Slashdot Mirror
The Sewing Machine War
lousyd writes "Volokh has hosted a paper by George Mason University law professor Adam Mossoff on the patent fracas a century and a half ago surrounding the sewing machine. A Stitch in Time: The Rise and Fall of the Sewing Machine Patent Thicket challenges assumptions by courts and scholars today about the alleged efficiency-choking complexities of the modern patent system. Mossoff says that complementary inventions, extensive patent litigation, so-called 'patent trolls,' patent thickets, and privately formed patent pools have long been features of the American patent system reaching back to the antebellum era."
From wiki:
You learn something new every day.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
I was talking to a partner company one time and they were all about telling me how much they've spent on a patent attorney to patent their web site, which was basically a paint-by-numbers hosting site. There would have to be a ton of prior art on that and then they acted surprised when I told them about the Bilski case.
Another one in New York was convinced they could patent the idea of specialized user portal. When I tried to explain the difference between patent and copyright, they snuffed and reminded me that no one ever made money on copyright litigation.
The system we have now is absolutely insane. If you really want to reduce nuisance and frivolous litigation, then start with the patent system. And I hope the courts add to the Bilski ruling and puts an end to this nonsense.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
They actually claimed rights over the analog device outputs, if you can believe that.
You couldn't even darn your socks by directly streaming threads or applying patches without paying royalties.
When it comes to patents in the textile industry, you reap what you sew!
Be relentless!
As far as the argument goes that the patent structure has been litigious, complicated, and obnoxious for a long time, I think we can all agree. Slashdot often discusses copyright as it applies to digital music, and it's interesting that the digital music industry began at a time in which there was heavy litigation over the copying of sheet music; this was in the late 1800's.
But the argument that this complex patent superstructure doesn't reduce efficiency seems a little far fetched to me. Just because we've done it this way for a long time doesn't automatically mean that it's the best system. Who can say what would have happened over the last century and a half with less complicated patent laws? I'm sure there would be no consensus as to whether we would have done better or worse.
The most compelling case for copyright, for me, comes from Joseph Schumpeter's concept of creative destruction. In essence, he argues that copyright creates more innovation because it does not allow people to use the status quo of ideas. However, I'm not sure that the complexity of the copyright system is what he had in mind, since adding complexity increases barrier entries to innovators without increasing incentives to monopolists (i.e. copyright holders) to improve as well.
The main point is that many people say the patent issues we have now are unique to the times, which as shown is not the case since the same patent issues (patent thickets, patent "trolls") existed 100 years ago).
Thus by studying the history of how that event turned out, we can better decide how to approach our current issues. As the article states there are assumptions about patent issues today that people make that this history shows to be incorrect - by knowing that we can avoid fixing the wrong things or moving in the wrong direction.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Most of the economy was agrarian and the creation of new products was a much rarer act. The patent trolls had a much smaller terrain in which to do their hunting.
Today, only 2% of the workforce works in the agriculture sector. The creation of new products and services is how most Americans get into business. The patent system, working with the same unfixed flaws, cannot scale up to control the threat of patent trolls.
I think the simplest solution is to tie ownership of patents to either pure research or production. I have no problem with Qualcomm licensing patents from its research. I have no problem with a manufacturing company patenting the hell out of its products. I have extreme problem with law firms and companies composed of 2 weasels in business suits and a lawyer owning patents.
two fold...
neither reason had anything to do with how good the machines were, Singer failed miserably to make it a viable business until he took a lawyer on board, and the two unique business methods were implemented.
1/ Singer sewing machines introduced the idea of buying a sewing machine on credit, and pushed this as the preferred way to purchase.
2/ The list price of each machine was extremely high, but you got a huge discount for trading in your old machine.
What this means was that everyone traded in, they would even buy an old used machine specifically to trade it in... Singer scrapped every single machine that was traded in.
So on the one hand they were the only company who offered easy credit, and on the other hand they were wiping out the market of competing marques as second hand machines.
From a business perspective, brilliant.
http://slashdot.org/~GuyFawkes/journal
About early sewing machines, really isn't the patent fights. It's about the way they were sold. Singer sewing machines were the first big-ticket household items sold to average buyers on installment credit. Far too expensive for the average household, they were pitched to the housewife together with low, "easy" regular payments.
My mom died recently, and I inherited her sewing machine which is still in perfect condition but which was state-of-the-art back in 1959. She was incredibly jealous of it and allowed no one to use it--ever. I did a little reading on it and found that when new, it cost about two months's salary for my father. No wonder.
Isaac Singer was something of a failure before he came up with the easy payment plan. He had a product that was wanted and needed by people who couldn't pay for it all at once. The company he started thrived and succeeded for over a century thereafter. Too bad it's been absorbed now and is nothing more than a name--they made a damned good sewing machine.
"Here's what's happening. You're starting to drive like your Dad..." - Red Green
The conclusion I draw from reading the paper is that this patent thicket was resolved by the main players essentially agreeing to stop bothering about suing each other and start manufacturing sewing machines instead - as if the patent system had not existed at all. So the way to fix the problems that patents create is to ignore patents. Tell me again why we have them in the first place?
Money for nothing, pix for free
No, the difference is the main players held all the patents, which would essentially prevent competition from outsiders. They created the sewing machine cabal.
Qxe4
Yet we end up with me-too music, me-too movies, and so on. For example, take the many TV shows that compose their own Mission Impossible-style music because they can't copy the original. The result is wasted effort for an imitation that is less effective.
What copyright prevents us from re-using is not only ideas, but also the form and social significance of cultural works. Creativity is often a matter of taking existing material (stories, songs, film footage) and using it to express new ideas. Because of copyright, a lot of effort that could be directed towards developing new ideas is instead spent on creating (often) derivative material - because only then can new ideas be expressed. Furthermore, the spread of the new ideas is limited because the audience must learn this new vocabulary. If you want to use Darth Vader to make a political statement, you can't - instead you must not only create your own Darth Vader equivalent, your audience must also invest time and effort to get the Darth Vader meaning - all before you can even make the political argument.
Think, if Shakespeare had had to come up with the plots for his plays, would he have been as innovative with language? If Disney had had to come up with their own fairy tales, would they have been able to draw on centuries of significance? Copying some things lets artists focus on their strengths. It frees them from the requirement to be jacks-of-all-trades. In an environment of strong copyright, rightsholder conglomerates (like Disney, like Sony) solve this problem by bringing together a range of content and artists together under one roof. The cost is that artistic vision must give way to commercial ownership and control ownership - control that typically prefers the tried-and-true to the innovative and new.
The justification for copyright is that it pays back the up-front cost of producing the work itself. The argument is exactly what you say - that we need more of it, or rather that it would otherwise be underproduced. But of course the important thing for society is not the content itself. It is not the words on paper, the images on film that matter: it is what we do with it. We encourage writing because we want political discussion, we want intellectual engagement, we want social activity (dancing to music, watching a movie with friends), and so on. From that perspective, copyright (at least as it stands) diverts resources away from what we really want, and towards content that in many cases adds little.
(To be fair, there is another claim for copyright, which is that it creates the infrastructure necessary to nurture talent in order to produce really high quality works. This assumes that talent is scarce and/or would not otherwise be developed, and that the infrastructure - the entertainment industries - actually do direct that talent towards and produce high quality. I don't find this convincing, but even if it were true it still has to content with the fact that copyright clamps down on the socialization, political engagement, and so on that are the real reason culture matters.)
Summary of his conclusion:
Industry in the United States has suffered from patent thickets and patent trolls almost since the inception of patent laws. We can expect to continually see patent thickets and patent trolls as many inventions and innovations today are incremental and based on prior patents. And since the Sewing Machine Wars were solved without changing the patent system or intervention of the government there is no reason to react today.
After reading the paper, my conclusion:
He is correct on all counts except the last one about the system taking care of itself. His paper provides two salient historical events that prove contrary to the last conclusion; first the only means by which the sewing machine manufacturers were able to break free of the patent litigation war and finally get to the business of making sewing machines, making profits, and innovating further was to circumvent the patent system by placing patents in a pool, and second he notes the patent thicket and trolls that plagued the newly born aircraft industry and was only solved when the government stepped in and created a patent pool so the industry could get to the business of aircraft instead of litigation.
Yes, the patent system was fscked from the beginning, all one has to do is read up on Benjamin Franklin's opinions of the new patent system, but assuming it will simply take care of itself is ludicrous. If such a conclusion is valid then we can also conclude that we can simply eliminate the patent system altogether and what comes of it will simply take care of itself.
Based on the patent pools as a solution it appears that patent law is in violation of the United States Constitution as the objective was "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts" and yet the patent laws are impeding progress.