[jordigh]

> What was the reason for creating the patent system in the first place? To give people an incentive to invent new things:

No, the point of the patent system is not to incentivise invention. The point of patents is to destroy trade secrets. The word "patent" means "open". The whole point of patents is increase society's knowledge of how to do things.

People invent with or without patents. What they don't always do without patents is to say how those inventions work. The bargain inventors make with patents is, tell us how you did it, and in exchange we promise to not compete with you for a while.

This is an awesome patent:

http://www.google.com/patents/US5255452

This is what patents are supposed to be about: a magician revealing his tricks. Without the patent system, Michael Jackson may have taken his idea to the grave.

The problem is that almost none of the people patenting software are magicians.

[csallen]

Destroying trade secrets may be a benefit of the patent system, but it's historically inaccurate to say that's why the system was created in the first place.

The Constitution itself gives the reason as "to promote the progress of science and useful arts". Numerous letters written by the Constitution's framers support the interpretation that the goal is to incentivize creation by granting monopolies.

[jordigh]

It is not historically inaccurate, it's encoded in the name of the damn thing. The patent system predates the creation of the United States, and its spirit is more than the ambiguous summary of "to promote progress".

The history of patents is long, but Queen Anne's statute is where the the nature of disclosing trade secrets was formalised:

http://www.ipo.gov.uk/types/patent/p-about/p-whatis/p-histor...

[csallen]

I'm not saying that patents don't accomplish more than promoting progress. They do! I just believe your claim ("The whole point of patents is [to] increase society's knowledge of how to do things") is overly ambitious. That's an important part of the patent system, yes, but far from "the whole point".

As Thomas Jefferson wrote about the US patent system: "Society may give an exclusive right to the profits arising from them, as an encouragement to men to pursue ideas which may produce utility..."

[peterashford]

Holy US-blinkers Batman! Patents existed for hundreds of years before the US even existed. Their framing in the US constitution does not describe the reasons for the creation of patents.

[csallen]

This discussion is about the patent system in the United States.

[peterashford]

No, it isn't. The article was about abstract ideas in general and in this current thread, you were the first one to mention the constitution and it was to you and your point that I was replying.

[csallen]

The article appears in the New York Times, which is based in the US and targets a primarily American audience. Furthermore, the article itself begins: "The Constitution gives Congress the power to grant... But in recent years, the government has too often given patent protection to..."

[shasta]

Your view of patents doesn't match reality.

> What they don't always do without patents is to say how those inventions work.

For 90+% of patents, the idea is implicitly disclosed by releasing a product that makes use of the idea. In cases where a trade secrets can be effectively kept, that's what companies do!

[axman6]

No, it's not. Releasing their ideas using a patent involves a lot less risk for a company who relies on an invention of theirs than keeping it secret and just waiting for someone else to have the same idea. It provides stability that they otherwise cannot rely on without some kind of protection. The know they can keep their intellectual advantage for the whole term of the patent, where without it they are just waiting an indefinite time until someone reverse engineers their technological advantage. Stabaility leads to more investment, and patents lead to society gaining access to ideas much sooner than they would have otherwise.

Most people forget the patent system is based on one simple idea: you can exclude others using an idea you have a patent for, but society must have that idea shared in return for the protection, and after a limited period of time anyone may be allowed to use the idea. 20 years is a bit long for software when things are moving at such an accelerated pace, but coming up with an appropriate period of time is also difficult.

[shasta]

> Stabaility leads to more investment, and patents lead to society gaining access to ideas much sooner than they would have otherwise.

Has anyone ever read a software patent to learn something other than "do I infringe on this?"

[axman6]

Do you honestly believe what you're saying? Of course they do, companies constantly keep track of the patents their competitors file to a) do as you said and avoid infringement and b) get inspiration for new ideas (There's nothing wrong with patenting qan improvement to someone else's patented idea, you just have to get permission from them to be able to use the base idea, andb they in term might seek permission from you to use your improvement).

I find it so hard to beliebe that people on hacker news think about these issues at such a childish level; everything is black and white, and we'll ignore the facts if they don't suit our world view.

[shasta]

Note that I specifically said software patent. I've worked for a number of software companies. Most of them recently have a process in place to harvest potentially patentable work product from the engineers... stuff that we were going to do no matter what, but that they'll patent if they can. No company had anyone assigned to searching patents for ideas.

I guess your experience has been different? Care to share details?

> beliebe ... childish level

Was that misspelling some kind of intentional Beiber reference?

Don't assume that my opinions on patents match the typical hacker around here. For example, I don't think software patents are intrinsically special by virtue of being more mathematical than ordinary patents.

Honestly, I have a hard time understanding how you can live in this world and hold the view that patents are non-negligible contributor to our shared knowledge base.

I guess I could see the argument that valuable information is released from the major companies in the form of whitepapers, and that those whitepapers wouldn't be allowed if not protected by patents. But I still think that if you nixed software patents altogether, the impact on disclosed information would be minimal.

[axman6]

Ha, that was indeed a typo, and I think it's too late to correct it now.

It seems from your tone that you believe that a company who is intereste din patenting any ideas their engineers come up with is somehow evil, but it's just an effort to protect any competitive advantage they have.

Sure there's nothing stopping companies releasing their trade secrets, but the patent system gives them the incentive to, for the benefit of themselves and others. They're primarilly about ensuring developments in the usful arts are made available for all for the greater benefit of society. Too many people forget this fact.

I'm glad at least one person can see that most patents are not just a matter of being mere algorithms; they're specific processes which have some kind of useful result. Arithmetic coding by itself is a mere algorithm, but its use to compress data in an optimal way is patentable because it provides a useful useful result. There are countless other examples, but they are too often misreported because of a lack of knowledge of the patent system or even how to read a patent correctly when it comes to the legal metters involved.

[cookingrobot]

That sounds good in theory - but do you see this actually happening in practice? I've filed dozens of patents, but haven't ever looked into a competitor's software patent to see how they do things. Many companies instruct their engineers not to ever read patents because it can work against you in a lawsuit.

[jordigh]

Exactly, the patent system is broken. What the hell are we doing? Why are we writing public specifications that anybody who reads them is liable to get sued even harder than if they hadn't read them? This is against the whole principle of what patents are supposed to do.

[cdash]

This is not an argument for software patents but it is not necessary to actually read the patents yourself for you to benefit from the knowledge they provide. You could read about an patented algorithm in a wikipedia article, a blog, or in an academic paper.