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Ex-Microsoft CTO Checks In On Patent Reform
theodp writes "Defending his controversial Intellectual Ventures in a less-than-hard-hitting CNET interview, ex-Microsoft CTO Nathan Myhrvold finds it peculiar that some people get really wound up over patents. 'People generally don't have any problem with the patent system,' quipped Myhrvold, the inventor of Microsoft's patented Television scheduling system for displaying a grid representing scheduled layout and selecting a programming parameter for display or recording, which allows you to more efficiently select shows like Elimidate for viewing."
A Violent Protest Against Patents
Patents are directly responsible for the death of millions. They are
NOT "property" and especially not free market or capitalistic (contrary
to popular belief). In addition, the notion that patents help the "little
guy" is a fraud, people don't invent for patents, and patents financially
help lawyers far more than inventors or businesses. When it comes to R&D
patents have the effect of growing a few extra big trees at the
expense of killing the orchard. Patents drive up prices for consumers,
and encourage practices that are harmful for the environment. Most
patents are trivial and for things that are going to be invented anyhow.
All patents build off of prior knowledge and invention given to people
freely, yet assert the "right" to lock out everybody else. The patent
system doesn't need to be "fixed" or "tweaked", it is inherently
murderous and needs to be destroyed.
Patents don't help MOST small time inventors, most small companies, or even
promote innovation. Most companies get patents for two purposes only,
that is to protect themselves from frivolous lawsuits, and to have something
to get into cross-licensing agreements so they don't get sued. Companies
almost never use patents for "protection", unless they were going bankrupt
anyhow - in which case they lash out and sue everybody. At very best they
help finance lawyers, and contrary to popular belief patents are the
anti-thesis of a free market society. Patents have nothing to do with
"property" or "incentive", and everything to do with using the leverage
of heavy handed government "regulation" and monopoly to coercively
control how people use innovations.
Patents are directly responsible for the murder and poor quality of life,
of millions of the poor, sick, elderly, and children around the world.
This is because the rat-race to lock in and monopolize a key innovation also
discourages researchers around the world from collaborating, and because
simple or eloquent solutions that can not be patented are often shunned
for complicated ones with lots of side effects that can be. And because
patent monopolies tend to drive up the price of things like AIDS medicine
to the point that it is way out of reach for most 3rd world countries.
Patents also tend to re-shift the industry so that all R&D is focused in
the confines of a few super-funded companies rather than throughout society
as a whole. Contrary to the myth that only patents allow for the massive
R&D costs that are required to develop new technologies, patents devastate
1000s of small research efforts for the sake of a few large ones.
Patents are not pro technology at all, in the tech industry I know, the
entire industry is defined by people who defied patents. For example,
the IBM compatible PC was a drastic success for the computer industry,
because it was a drastic patent failure where anybody could make an IBM
compatible PC even if they weren't IBM. Silicon valley, wouldn't exist
without the engineers who routinely revolted against companies who wanted
to patent off their innovations, and created new startups in defiance.
In the tech industry I know, the overwhelming majority of patents were issued
for innovations that were incremental, and were going to happen anyhow with
or without patents. The patents didn't help anything, they just got in the
way time and time again. Even worse are the thousands of patents issued for
things that were obvious and could be made by any competent high school
programming student, like a cursor that blinks!
One time I worked for an innovative chip maker that got bought out by a
huge global multinational corporation - whose only motive was grab
some key patents and lock out competition in an important area of the
market. This didn't benefit the consumer who got gouged, it didn't benefit
the employees who mostly got lai