[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.

[shasta]

> a company who is interested in patenting any ideas their engineers come up with is somehow evil

No, not at all. I'm blaming the patent system, not the company. I see the potential benefits of patents as:

1. Research is pursued because of an economic incentive that would not exist if it were not patentable.

2. Research is disclosed that would not be disclosed were it not protected by patent.

You seem to think 2 is more the point of patents than 1, but I don't think that's either historically accurate (both were reasons as of the writing of the constitution) or that it's playing out in practice today.

The cost of patents is obstructing / taxing innovators, particularly when they didn't benefit from the patent they're infringing. With the dials set where they are right now, I think the cost of software patents greatly exceeds their benefits.