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Comment on 'An embarrassing failure of the US patent system': Videogame IP lawyer says Nintendo's latest patents on Pokémon mechanics 'should not have happened, full stop'

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Atomic@sh.itjust.works ⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

Patent law is the foundation of which our entire civilisation rest upon. I can agree it can be flawed and/or exploited sometimes.

But only a useful idiot would want patents to not exist at all. It’s the only thing that protects your innovation from being stolen by those with means to outproduce you.

It’s literally there so when you invent a new product, others (wealthy companies) can’t just steal your design and flood the market with cheaper versions due to the fact that they can mass produce it.

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Miaou@jlai.lu ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
TIL civilisation didn’t exist before the 20th century

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- Atomic@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago
  You’re an idiot… we’ve had patents since the 15:th century…
  
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scratchee@feddit.uk ⁨16⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Software patents are pretty close to universally bad. Software moves fast and twenty years is ridiculous, when video codecs have grown to be biggest format and then been overtaken by their successors which in turn are overtaken by their own successors before the first codecs lose their patent then you know something is going wrong. Hardware patents have their place as you say, but software moves very quickly and can innovate just fine without the need for patents.

In theory you could make them viable by shortening the life, to just 5 years or something, but at that point the cost of administering them probably outweighs any benefits (if there would actually be any).

Copyright is another matter, I think we probably need that in some form (though the stupid length of copyright at the moment is even stupider for software)

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- prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨7⁩ ⁨minutes⁩ ago
  
  Software patents are pretty close to universally bad.
  
  I’m far from an expert on this particular subject, but I could definitely see this being true.
  
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XM34@feddit.org ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Bullshit! The truth is that to even sell your product in the first place you have to sell it to a big corporation for peanuts so that they can then get rich on your idea because you can’t afford the marketing or production cost to popularize your product on your own. And software patents have even less reason to exist. They’re just pure evil!

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- Atomic@sh.itjust.works ⁨9⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Yes you generally do need to involve a business partner that has the means to produce the product in any meaningful capacity.
  
  Or, if we go by what you want. They don’t even have to partner with you. They’ll just start making it themselves and push you out of the market because there’s absolutely nothing that would prevent them to.
  
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Auli@lemmy.ca ⁨14⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Eh who cares it’s all big corporations now any way.

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figjam@midwest.social ⁨16⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Learn to keep secrets better. China isn’t exactly a vigorous enforcer of us patents anyway.

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