Jump to content
Search In
  • More options...
Find results that contain...
Find results in...
Sign in to follow this  
Porsche Monty

Patents clogging up the voxel thread

Recommended Posts

Ladna said:

FWIW I also hate software patents, and agree the whole thing is absurd. Owning copyright & licensing your code as you see fit is one thing - creators need to have control over their creations - but patents are like owning ideas or actions; it's way too 1984 for me.


Only lazy, talentless losers who will never come up with anything unique and worth paying for, disapprove of patents. They want to cash on other people's work, that's all there's to this stupid selfish commie garbage.

No patents, no incentive for creativity.

Share this post


Link to post
Graf Zahl said:

I'd side with Ladna here, not because patents are evil but because the patent legislation is. In the US in particular a patent is only worth something if you got a shitload of money to back it up. So patents are not used to ensure that creativity pays off but merely that the big corporations can keep control of the market. The whole thing has become utterly perverted as can be seen in the ridiculous patent lawsuits that look more like extortion than anything else.


I agree on the patent legislation problem. You shouldn't have to pay a cent to get a patent, specially with a filthy progressive taxation system already leeching you dry. Still, creative people working for big corporations have as many rights as creative people not working for them, so I don't care who gets the patent first. Patents should cost nothing and last forever, that's where I stand.

As for patent lawsuits, all you have to do is play by the rules and you won't have any problems.

Share this post


Link to post
Porsche Monty said:

Only lazy, talentless losers who will never come up with anything unique and worth paying for, disapprove of patents. They want to cash on other people's work, that's all there's to this stupid selfish commie garbage.

No patents, no incentive for creativity.

Porsche Monty said:

Patents should cost nothing and last forever


oh good lord I lol'd. This thread delivers!

Share this post


Link to post

I fail to see what is so lol-worthy about Porsche Monty's comment. The mere proposition that a patent can expire as a result of the passage of time/original author's death is ridiculous imo.

Share this post


Link to post

Did you know that FM Synthesis, the stuff that makes up the OPL3 chips in old soundblasters, was patented by Stanford? that patent expired in 1995, and now it's LEGAL to use this simple form of synthesis in your own software. That's disregarding prior art - FM synth was invented in the 1960s by Don Buchla before being "invented" by John Chowning, patented by Stanford and licensed to Yamaha.

So the idea that patents should last forever is bullshit. Especially in cases like the example I stated.

Share this post


Link to post

I might be giving myself away as a godless communist here, but isn't the only justification for patents to encourage innovation? In the first place, I'd argue that creativity & innovation existed long before the patent office or before the idea of patents themselves. In the second place, I'd say that there are two extremes here - no patents and permanent patents. On the one end you have great freedom to use whatever ideas and techniques you like, on the other you have great motivation to innovate. There's probably a point in time when the benefit to society is greater when the patent is lifted than when it was in effect. Like if we all still had to pay a nickel every time we struck a match, we'd still be using flint & steel.

Share this post


Link to post

If the passing of time has an effect on the validity of a patent then that is some pretty screwed up law in my opinion. You could apply the "better for civilisation" argument to force pretty much anything you wanted into the public domain provided you could convince a jury of the benefits of doing so.

Share this post


Link to post
DaniJ said:

If the passing of time has an effect on the validity of a patent then that is some pretty screwed up law in my opinion. You could apply the "better for civilisation" argument to force pretty much anything you wanted into the public domain provided you could convince a jury of the benefits of doing so.

Even copyright expires, and trademarks can lapse or be invalidated. Of course every time Mickey Mouse comes up for public domaining, Disney will bribe Congress into extending copyright until it lasts forever. It's bullshit.

Share this post


Link to post

Now you see, I don't consider it like that. I think it's bullshit that a company like Disney has to actively "protect" their IP in countries like the US - which, is entirely because of the bullshit expiration concept.

How one can logically argue that ownership of something like the likeness of Mickey Mouse can "expire" I honestly don't know. It is not something licensed by Walt to Disney - it's theirs.

Share this post


Link to post

Well, be careful not to blur the lines between patents & copyrights. Copyright expiration is supposed to delineate the difference between the contemporary and the historic; I mean, if Disney is still using Mickey Mouse in 2050 they need to trademark it or something. Again the line is blurry, what with people living 200% longer than they ever used to and corporations being immortal, but still I'd have to say the line exists somewhere. Again, benefit to society!

And while we're on the subject, to what other end should laws exist? The entire idea of law is to maintain order so that society can prosper, why in God's name would there ever be a law that placed the needs of the individual over those of the many? In fact, when does that ever make any sense at all? I suppose you could trot out patent/copyright, but those actually just create incentives for individuals to benefit society - which is why people get upset when expiration dates are pushed back, because society's benefit is being prioritized beneath the greed of some person or corporation.

And I guess we could talk about how it's lame that private property is, in effect, being confiscated, but you can't make that argument while reaping its rewards at the same time. Any significant advance in medicine, food cultivation/preservation, transportation, electronics, etc. etc. etc. was or could have been patented, and it's hard for me to accept that there are people who are alright with being brutally exploited by the patent holders. This does happen today, ask anyone on prescription medicine that isn't available as a generic.

Share this post


Link to post

I fully agree with you Ladna but only to the point where its a truly tangible benefit to society (again, obviously what is and what is not, has been and should continue to be under continuous review).

As you pointed out, Mickey Mouse is the property of an immortal entity - so how can one apply time to such an arrangement when both the owner and the property cannot expire by definition?

However we are veering rather off-topic with the Mickey Mouse likeness example - its a very different situation to code.

Share this post


Link to post

Porsche Monty said:
They want to cash on other people's work, that's all there's to this stupid selfish commie garbage.

Who are you calling commies, you supporter of government-mandated monopolies!?

Share this post


Link to post
Porsche Monty said:

Patents should cost nothing and last forever, that's where I stand.


Uh... No.

The entire point of a patent is that you effectively have a monopoly for a limited amount of time. You get protection but in return you have to place your invention into the public domain later.

Now imaging if all those great patents from the late 19th or early 20th century were still in effect. You couldn't basically do anything because it'd be patented by someone and you'd spend more money on the lawyers negotiating the license fees than the actual licenses would cost.

Many great things you may take for granted were once patented. If they still were you would not be able to benefit from them, or you'd only be able to get them at a much higher cost.

As for 'costing nothing', that's ridiculous. Maintaining a patent also costs money and the only one who should pay for that is the patent holder. After all he gets some service in return.

Regarding copyrights, I might agree. The Mickey Mouse case clearly shows a hole in the system but copyright still should expire eventually if there's nobody to back it up (and IMO for that the time periods are far too long, especially when it comes to old software.)

Porsche Monty said:

As for patent lawsuits, all you have to do is play by the rules and you won't have any problems.


I'm too lazy to search the internet for counterexamples but there have been so many stories of private inventors being run over by big corporations and their heaps of money that I only can declare this statement to be utterly false. The (American) system is built to favor the one with the longer breath, not the one who has the right. If that person or company can no longer afford to pay the costs for such lawsuits, they stand no chance.

Share this post


Link to post
Graf Zahl said:

The entire point of a patent is that you effectively have a monopoly for a limited amount of time. You get protection but in return you have to place your invention into the public domain later.

Now imaging if all those great patents from the late 19th or early 20th century were still in effect. You couldn't basically do anything because it'd be patented by someone and you'd spend more money on the lawyers negotiating the license fees than the actual licenses would cost.

Many great things you may take for granted were once patented. If they still were you would not be able to benefit from them, or you'd only be able to get them at a much higher cost.

What I'm suggesting is that this structure is deeply flawed. Given the existence of law to overturn an active patent if deemed beneficial to society, unfair monopolization or otherwise, combined with a properly regimented application and approval process - then why the need for fixed time, automatic expiration?

I fundamentally disagree with the notion that if something is old enough it doesn't belong to anyone.

Share this post


Link to post
DaniJ said:

What I'm suggesting is that this structure is deeply flawed. Given the existence of law to overturn an active patent if deemed beneficial to society, unfair monopolization or otherwise, combined with a properly regimented application and approval process - then why the need for fixed time, automatic expiration?


Because that was the idea behind patents. The law grants you a limited monopoly for your idea but in the end you have to pay the price for that right.

DaniJ said:

I fundamentally disagree with the notion that if something is old enough it doesn't belong to anyone.



Don't forget, patents are supposed to protect ideas, not works. Your works will be protected however you live because that's copyright law so whatever you create based on your patented ideas will forever be yours. You just can't control indefinitely what others might do with it and that *is* a good thing. If every invention was owned indefinitely it sure would hamper further research and improvements because nothing could be done without the patent holder's approval and it's not guaranteed that he might have an interest in said research.

You wouldn't sit in front of your computer if the companies that patented the basics back in the 40's still owned their ancient patents. Most of the research by later companies could not have been done with such a situation.

So patent law may not agree with your view of things but its creators sure had the right idea. And as today's situation clearly shows, even that got perverted into corporate warfare. Imagine how the situation would be with all the ancient patents still active. Nobody would be able to do anything because everything today's world deals with was once patented in one way or the other.

Share this post


Link to post

If patents, copyrights and the like lasted forever...

Nobody would be able to publish classic works. Homer's Iliad and Odyssey? They belong to Homer, who, if he even existed, has been dead for quite a while and does not have an estate to handle his legacy. So there is nobody with which you can negotiate to have the right to publish, adapt, translate, etc. the Homeric works; which means that the only legal thing to do is to destroy all known copies to make sure that the law will be upheld forever.

Sorry. I don't see that just as absurd, I see that as a crime. Patents and copyrights should not last forever. Things should fall in the public domain after a while.

DaniJ said:

I fail to see what is so lol-worthy about Porsche Monty's comment. The mere proposition that a patent can expire as a result of the passage of time/original author's death is ridiculous imo.


Anybody who uses A²=B²+C² infringes on Pythagoras' patent and should stop doing so. That a large amount of time has passed since the death of that theorem's author is irrelevant.

Share this post


Link to post

I wasn't suggesting that all patents should exist forever. My argument is that given we already have law to "appropriate" patents for the greater good at some point - then there really is no benefit to fixed time automatic expiration other than for those looking to get hold of the right to do it sooner for commercial reasons. In my book thats reducing the desire to innovate.

My comment about old = free was about copyright not patents. I should have made that clear. This is something I dearly hope I don't live to see implemented in the UK.

Share this post


Link to post

Haha, this Porsche Monty guy has got to be a gimmick account.

:: looks at post history ::

ooooooooooooooohhhh .. D:

Share this post


Link to post
DaniJ said:

I wasn't suggesting that all patents should exist forever. My argument is that given we already have law to "appropriate" patents for the greater good at some point - then there really is no benefit to fixed time automatic expiration other than for those looking to get hold of the right to do it sooner for commercial reasons. In my book thats reducing the desire to innovate.



On the contrary. An unlimited patent would give absolutely no motivation to improve on the idea. However, with a time limit, even the original creator has some motivation to improve so that he can re-patent.

Otherwise he could just sit on his idea indefinitely and keep total control over how it is used. He'd feel no need to improve because hey, he already got control! Why invest more work?

And others would be left out cold because he could block all their efforts.

IMO that'd be a nightmare and the end of civilization.

Share this post


Link to post

Urm no. You are looking at my argument from the POV of the code-borrower rather than the algorithm-designer. If I can't use someone else's ideas I don't just give up and announce Armageddon.

EDIT: Furthermore, that situation would be deemed an unfair monopoly and the patent overturned.

Share this post


Link to post
DaniJ said:

My comment about old = free was about copyright not patents.

Then refer to my point about burning old literary works to respect the rights of no-longer-existing copyright holders.

It's pretty much the same thing.

Share this post


Link to post

I seem to be misunderstood regularly here at doomworld... I really should learn to reiterate/state the entire context in every post.

Old = free in this context is the general over-arching view taken by US software copyright law and the associated "abandonware" concepts.

Share this post


Link to post
DaniJ said:

Urm no. You are looking at my argument from the POV of the code-borrower rather than the algorithm-designer. If I can't use someone else's ideas I don't just give up and announce Armageddon.

EDIT: Furthermore, that situation would be deemed an unfair monopoly and the patent overturned.



Any patent is a monopoly so I don't really get what you are saying. Either patents are forever and monopolies are wanted or monopolies are bad which makes infinite patents bad by design. You can't have both. I think the current state is a good compromise - if the legislation in some countries wasn't that fucked up.

Share this post


Link to post

In my opinion it all comes down to something pretty basic: not your invention, none of your business.

How many good graphics engines would have been developed from scratch if there were no patents protecting the work of the people behind them? who's a government (more like socialist regime) to decide how much you can be rewarded? Carmack released Doom's source code for free when it no longer held any economic value. That's the good thing to do, but it was HIS decision, nobody forced him to.

"Otherwise he could just sit on his idea indefinitely and keep total control over how it is used. He'd feel no need to improve because hey, he already got control! Why invest more work?"

If you sit on it forever, sooner or later someone will come up with something better on their own and you'll be in deep shit. Take Intel processors for example; are they anywhere near as slow as they used to be decades ago? inventions keep improving and that keeps the cash flowing.

Share this post


Link to post
Porsche Monty said:

How many good graphics engines would have been developed from scratch if there were no patents protecting the work of the people behind them?

A lot, because software is a very specific case, given that it's tied to hardware, which constantly evolves. Patents are irrelevant here.

This evolution of the hardware also makes long-lasting patents/copyright perverse mechanisms: instead of protecting the work, they condemn them to death, as the obsolescence of the hardware means the disappearance of the software. Many, many vintage games and applications are now lost forever, and I see that as a waste, personally.

Share this post


Link to post
Sigvatr said:

Will you be able to literally blow holes in monsters?


Yes, that should be possible to create, as would dismemberment.

Porsche Monty said:

How many good graphics engines would have been developed from scratch if there were no patents protecting the work of the people behind them? who's a government (more like socialist regime) to decide how much you can be rewarded? Carmack released Doom's source code for free when it no longer held any economic value. That's the good thing to do, but it was HIS decision, nobody forced him to.

I don't think you should confuse patents and copyrights. Patents are "protecting" the idea/method from being used by others. And in turn also being improved by others. While copyrights protects the actual work. There's nothing stopping anyone from making a derivative Doom game, even when Doom was new. Or engine for that matter.

In the case of the Doom engine, the idea was free to use by anyone skilled enough. Just that the work Carmack did with his engine was not.

Share this post


Link to post
Porsche Monty said:

If you sit on it forever, sooner or later someone will come up with something better on their own and you'll be in deep shit. Take Intel processors for example; are they anywhere near as slow as they used to be decades ago? inventions keep improving and that keeps the cash flowing.



Yes, but they won't if they infringe on some decades old patents you can't get hold of? That's the real risk you and DaniJ are conveniently ignoring. Many modern inventions depend on ideas that were once patented. Were they still patented I doubt we'd have these follow-up inventions at all. Much of what was done in the last 60 years simply would not exist.

Share this post


Link to post
Graf Zahl said:

Yes, but they won't if they infringe on some decades old patents you can't get hold of? That's the real risk you and DaniJ are conveniently ignoring. Many modern inventions depend on ideas that were once patented. Were they still patented I doubt we'd have these follow-up inventions at all. Much of what was done in the last 60 years simply would not exist.


If an "invention" takes from something already patented, it's copycat tech at best, and if you really want to improve on an existing idea, make a commercial deal with the patent holder. Won't happen? too bad, try developing something 100% unique, but that of course, requires more creativity, intelligence and hard work, and not everyone is happy about it.

Remember the aperture grille TV's from Sony? did that stop other TV manufacturers from developing and selling TV's based on different technology? not one bit.

Share this post


Link to post
Graf Zahl said:

Any patent is a monopoly so I don't really get what you are saying.

Its just one approach. Nothing preventing alternative solutions. However if it is subsequently proven to be the only(!) viable implementation it then becomes a monopoly.

I don't believe I'm ignoring anything - I addressed that point the last time you wrote it about a dozen posts back :P

Anyone that doesn't constantly look to improve their own algorithms in this sector might as well just stop right now and get a "normal" job. This is even more true of ideas you've patented.

Share this post


Link to post

Wow, this thread sure is a practical example of the Greek proverb "Where many roosters crow, dawn comes too late".

It sounds like a bunch of drill sergeants trying to order each other to about-face, in terms of vacuousness and immateriality.

...

then again you brought software and algorithm patents into play - a still thorny problem, that is unlikely to be solved here anyway.

Share this post


Link to post

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
Sign in to follow this  
×