[MattPalmer1086]

Would you say the concept of patents is inherently bad, or the current patent system?

Without some protection for original research being published, genuine inventors are forced to keep their ideas secret and/or find other ways to protect them.

[JPLeRouzic]

That's absolutely true for companies with deep pockets, but absolutely false for SME and lone inventors.

Nearly all big companies are involved in patent litigation, and unfortunately often it's and easy way to crush nascent competition.

[MattPalmer1086]

I agree the current system is deeply flawed. The question I want to address is how do we ensure original ideas are not lost to humanity (either because they are kept secret, or because the research is never done in the first place).

[JPLeRouzic]

> how do we ensure original ideas are not lost to humanity either because they are kept secret...

I understand what you mean but patents are not a good means for this goal.

I know a bit the patent world (I was granted 12 patents), patents are for small innovations. I am not even sure it's possible to patent some complex intellectual work, because a patent is basically the description of a process, not the description of knowledge.

There is little in common between a patent and a scientific article which conveys much more information. Yes, you can provide a lot information in the description section but they are not protected, only the claims are protected by law. Claims are either descriptive or describing a method to process something. After all patents were invented to protect things during the industrial revolution, essentially bolts, nuts and new steam machines.

Another thing is that most inventors do not recognize their work once the patent engineers have translated it in legal language.

Sometimes in my case, the patent engineers did not understood at all what my colleagues and me meant, or they tried to make "improvements" indeed without the slightest knowledge about the application domain. What value have those patents to describe what was meant?

Most companies which have to reproduce a patent, have a hard time. Generic drugs companies tell it is impossible to reproduce drugs from the patent and they have to be helped by the inventors.

[MattPalmer1086]

Yes, I completely agree that the patent system has many flaws. I've worked on a couple of them myself and I recognise all your points.

My original question still stands though. Is there a better way of achieving this?

[JPLeRouzic]

> Is there a better way of achieving this?

I am not a lawyer but here are some random ideas: Societies have invented patents as an exception to a generic right to copy: Something which is patented must not be copied without authorization. They were also invented because copyright/brand name can't protect industrial objects which were often simple in design. So the innovation that patent laws brought was to protect the way something is working to reach some goal. Claim 1: This is a car toy equipped with rockets Claim 2: Where rockets uses water Claim 3: Where water is produced from thin air

There are possibly similar legal objects with similar goals. For example some companies sell their knowledge to government in exchange of keeping it secret. Why not imagine the reverse?

Could companies sell their knowledge to government in exchange of making it public? After all it's the interest of any government to make economy thrive and make non strategic knowledge to diffuse as quickly as possible.

This is the model used by IBM/Oracle/Redhat/etc: They sell something now almost trivial (OSes, DB, workflows) yet which needs an army of consultants to be production ready and conform to current legislation.

It's possible also to protect your product by the power of your brand. They were thousand manufacturers which tried producing pseudo iPhones but nearly nobody wants to buy one which would be obviously fake.

If companies prefer patents, it's because they don't like competition and it is easy to kill nascent competitors with an expensive trial.

[MattPalmer1086]

Interesting ideas. Don't get rights with patents, get cash for publication! Not sure how that could be economically assessed fairly, but it might work for some kinds of thing. And maybe there isn't one thing that could replace all patents, rather a selection of things which work in different circumstances.

To me, the two most egregious ways current patents fail is how they frequently don't explain the innovation to a skilled practioner, and then how they can be subsequently interpreted overly broadly.

The first violates the entire point of being granted a patent, and the second makes them a minefield for everyone else.

I wonder if the structure of patents as a series of claims is something that could be altered. What if a patent had to clearly state what the non obvious part of the claim is (the originality that requires protection). And only that original part is then deserving of protection?

[MattPalmer1086]

Another idea I've been toying with is how to incentivize use of good ideas. What if the value of a patent is somehow determined by how used it is? Somewhat like a stock market for ideas. You could buy shares in ideas. If they become popular, the value of those shares increases. Owning shares in the idea protects you from litigation.

This isnt very well worked out at all, just some musings on how to fix other aspects of the current system.

[zozbot234]

> Without some protection for original research being published, genuine inventors are forced to keep their ideas secret and/or find other ways to protect them.

Publication of "secrets" and general know-how can be incented via post-facto prize awards. Unlike patents, these don't forbid anyone from making use of the innovation unless they pay up. They replace a focus on enforcement - with publication often a mere afterthought in practice - with one on publication itself.

[MattPalmer1086]

I do like the idea of prizes, they seem to work quite well for some well defined problems that needs solving.

I'm not sure they would prevent ideas being kept secret for most forms of commercial research though. Publicly funded research should be available to everyone in any case IMHO.

[slowmovintarget]

The concept of software patents is inherently bad. You're basically saying no one is allowed to write down the same idea as you.

[MattPalmer1086]

I agree that software patents are inherently bad, along with maths.

I still see a role for patents in other spheres, although the current system seems deeply flawed.

The main problem to be addressed in how we ensure society as a whole benefits from original research. The original conception of patents was to grant limited rights for original ideas, as long as the work is published and does not remain secret.