Are IP patents hazardous to technological innovation?

[Snow_Fox]

I find myself in an interesting position when thinking objectively about intellectual property lately. I on one hand feel that people are in fact entitled to some degree of protection when it comes to IP. If you invest billions and billions into developing new software/hardware then I do believe that you deserve to make a profit off of your own creation. The problem I have with IP is that after you have spent that much time and energy investing in your product if someone else happens to see your product and develops something similar without any assistance from you and manages to do it better then, are they not entitled to make a profit off of their device/software?

On one hand it was your idea and it was in some way innovative and the other person or company did use your idea, however they still put money into researching it themselves and they still had to make an investment to create it.

The reason why this bothers me is because, if no one else is allowed to develop anything similar at all then the innovation stagnates. No one can take your idea and improve it, because you will just sue them. I've just been reading about a number of IP issues recently and it's all gotten to the point to where I feel intellectual property is a bit anti competitive at least in the technological field.

Now please, keep in mind I am not discussing artistic Intellectual Property such as books or music, strictly technological Intellectual Property.

[Dante]

It is certainly possible to write IP laws which are far too broad and stifle legitimate innovation simply because it's kind of similar to something that's patented. Simply because IP is valid doesn't mean that the laws protecting it can't be written poorly and thus have bad effects. Whether this is actually the case concerning current U.S. law, I have no idea.

[Snow_Fox]

It is certainly possible to write IP laws which are far too broad and stifle legitimate innovation simply because it's kind of similar to something that's patented. Simply because IP is valid doesn't mean that the laws protecting it can't be written poorly and thus have bad effects. Whether this is actually the case concerning current U.S. law, I have no idea.

Well Apple is a company I personally hate, but an interesting place for discussion.

There was a major issue concerning multi-touch capabilities on android phones to which Apple cries is infringement on their intellectual property.

For the sake of discussion, I think it raises an interesting point. On one hand Apple did introduce the technology to the market first and has patents on it.

On the other hand, if the other companies now adding multi touch to their devices aren't sitting there dissecting iphone's and are strictly developing similar technology themselves.

Do the companies which got the idea from Apple, but use strictly their own resources to create similar multi touch screens have a claim to the work they did in the creation of their own version of multi touch?

Or, because it was Apples idea originally is Apple entitled to demand that the companies stop creating multi touch technology?

The reason why I tend to fear it hampers innovation would be, because if the other companies aren't allowed to recreate the technology, they are not allowed to come up with alternate implementations and the entire advancement of the technology then ride's on apple.

I'm trying to keep this on more relevant issues of IP and less on Apple's "Samsung created a phone which looks like ours! oh noes that infringement!" or the one where they try to sue amazon for having an "app store".

[Prometheus98876]

Why do you hate Apple? You can tell me via a PM or something if it is a little offtopic, however I am mildly curious.

So the issue is in your mind that touch-screen technology is too broad of an idea to patent? If so, I think that this view might have some merit. Though of course, even if this *is* the case, Apple (or anyone else ) should be allowed to patent certain techniques of implementing touch screen technology.

[Snow_Fox]

I have some mixed views philosophically on the idea of the IP.

One of the problems I have is that it can be largely left to interpretation what is "fair" which is not a very Objectivist view.

Touch screen technology existed before Apple created "multi-touch" and while it was Apple's idea to allow more than two fingers to work with a single screen, I think there is a great argument that Multi-touch would be a natural progression of touch screen technology.

So then this raises the question, is it fair to be able to patent what is the natural progression of a technology which you may have not even created yourself?

Then it also poses the point that if you can patent the evolution of technology, what happens if you never see it through? It limits the capacity for the technology to grow and evolve which does cause some degree of stagnation.

[Eiuol]

I never like using the word "similarity" in this context, because it's not similarity at all that's the point. Particular applications are what count, and people who develop those applications can ought to own that application. What counts is what is derivative and what *uses* the creator's application. If I want to use Apple's multi-touch technology, I'd pay them for it.

As a whole, I think multi-touch technology is too broad to be patentable. For it to be patentable, a method of creation needs to be specified. If you want to develop similar technology, go ahead, provided you develop your multi-touch methods if you don't want to use Apple's, and provided you don't copy Apple's methods.

"Then it also poses the point that if you can patent the evolution of technology, what happens if you never see it through? It limits the capacity for the technology to grow and evolve which does cause some degree of stagnation. "

No, you can't patent the evolution of technology. That would make imagination open to the realm of patents, which is totally apart from actual creations. If you can't see something through, nothing about an idea is going to be realized. Part of creating is being ABLE to make an idea into reality. The "into reality" is what's most important.

[Grames]

I find myself in an interesting position when thinking objectively about intellectual property lately.

Objectively, look at history to see how things work out.

See The Rise and Fall of the First American Patent Thicket: The Sewing Machine War of the 1850s

edit: add abstract

Abstract:

When Michael Heller proposed that excessively fragmented property rights in land can frustrate its commercial development, patent scholars began debating whether Heller's anticommons theory applies to property rights in inventions. Do "patent thickets" exist? The rise and fall of the first American patent thicket -- the Sewing Machine War of the 1850s -- confirms that patent thickets do exist and that they can frustrate commercial development of new products. But this historical patent thicket also challenges the widely held assumption that this is a modern problem arising from allegedly new issues in the patent system, such as incremental high-tech innovation and the impact of "patent trolls." The Sewing Machine War exhibited all of these phenomena, proving that these are hoary issues in patent law. The denouement of this patent thicket in the Sewing Machine Combination of 1856, the first privately formed patent pool, further challenges the conventional wisdom that patent thickets are best solved through public-ordering regimes that limit property rights in patents. The invention and incredible commercial success of the sewing machine is a striking account of early American technological, commercial, and legal ingenuity, which heralds important empirical lessons for how patent thicket theory is understood and applied today.

Edited July 24, 2011 by Grames

[Snow_Fox]

Reading now.

Thanks for the link.

Suppose the saying is true, nothing is ever really new.

[LovesLife]

If you invest billions and billions into developing new software/hardware then I do believe that you deserve to make a profit off of your own creation.

Do you think rights somehow depend on how much you've invested?

The problem I have with IP is that after you have spent that much time and energy investing in your product if someone else happens to see your product and develops something similar without any assistance from you and manages to do it better then, are they not entitled to make a profit off of their device/software?

The idea behind patents says that yes, the second party can make a profit from their add-ons to the patent holder's ideas, but only if the patent holder agrees.

On one hand it was your idea and it was in some way innovative and the other person or company did use your idea, however they still put money into researching it themselves and they still had to make an investment to create it.

The more important point is that the patent holder also worked to create the market. Why should the second inventor get to benefit from that market without compensation?

The reason why this bothers me is because, if no one else is allowed to develop anything similar at all then the innovation stagnates. No one can take your idea and improve it, because you will just sue them.

Just like no one can take your house and improve it, because you will just sue them.

I've just been reading about a number of IP issues recently and it's all gotten to the point to where I feel intellectual property is a bit anti competitive at least in the technological field.

The key feature of IP is not that it's anti-competitive; it's that it protects the rights of the inventor.

[Snow_Fox]

Do you think rights somehow depend on how much you've invested?

I only use a larger number, because it would equate to higher loses.

The idea behind patents says that yes, the second party can make a profit from their add-ons to the patent holder's ideas, but only if the patent holder agrees.

And if the patent holder disagrees, then the technology doesn't progress.

The more important point is that the patent holder also worked to create the market. Why should the second inventor get to benefit from that market without compensation?

This raises the question, did they create a market to begin with?

Assuming they did create a market, how long should they be allowed to cash in on it before competition is allowed in?

Why shouldn't the second inventor benefit if they put an equal amount of capitol into developing a product with the same functionality?

Just like no one can take your house and improve it, because you will just sue them.

Really? if someone takes the blue prints to my house and recreates it somewhere down the road am I even going to really care?

Or if the Architect who I paid to draw up my blue prints takes the design I wanted, then turns around and updates it two days later (after I've already signed up to have the first set built) can I sue him because, he improved it and is selling the same design to someone else with improvements?

If someone comes into my house, and decides to add a fire place in the kitchen, sure I can sell them seeing as the house is my property.

If they decide to use my blue prints, except throw a fire place in the kitchen, I can't technically stop them especially if I can't prove the architect sold them an updated version of my blue prints.

The problem we are running into here is that we are discussing an idea vs. physical existing property.

The key feature of IP is not that it's anti-competitive; it's that it protects the rights of the inventor.

I am all for the rights of the inventor being protected, it also creates problems when the inventor doesn't want to cooperate. If an inventor doesn't want anyone to have anything remotely similar, or better on the market, how then is that going to be "fair" to anyone else? it stops competition.