[proksoup]

In my mind, the most fair would be something that didn't grant a monopoly on an idea to one player.

I don't think rewarding patent owners is a goal, except that we already decided the way to reward inventors was patents and selling them (perhaps to those that can realize the value better, build a product and market it etc).

My question is where are the inventors that want a patent system of any sort?

I was under the impression that patents are a tool for lawyers and wealthy corporations to collect fees and maintain monopolies respectively.

What inventor wants to patent their idea and why do they want to do such an awful thing?

[rayiner]

> My question is where are the inventors that want a patent system of any sort?

I spent the early part of my career at a startup working on cognitive radio technology. Basically, algorithms to allow radios to use spectrum opportunistically, and to allow networks of such radios to maintain connectivity while dynamically changing radio channels.

Like everyone else in that field, our company patented its inventions. It's expensive paying roomfuls of PhDs to work on network algorithms. At the same time, cognitive radios are not a consumer product you can launch overnight to a billion people. It's not a market where first-mover advantage or network effects have any value. It's not a market where you can hide your "secret sauce" behind a web API. In fact, you usually have to deliver source to your customers. It takes years to get into the market, and competitors waiting for you to do all the work and reverse engineering your design would eliminate any possible return on investment.

Moreover, as a startup we had no expertise in manufacturing radios. Nor did it make any sense for us to get into that business--there are tons of companies that have the manufacturing expertise to build those radios. We could never compete with them on that front. The idea was always to develop the technology, then sell it to someone whose expertise was building radios.

[_rpd]

> where are the inventors that want a patent system of any sort?

To me, this parallels the question: where are the artists that want a copyright system of any sort?

The consensus seems to be that automation will abolish most drudgery over the next few generations. Won't the succeeding economy be founded exactly on creative and inventive intellectual labor? The intellectual property system as we know it may not be the mechanism to support it, but it seems like there should be some way of identifying and rewarding creators and inventors.

[manarth]

A patent is a time-limited monopoly, granted as recompense for publishing the details of their invention.

Inventors can profit from their invention by selling products, and keeping the invention details a Trade Secret. For example, Coca-Cola is protected as trade secret, rather than by patent.

Naturally this is less useful for something that can be reverse-engineered fairly easily, like, say, something in tech.

  What inventor wants to patent their idea and why do they want to do such an awful thing?

These days, I think it's mostly out of fear of being sued by another patent-holder. Companies often stockpile patents to maintain the deterrence of Mutually Assured Destruction.