[pslam]

> The purpose it was originally intended to be used for doesn't make sense in a world where most new technology is just software, and software is incredibly easy to copy and duplicate.

The very first patent was to duplicate an existing process (the loom) and have a monopoly to produce it.

I keep hearing this argument from patent proponents, but patents have never in their history been ostensibly for good.

[freejazz]

The Constitution requires that Congress setup laws for both copyright and patent, for the good of the nation. Patents were always intended for the overall wellbeing of the nation. That's not to say that is what has always been achieved by the patent system, but it's not some sort of conspiracy. If anything, in history, they were always OSTENSIBLY for good, but perhaps ACTUALLY bad. So I find your statement to be A) historically and factually inaccurate B) literally incorrect given your usage of ostensibly.

[MegaButts]

> The Constitution requires that Congress setup laws for both copyright and patent

No it doesn't, it grants them the power but it doesn't specify they have to do it.

“The Congress shall have Power To…promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries….”

There is a big difference between having a power and being forced to use it.

[Zigurd]

The Framers were skeptical of enabling government to give out patent and copyright monopoly grants. Jefferson wrote:

Stable ownership is the gift of social law, and is given late in the progress of society. It would be curious then, if an idea, the fugitive fermentation of an individual brain, could, of natural right, be claimed in exclusive and stable property. If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it.

It is notable that patent and copyright are not natural rights. At no time was it assumed that people have such rights, nor that government, without explicit authorization could grant such limited term monopolies. Calling these monopolies "good" is definitely not uncontested, nor was it ever.

[matheusmoreira]

The intellectual property system may have been intended as a force for good. However, it's gotten to the point where everyone knows how to abuse the system and get away with it. There is no reason for anyone to recognize it as a legitimate.

Companies file deliberately vague all-encompassing patents that are very hard to understand and pretty much useless for the purpose of educating the public and advancing the state of the art. Patents are merely weapons to be used against competitors. Companies file patents despite the existence of prior art and not only are they granted by the patent office but they're also allowed to stand uncontested due to the prohibitively expensive nature of patent litigation.

Disney and its copyright industry friends lobbied the government and successfully cheated the public out of its public domain rights by extending the duration of copyright to ludicrous lengths. If that's not criminal conspiracy, I don't know what is. YouTube and the copyright industry cheat people out of their fair use rights every single day.

[tasty_freeze]

You can of course have any opinion you want, but at least present the actual rational for why patents exist. Let me attempt to state it, whether you agree with it or not.

A company may invent a mechanism or process which is better for its intended use than what came before. Sometimes it takes a lot of money and time and it doesn't always work. In the case of a mechanism, once it is sold, competitors could take it apart and reap the benefits without having expended the money and effort to create something new. If patents were killed off, it would discourage people and companies from making those investments. It has varied over the centuries, but currently a patent gives a 20 year time limited "monopoly" on the thing invented.

In the case of a process (vs a mechanism), without patents, a company is highly motivated to keep the process a trade secret. Even with patents a company may prefer to take that route. What do patents offer here? In exchange for disclosing the process, the company is granted that monopoly. In theory disclosing the process will spur the next round of improvements and help the system.

The problem isn't necessarily patents, but the process. Patent examiners are not paid all that well and literally have minutes to research and approve or deny a patent. They need to crank through multiple patent applications a day. And companies abuse the system. Secondly, the practice in patent law is to write the patents in such a way as to disclose as little as possible and claim as much as possible using obtuse language. If you read really old patents an ordinary person could understand most of them. Today I can read a patent in a domain I'm expert in and it is very hard to follow.

There should be some penalty for filing obvious patents, and part of the penalty would be to pay for for more patent examiners, and to pay the legal costs of the challenging party.

[alasdair_]

The first US patent was for a method of making potash, for fertilizer.

The early US loom patents are particularly ironic as they were “stolen” from the British design rather than actually invented, in violation of British law. The same thing applied to a whole bunch of other early technologies - the patents existed to encourage stealing other peoples ideas and hard work then claiming it as your own.

[Spivak]

If patents had a requirement that they must be licensed under "reasonable" terms (i.e. if brought to court you can argue that the license was designed to price out or discourage competitors) then I'm totally in support of them since it's supposed to be a reward for sharing your design with the world rather than keeping it a trade secret.

[freejazz]

Well, let's say you don't successfully negotiate over licensing terms and the other side continues anyway. When you sue, you will not be awarded damages more than what a reasonable royalty would be. Here, treble damages for willful infringement act as a pressure for actors to accept fair licensing terms. So the point being: you can't really use your patent to force unfair licensing terms because in the end a court will never give you more than a reasonable license would result in.

[CalChris]

The first patent was for a process of making potash, an ingredient used in fertilizer.

https://www.uspto.gov/about-us/news-updates/first-us-patent-...