[astazangasta]

I'd say "good riddance to bad rubbish" but this is just one of a million nonsense patents that are uselessly being applied to transfer wealth upwards. Why, humanity, why? Why do we continue to hang ourselves with these thin fictions?

Our property concepts are fundamentally broken. Copyrights, patents and especially real estate are all flawed concepts that privilege their owners far more than they should. But we allow them to persist for centuries; then we wonder why society is fucked and some people have all the wealth.

[brador]

What's wrong with real estate?

[astazangasta]

Arbitrary titles granted to someone that allows them to control a piece of the Earth in perpetuity? That doesn't strike you as a recipe for disaster and inequality?

For a full answer, try: "Progress and Poverty" by Henry George.

[tinco]

I feel we're mixing too things now. There's control of land, and there's ownership of land. Control of land is mainly obtained by conquest and occupation, that's to say physical dominance. Titles are usually obtained by persons that attained this dominance, so that's hardly arbitrary (nor very perpetual though that may often seem so). This is nature.

Ownership is the fun stuff where you pay money/goods to the previous owner (who might very well be (a descendant of) an oppressor). In exchange for rights of exploitation (i.e. living on it).

It's not the titles that make real estate unfair, it's nature itself. That's why an egalitarian society can not be like nature but must instead be governed by rules and regulations. This is why democratic socialism is superior to libertarian capitalism (at least when we're talking equality and 'fairness').

[astazangasta]

Fairness is a human concept, as are land titles. If the latter are unfair we can't blame nature.

[brador]

What do you suggest as an alternative? Shared housing? Higher real estate taxes?

[ChrisLTD]

Some titles are arbitrary, but many others were exchanged for goods and services.

[astazangasta]

The entire notion that land - the fucking Earth - should be the property of a sole party is absurd.

[rhino369]

Patents lower the playing field. Without them even if you develop an amazing product a big manufacturer can rip off your design and sell it cheaper than you can.

The biggest problem with the patent system is trolling. Which is actually a wealth transfer downwards. Smalltime inventors and lawyers extort F500 companies.

[WildUtah]

The vast majority of patent defendants are small companies. Startups are much more likely to be slammed by a bogus patent suit than to get a patent that proves lucrative.

Patents effectively never level the playing field. Trolls and big companies eliminating competition are the key clients and trolls are mostly multi-million or billion dollar companies like IV and rich scammers like Spangenberg, Hyatt, and Lemelson.

Trolling itself is one of the few parts of the system that sometimes targets big companies and therefore an essential font of reform ideas. Without trolling, big companies would slam startups even harder with patents. The needed reform is to limit patents and keep them away from software, business, finance, 3d-printing, CNC, robotics, and other new tech the patent lawyers are trying to destroy.

[axman6]

No, this is not one of a million nonsense patents, it one of a handful of patents which were close enough to be on the line between valid and invalid, and the decision fell on one side of the line. The vast majority of patents, even from Apple, are completely valid, and never see any time in court because they are valid. I hate this meme that patents are all awful because sometimes they are found invalid. Do some research, learn about the system, then talk about it because you clearly have no idea how successful the patent system is, and the benefits it provides to you.

[astazangasta]

Patents are awful because even when they are valid, they are terrible at providing social benefits and are much more effective at securing wealth for the upper classes. This is why they have been around so long, and why those upper classes are fighting so hard to strengthen their reach (TPP, etc). Patents are not the most effective way to encourage technology development, and they should certainly not be allowed to devolve into corporate property that is used to flog money from the rest of us.