[kbenson]

> Under a different system that doesn't incentivize holding back global progress for small amounts of individual enrichment.

Patents don't hold back global progress any more than capitalism keeps people in poverty. If we went back a few hundred years and impose alternatives, would we be better off today? I doubt it.

The whole point of the patent system is to foster innovation, and free exchange of ideas. Without the patent system, people are incentivized to keep their inventions secret, and hide how they work, but patents require publishing the details. Some companies don't patent some things just so they can keep it secret.

The problem with the patent system is not the concept of patents, but what they've been allowed to apply to and how long the terms have increased.

Him patenting the idea meanshe has control over his options. It also prevents another entity, such as Intel or AMD discovering it and patenting it. If he wants, he can make it free to use for non-profiting or open source entities.

Edit: The capitalism / poverty comparison is meant to infer communism, as the alternative to a competition and financially motivated system. I don't think it's contentious to say capitalism ended up being the better system for getting people's standard of living raised, even is communism sounds good on paper. I don't think the relation to the patent system in comparison to some ideal sounding solution where people get some money somehow for giving their ideas to the world immediately is all that strained.

[JackFr]

> The whole point of the patent system is to foster innovation

And if it seems like the patent system is being gamed to hinder innovation (not really in this case, but yes absolutely in the case of pharma) it should be revisited. Intellectual property laws are based in pragmatism, not natural law. If the costs begin to outweigh the benefits, they should be changed.

[Chaebixi]

There are areas of the patent system that are legitimately in need of reform, but that doesn't mean the underlying concept is not sound. Many people seem to be looking at the areas where reform is needed and erroneously concluding that the whole thing needs to be burned down. That's a shame, since the core idea of patents seems like a very good trade-off to me.

[Spivak]

You can hate the patent system all you want but this specific case, assuming that his invention works, is a case where patents are being used correctly.

[casiotone]

> Patents don't hold back global progress any more than capitalism keeps people in poverty.

Thanks. I was worried I would go the whole day without spitting out my drink.

[Spivak]

Ignoring the weird comparison, he's right. Patents, as bad as the system is, are an improvement on no patents.

[kbenson]

When people start talking about ideal and better-than-idea worlds and voluntary payments or government disbursements, my mind goes to communism. While communism sounds like it provides a better outcome on paper, capitalism (with constraints) has shown it's a much better system for raising the living standard of everyone, even if there is quite a disparity between the lowest and the highest.

Would some ideal-world type situation for patents work? I doubt it. We have patents, and there are some upsides to that system, even if it has been abused recently. I think people have transferred a lot of their anger at the abuses to the concept of patents themselves. Here we have someone that patented something, and people are upset that he did that before knowing how he intends to use the patent. The patent could be free for non-commercial use. It could be free for many things. Or it could be that it's most likely to be used in hardware by a large corporation that prints chips and not individuals, and he'll license it to them and the most anyone will see of it is a few cents added to the production cost of each chip (not that anyone even knows what that is, since retail chip pricing is so crazy).

How we measure a system shouldn't be based on just the biggest successes and biggest problems (but those should be looked at), but on the long track record of what it does and how it performs. In that light, I think capitalism has shown itself a better system in the long run, and I think patents have shown their merit in the long run as well.

[dahauns]

Why going back a few hundred years? Even a few decades ago the idea of patenting mathematics was still mostly considered absurd. Imagine a world where people like e.g. Dijkstra and Lamport patented all their concurrency algorithms. Hoare patented quicksort. And so on.

[kbenson]

It looks to my like it's a process to be carried out in hardware which is patented, and not the mathematics in question. It's a physical apparatus.

Even if it was purely mathematics, I think I would rather have someone patent it if possible and make it freely available than to leave it out and have someone else take a stab at patenting it, have the underfunded patent office fail to realize there is prior art, and grant the patent. Sure, you could effectively fight it, but until the system gets reformed enough to prevent most these abused, that's a lot of wasted resources (and having the patent lets them threaten others with it without actually bringing a case that could invalidate it).

[Chaebixi]

> The problem with the patent system is not the concept of patents, but what they've been allowed to apply to and how long the terms have increased.

Patents aren't copyrights. The term for patents is only about 20 years.

[kbenson]

You're right, I was conflating the two issues somewhat. I do think patent terms should be be somewhat different for different classes of patents, or industries they are used in. If patents for software is to be allowed, I'm not sure why it needs to have a term of more than 3-5 years from issuance. Any industry moving at a similar clip could also benefit from reduced terms. 20 years isn't forever, but depending on industry momentum and advance rate, it ends up retarding innovation instead of helping it.

In any case, I don't think we should immediately vilify someone for using the patent system (and using it as originally intended, IMO), just because we are unhappy with the way it's been abused recently, as I think it has provided us great benefit over it's existence.