The answer is not quite correct. Corporate protectionism is what destroys innovation. Abuse of the patent and copyright systems is part of corporate protectionism.
Patent and copyright are great things to protect the little innovator guy that starts a new business from being sodomized by the big corporations that lobby congress for laws that benefit only themselves.
Reform is necessary. Right now, companies are patenting things that were invented by other people. Right now, little people with patents are getting their IP stolen from big corporations with lawyers who file legal action solely for the purpose of bankrupting the little guy and taking his property.
These things are not a problem with the concept of protecting innovations through IP law. They are a problem with corporate abuse of the system and a corrupt government.
Except that software patents don't even function for the little guy, because even if it was only 'little guys' using software patents, it would cost too much to check your code against every other existing patent
Well the system doesn't work at all for the little guy. I was talking patent/copyright in general. As far as software patents, my own opinion is software is obviously copyrightable but not patentable. However, that is not the current viewpoint legally, and this serves the interests of big entities not small ones.
I support IP rights. But the current system is seriously broken. Let's say I invent something totally new and innovative (which I have done many times). And I choose not to patent it. So my competitor reverse engineers my product and then patents it and sues me. What now? I can tell you because this is exact thing has happened to me. I get sued and the court case will take 5 years and require calling costly expert witnesses and the jury won't understand a word of the testimony and will flip a coin in the end. Regardless of what their decision is, I am bankrupt and the big company only spent 0.01% of revenue, and in return they got to buy what IP assets I had in bankruptcy court. Wow, that is messed up.
So let's rewind. Not getting a patent was a big mistake clearly. So let's say I got a patent. Or not just say, since I have done this one too. Now the next company says "we want to license it". I agree to this and they then hire me to create an implementation of the licensed patent which will work with their product. Then, after this is done and working and they have sold it to clients at a huge profit, they fire me and tell me I have to transfer ownership of the patent to them if I want my job back. When I refuse they start creating legal problems for me that costs tens of thousands of dollars to deal with and take me out of the employment pool for a year, and after all that their company goes bankrupt, their IP is sold to a bigger company in bankruptcy court, and then THAT company (Fortune 100) re-patents the things I have already patented and serves me with a cease and desist.
So if I get a patent or don't get a patent, me, the guy inventing awesome new things that benefit humanity, is damned either way because of corporate abuse of the system.
The only answer is to stop innovating or to become a corporate parasite that steals things.
The problem in all this is not with the concept of patents or copyright but that the way it works in practice is to enable the powerful to squash small innovators who are actually doing useful stuff.
> The problem in all this is not with the concept of patents or copyright but that the way it works in practice is to enable the powerful to squash small innovators who are actually doing useful stuff.
If an idea can't work in practice then doesn't that make it a bad idea regardless of how pretty it is?
The natural structure of patent systems make them very hard to that increases net value - i.e. The costs to make it good enough to create value are greater than the incremental value it would give.
Reasons:
- In terms of brain power / time: The examiners will never have more ability to expose the sub-optimal applications than the people submitting them - i.e. there can't be a 1-to-1 ratio.
- In terms of funding: The outside will always have a 2-6 order of magnitude level of funding greater that the patent office
But patents did, and do, work in practice - in fields where they're appropriate, and for a couple of centuries. You could argue that their term is too long or that they're badly misapplied, but the alternative to a patent system is a system of trade secrets and reverse engineering, which still favor the big companies at the expense of innovation.
The patent system should be adjusted, but not thrown out with the bath water.
> But patents did, and do, work in practice - in fields where they're appropriate, and for a couple of centuries.
Do they really?
Steam engines were pretty much stagnant until James Watt's patents expired.
Nobody in the US could build airplanes until the government made Curtiss and the Wright brothers cooperate with eachother.
Sewing machine manufacturers formed a patent pool that made their monopoly (oligopoly) strong enough that everyone pretty much gave up on innovating until the pool expired.
MPEG-LA seems to be trying to use patents to shut down VP8/WebM.
Electric cars are apparently being held up somewhat by patents on better batteries (so the best option they have is to use lots of laptop batteries).
Monopolies in general make things less available, because the monopoly holder can increase their profits by restricting supply.
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There is some effect whose name I don't remember, where the more different people need to agree to make something happen, the more each overestimates the value of their own contribution. So if I want to build something and need to buy land from one person, that's fine; if I need to buy land from 10 people each will want more than 1/10 what the single guy would want; if I need to buy land from 100 people each will want more than 1/10 what each of the 10 guys will want; and this very quickly makes it impossible to get anything done if people know what your doing since they'll all want more than 1/N of the generated value.
Applying this to patents, it's very hard to get anything done if multiple entities own patents that they can use to block it. So firstly this discourages innovation right off (since there's no point), but also it leads to the people who do have patents forming a patent pool. Which lets them build things covered by the patents, but means there's even less point for outsiders to try to innovate, which also means the insiders are secure enough in their oligopoly that they don't need to innovate either.
So there should be a cycle, innovation (for maybe a year or two?) => patent thicket => patent pool => wait for patents to expire (or something entirely different to come along) => ...
I think you're referring to the theory espoused in the book "Gridlock Economy". It claims too much ownership can stifle innovation:
"Private ownership usually creates wealth. But too much ownership has the opposite effect—it creates gridlock. Gridlock is a free market paradox. When too many people own pieces of one thing, cooperation breaks down, wealth disappears, and everybody loses."
> It's like saying we should get rid of laws against murder since if you are OJ Simpson you can hire fancy lawyers and get away with it.
No, it's like saying we should get rid of laws against murder because those laws are observed to make murder more common. (Well, except that I don't think that observation is actually correct for laws against murder.)
Didn't they have to reduce the penalties for certain crimes because once you're already facing a certain death penalty you've no reason to not kill (more) people if that helps you escape identification/capture/arrest? That is, a law designed to incentivize you to not kill people, had the opposite effect in some circumstances. Googling doesn't turn up anything for me, but it's a closer analogy anyway.
The problem in all this is not with the concept of patents or copyright but that the way it works in practice is to enable the powerful to squash small innovators who are actually doing useful stuff.
Exactly. I think very few people understand the magnitude of the risks and costs to a small innovator when faced with legal claims of any sort from a big business. Its not a level playing field.
Even if you have an essentially watertight case, the laser-eye lawyers against you will inevitably find some weakness or loophole to attack you. They will jurisdiction-shop. They will limit your ability to do business and drag out the fight over years. The huge cost of paying your lawyers will be tiny compared to the impact on your business. Don't underestimate the distraction to your founders and staff of such a fight. And of course investors will run a mile.
Most importantly, no mater how clearly you are in the right you will find that there is a substantial risk that you will lose anyway. In practice the legal system can't be relied on to give a fair result. Even when you win, they can appeal and extend the process further. With another chance you might lose.
Patent and copyright are great things to protect the little innovator guy that starts a new business
I think you read that in a book somewhere. I bet you don't personally know a single "little innovator guy" who has successfully been protected by a patent.
"I bet you don't personally know a single "little innovator guy" who has successfully been protected by a patent."
I know plenty. My last boss being one of them. His product was copied by a competitor (the entire design) and sold under a different name.
It got so bad that people were calling up think we were this company and it hurt sales overall. He sued them in court, won, and actually got the entire company as a settlement (in addition to around $500,000.
His product was simple enough to copy and without legal protections, a much larger company would could easily steal his entire market share.
True enough. If someone violates the patent, the Feds don't come in and bust them. The 'little guy' then has to take the violator to court and win before they can get any kind of justice. If it isn't a slam dunk (even with a patent), then the 'little guy' probably can't justify the risk of losing and ending up with the lawyer/court fees.
Patent and copyright are great things to protect the little innovator guy that starts a new business from being sodomized by the big corporations that lobby congress for laws that benefit only themselves.
Reform is necessary. Right now, companies are patenting things that were invented by other people. Right now, little people with patents are getting their IP stolen from big corporations with lawyers who file legal action solely for the purpose of bankrupting the little guy and taking his property.
These things are not a problem with the concept of protecting innovations through IP law. They are a problem with corporate abuse of the system and a corrupt government.