The unfortunate reality is that the 20th century legal code is ill equipped for dealing with software firms. Up until about 1980-1990 it didn't matter all that much, but tech firms are now the largest, fastest growing and most powerful companies in the world. We can't punt on these issues any more.<p>There are 3 forms of IP protection: copyright, patents, and trademarks. The crux of the issue is that, for software, copyright protection is too weak and patents are too strong. So called "stupid patents" are a symptom of this issue, but not the cause. Software ideas don't work well under either of these existing protection models. Further, software patents are especially broken since they've deviated from their originally intended purpose of helping fledgling inventors launch their creations without larger firms stealing their work. Now every large firm has an arsenal of allegedly "protective" patents that can be swiftly mobilized to crush upstart competitors. Similarly, patent trolls can sit on the sidelines and exact royalties far beyond the economic value that their inventions contribute. Bluntly, there needs to be a new form of IP protection to deal with this reality -- this isn't to say I have any strong ideas of what this form of protection should be, just that these are the characteristics of the problem.<p>The same core issue is starting to become apparent in anti-trust law. These laws are inappropriate for tech firms because they don't scale like traditional businesses (how do you deal with an industry with super high HHI but massive barriers to entry and no easy way to split up existing competitors?), but that's a topic for another thread.
Stallman was right.<p><i>Why Patents Are Bad for Software</i>, 1991:<p><a href="http://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/projects/lpf/Links/prep.ai.mit.edu/issues.article" rel="nofollow">http://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/projects/lpf/Links/prep.ai.m...</a>
Patents used to keep inventors from taking their secrets into their graves, but now it seems they only support some kind of cold war between big players that can afford to produce lots of bogus patents possibly usable for retaliation. Also, and this is a nice side effect, everybody who cannot afford to waste money on this is kept out of the game.
I also blame USPTO execution, IMO USPTO should not be shielded from lawsuits for assigning patents on obviously BS innovation like 'rectangle with rounded edges' etc. if it does not even meets the common sense a decade ago then there should be some liability of enforceability on uspto.<p>on a general note I feel like everything in US is translating into a money fight. from congress to law to carpool lanes, there seems to be only one goal left that matters in life, money. apologies for tangential rant!
I always loved the end-run around the limits on patents: just say it is "on a computer" and suddenly it is not a patent on math. Never mind what sort of computer is covered.
Patents are great in a vacuum, but long term in a system of capitalism, they too tend to coalesce under ownership of the wealthiest.<p>Edit: grammar<p>Edit 2: word usage
One of the problems is that patent applicants in the U.S. have no obligation to submit a competent prior-art search; it's the job of the patent examiner to do a prior-art search. Every time the USPTO issues a patent, in effect it's making national economic policy, yet someone seeking a patent need only disclose whatever prior art of which he or she (and/or the patent attorney) happens to be aware. That's like saying that a Ph.D student doesn't need to do a literature search for her dissertation because some junior faculty member will do the search — and then if that junior faculty member judges the dissertation to be acceptable (possibly in consultation with a senior faculty member), then the student gets her degree. The flaws in that arrangement should be obvious, and yet that's how U.S. patents are granted.
This article mentions a stupid patent, but it does not support its claim that stupid patents are dragging down AI and machine learning. To make that argument, you would have to show that stupid machine learning patents are being litigated.
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Funny, there must be at least 10 years of "prior art" on any kind of machine learning patent application these days. Guess the patent officers are as good as they have ever been.
> Just as the US Patent Office problematically gave out patents in the past for computers doing simple things... the office seems prepared to give out patents on "using machine learning in obvious and expected ways." Companies like Google and Microsoft are seeking to acquire, and in some cases have acquired, patents on "fundamental machine-learning techniques," Nazer writes.<p>I find myself in a weird situation. Patents are a drag, and they're misused and wasteful, etc. etc. But it feels like the author here isn't acknowledging or appreciating what patents are intended for or good for.<p>We can't say patents are bad because there are obvious uses of a technology. Patents protect the people who develop the technology, not the competition who wants to use it for free after it works.<p>The issuing of a patent doesn't depend on how obvious the use is, it depends on how obvious the actual solution is. And deep convolutional neural nets trained using backprop or adversarial networks, these things are not obvious. They are even counter-obvious, for 30 years people knew about them and claimed they wouldn't work.<p>Again, I know and agree that bad/stupid patents are being issued, and that trolls who don't develop tech are siphoning money, and all that.<p>But when someone invents something that works, the patent system is <i>supposed</i> to apply a drag force on everyone else using it, that's it's intended function. And sometimes, maybe not that often these days, but sometimes it actually works as intended and deserving people get to see their work come to financial fruition.