Because the parts themselves are encumbered, it is illegal to repair trains yourself, thank you Siemens and Bombardier. Because if you get caught manufacturing spare parts, which are the intellectual property of someone else, you’ll get into big trouble. How exactly does this behaviour help with innovation?
Another example are video codecs. AV1 was specifically engineered to avoid any sort of patent trolling. How much better would AV1 be if all of that engineering time could have been spent on innovation instead of trying to avoid encumbrance?
Also in your example, if there was a small invention and Walmart would just copy it, would the small inventor really have the resources to pursue Walmart in court for years on end? Best example is Amazon. They steal innovations all of the time and because they’re doing it with small inventors, they face zero consequences because they do not have the resources to compete with a megacorporation.
But the biggest problem I have with patents is that it’s not even internally consistent with capitalism. Example being, capitalism says competition is an objective good, while a monopoly is an objective bad. So why grant an unlimited monopoly for something if competition is good? Because if people were competing, then everyone would try to make the best version of something.
I mean, the theory may be pretty neat from some perspective, but the reality is we get the worst of both worlds. Innovations get killed off because everything is super proprietary and reverse engineering is prohibited and megacorporations can do whatever they want because, well, it’s a free country. If you don’t like it, just sue the megacorporation for years on end and just maybe get recourse for their transgression.
Corporations will do whatever is most profitable for them. If the strategy to patent something and then copyright troll the world to hell and back is the most efficient thing, that will be done. If the strategy to make the best product possible and get the most customers possible is the most efficient thing, that will be done instead. This would be internally consistent with the ideology of capitalism. " Why should the big government intervene with the free innovation of the free market? Let the invisible hand guide the innovation and may the best innovation win."
Edit: Also about trains. Train companies with the resources repair them all of the time, luckily. Because try to piss off someone who holds the power to just annihilate hundreds of millions worth in contracts overnight if they wanted.
All other things aside, 20 years is a long fucking time. 20 years ago we barely had cell phones. The iPhone was 2007 I think.
We barely had mobile phones 20 years ago? You sure about that?
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Vk4KK-gh0FM
I think i meant smart phone. Apparently cell phone adoption was in the 60%+ range in 2005
https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/fact-sheet/mobile/
As low as that, eh? I got my first mobile (Nokia 3310) in 2003, and I felt like I was the last of my peers to get one (my classmates had mobiles around 1999, I remember Snake being big during my GCSE years). I expect at that time they were just more common among millennials than the older generations? I’m sure I was the only one in my year group from Year 11 to the end of Year 13 to not have a mobile.
Then patent law is better than intellectual property law, I think it’s 50 years after the creator dies and there are loopholes for companies
Technically IP law covers patents, trademarks, copyright, and designs (sometimes also called design patents). Patent protection is 20 years (plus a little bit extra under certain conditions. Trademarks is indefinite in theory. Copyright (in many jurisdictions) is 70 yrs after death or 50 yrs for certain works (e.g., music recordings). Designs, I’m not really sure.