[ComputerGuru]

Wow, if true this is huge. America's been pretty much the last to stick to the first to invent system (all of Europe is first to file, as well as most Asian countries I've looked into, though I could be missing some!) and it's been the cornerstone of zillions (ok, I exaggerate a little) of lawsuits and patent reversals.

Glad I got my patent application in last year (worry not HNers who are against software patents, 'twas an application for a mechanical doohickey).

[Arelius]

> worry not HNers who are against software patents

Well I guess those HNers among us who are against all patents will continue to worry then. ;)

[ComputerGuru]

Let me share with you my scenario: I have spent 5 years and a considerable amount of my yearly income developing a product I think can honestly revolutionize the electronic braille reader industry for the blind. This is a multi-billion a year industry that has stagnated and seen no innovation or development in 30 years. It is in dire need of disruption, and there are hundreds of millions of people around the globe that can benefit from new technology here.

I am a "lone wolf" garage-based inventor. If there was no such thing as patent protection, by the time I went from zero to manufacturing and product availability, any of the current big names in the market could take my tech and bring it to market with their existing connections and heavy market presence and there would be a) nothing I could do about it and b) no incentive for me to innovate and come at a solution in such market space at such a heavy cost to myself.

Patents actually work really well for this sort of thing. I'd be interested to here in alternatives you think could work, that don't rely on keeping the idea secret to the last second and securing millions to billions in angel/vc capital.

[MichaelGG]

This assumes that without patents no one else would invent this tech, that you wouldn't approach companies with rough outlines and sell the designs for a one-time payment, that you wouldn't work for such a company and invent the technology during your employment, etc.

Without patents, if the tech is invented, it gets distributed quicker/faster/cheaper - that's a benefit to society, even though it's not nice for you.

So the real question is: Are there enough folks like you actually bringing real inventions that need patents as an incentive to outweigh the damage done by the patent system? I don't know, but it seems like cases like yours are not so common. I've only read anti-patent studies, so I lack information to know if cases like yours are actually providing a net positive.

[leoedin]

You skimmed over the key point a bit. "If" tech is invented, it gets distributed faster/quicker/cheaper without patents.

If. What incentive does anyone have, large or small, to put large quantities of money into R&D work if it will give them next to no market advantage? The overlap between companies good at innovation and companies good at mass manufacturing is surprisingly small - large companies, which completely dominate manufacturing, are absolutely terrible at innovation.

A huge amount of early innovation is done by small firms and universities, which then license that technology to larger companies to produce. Modern technology developments are too complex to be done by a man in a garage. It takes teams of people years to develop better engines, better batteries, better industrial processes. If the financial support for that work is removed (which it would be without patents), it would stop.

A functioning engine or machine could be copied in weeks by a large team of engineers. What isn't seen is the years and years of iteration and lessons learned from the development of that machine. If a world without patents is not of benefit to the person creating these machines, why would they bother?

Software is a very different case to physical technology. The investment required in software is almost all labour (and so can be bootstrapped). The functionality can be provided seperate to the source code, making complete copying hard.

[a3_nm]

> If there was no such thing as patent protection [...] any of the current big names in the market could take my tech and bring it to market with their existing connections and heavy market presence

If they do it despite patent protection, do you believe you would have the time and resources to sue them, and that you would actually win? I imagine those companies would have more time to dedicate to a lawsuit, better knowledge of the patent system, and that they could afford to lose more money than you... This is an honest question, I see patents used by big company A to sue big company B but I have no idea if the US patent system actually manages to protect the interests of "lone wolf" inventors like you in this kind of setting.

[Arelius]

I find this a very good question!

[Jach]

> ...any of the current big names in the market could take my tech and bring it to market...

They could. They probably won't. They've got their own projects in the pipeline, they probably won't be as fast as you think (the first Android phone came a full year after the first iPhone), if they're behemoths then they're probably pretty risk-adverse anyway, and typically actually revolutionary ideas are sneered at by the establishment. (A very specific one that comes to mind: Paul Baran's packet-switching network idea was mocked: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Baran#Selling_the_idea ) Stop worrying so much about imaginary competitors!

Or as Jessica Livingston wrote in the introduction to Founders at Work: "People like the idea of innovation in the abstract, but when you present them with any specific innovation, they tend to reject it because it doesn't fit with what they already know.

"Innovations seem inevitable in retrospect, but at the time it's an uphill battle. It's curious to think that the technology we take for granted now, like web-based email, was once dismissed as unpromising. As Howard Aiken said, "Don't worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good, you'll have to ram them down people's throats.""

[crdoconnor]

That depends upon the idea. If the innovation doesn't cannibalize their existing business, doesn't require some sort of paradigm shift that people are uncomfortable with and it offers benefits that are simple enough to understand then it will probably get copied instantly.

I believe his idea may fit this mold.

If an idea doesn't fit into this mold, then yeah, maybe he will have to shove it down people's throats. That still doesn't mean that he won't be beaten up by the industry behemoths' size and market distribution once they cotton on.

None of this means that patents will protect him, of course. Plus, he may get bludgeoned by the behemoths' patent portfolios as well as their market dominance.

[pi18n]

But what is your plan for when a bunch of trivial parts of your invention are already patented by trolls as things like "method and apparatus for suppling power to a device"?

I don't think you are wrong, I just cannot see a proper solution either way.

[belorn]

People who dislike patents can still want the state to help "lone wolf" garage-based inventors.

Patents are a state enforced monopoly given to the invetor in exchange for information disclosure. Now that's all nice and all, but I for one would like that the state worked on proportionality when giving out aid. Is 20 years needed for you? whats your cost analysis? whats your business model? Do you expect you will need 20 years until your invention pays for the invested time and money? Would 18 years work? or say 12? maybe even 5 years would be enough? This are questions I think the patent officer should ask before giving out state enforced monopolies for 20 years.

To answer your question of alternatives to patents. Have you looked into foundations that gives out money to people working on inventions for blind people?

If not and the state is really the only entity that can give you enough to support the inventing process, then for everyone sake, please write your patent application in such a way that it actually do count as information disclosure.

[ansible]

... the electronic braille reader industry for the blind. This is a multi-billion a year industry that has stagnated and seen no innovation or development in 30 years.

Yesterday I had run into a discussion about blind programmers, and what technology they use. Rather than using TTS I think I would (were I blind, I'm not) use a braille terminal instead. Out of curiosity (or perhaps procrastination), I starting looking around at those, and they didn't seem much advanced, and very expensive.

I was thinking that instead of having the the braille "display" below the keyboard, I'd really rather have a small wireless version that I can pop in my mouth and read with my tongue. That way I could still touch-type on a regular keyboard. I think that would make me much more productive than constantly having to move my hands back and forth. Maybe use Bluetooth with Serial Port Profile, and then it would be easy to connect it to phones and PCs.

[andylei]

no way man. i don't like how patents are applied to the specific cases i care about, and coming up with nuanced, balanced solutions requires way too much thinking. i say we ban all patents.

[ChrisNorstrom]

Being against all patents is an extreme position. Imagine investing 10 years and Hundreds of millions of dollars into making a brand new revolutionary motor for train propulsion. And having it ripped off within the first year of commercially using it because it wasn't patented.

[MichaelGG]

The point of patents (at least in the US) is to benefit society. The question is if granting a monopoly on ideas is actually benefiting society. Thomas Jefferson wrote:

"That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe ... seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, ... incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation. Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property."[1]

He then goes on to point out that patents "may or may not be done, according to the will and convenience of the society, without claim or complaint from anybody".

Given the abuse of the patent system and little evidence of it benefiting society, it's hardly an "extreme position" to be against patents.

1: http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/a1_8_8s12....

[leoedin]

I think the problem is that "idea" is such a broad spectrum. The "idea" of 1 click purchasing being patented -that's not helping anyone. The "idea" of a specific valve design which gives a 5% boost in efficiency? Something like that might have taken 10 years to figure out, but if it has no patent protection it can (and will) be copied by competitors the moment they can get their hands on your first machine.

Thomas Jefferson lived in a very different time to us. The investment in time and resources required to develop incremental modern technology is so vastly greater than it was then that his words are almost moot.

[nitrogen]

One weakness I see in arguments based on the amount of time required to discover something is that they don't take into account the possibility that lone inventor A used a painstaking brute force search to come up with a solution to a problem, when independent researcher B could have solved the problem in five minutes by applying known theory.

"If Edison had a needle to find in a haystack, he would proceed at once with the diligence of the bee to examine straw after straw until he found the object of his search. ... I was a sorry witness of such doings, knowing that a little theory and calculation would have saved him ninety per cent of his labor." - Nikola Tesla

[leoedin]

There are times when that applies and times when it definitely doesn't. It's almost impossible to construct a legal system which recognises that. I'm not sure if quoting people who lived over a century ago is useful when discussing modern patent needs though. In the time since then we've established a much more defined engineering process informed by scientific research. Inventors typically aren't dabbling in new fields, but have spent years understanding the background of the field in which they work.

There are many industrial processes, mechanical and electrical designs and drugs which would have been almost impossible to arrive at without extensive testing and trial and error. It's worth noting that hindsight is key. It's easy to look back at almost any patent and say "it's obvious that that nozzle design or molecule works like it does, because it fits these theories.

Fundamentally, legal protection of innovation is required for investment. The current patent system is certainly flawed, but to argue for the complete abolition of it doesn't recognise the significant investment required to advance many technologies.

[yakiv]

> The point of patents (at least in the US) is to benefit society. The question is if granting a monopoly on ideas is actually benefiting society.

Yes.

> And having it ripped off within the first year of commercially using it because it wasn't patented.

"Ripped off" is kind of a biased way of phrasing it.

[cwp]

So we should continue with the patent system because, without it, inventor's feelings might get hurt?