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Apple Patents Glasses-Free 3D Projector
angry tapir writes "Apple has been awarded a US patent for a display system that would allow multiple viewers to see a high-quality 3D image projected on a screen without the need for special glasses, regardless of where they are sitting. Entertainment is far from the only field in which 3D can enhance the viewing experience: others include medical diagnostics, flight simulation, air traffic control, battlefield simulation, weather diagnostics, advertising and education, according to Apple's US patent 7,843,449 for a 3D display system."
See the idea of a patent wasn't ever really that you'd keep an invention all for yourself. It was that you'd license the technology for your invention to others, so you made money for the work and creativity of creating it, and everyone benefits. Patent trolls often needn't buy patents, they just make their own. They come up with stupid patents and then sue people for licensing fees. The problem is not that they have bought or sold a patent, it is that their patent is bullshit.
A "no licensing" thing for patents would be bad because it could reduce competition and even prevent products from coming to market. So say I work on some amazing new display technology and patent it. Wonderful stuff, going to change how things are done. However after that, I decide that I'm just not willing to go in to production of it. Too much money to start up, etc, etc, I'm just not interested. If I can't sell or license the tech, it then languishes until my patent expires. However if I can license it, no problem. I invent it and then license it out to existing display companies. I'm compensated for my work inventing it, they bring it to the mass market.
That is the reason for patents, the reason to not just get rid of them. They can be real important in two situations:
1) A person or small company makes a big invention. Patents keep big companies form stealing it from them and profiting off the work of others. Like if a 5 man company invented an amazing new wireless communications device that is cheap to make and effective. However since they are small, they produce them for $50 each. Motorola, being huge, can do it for $20 each. With no patents Motorola just takes their work and goes for it, and they get crushed being unable to compete.
2) A development that takes massive amounts of money. There is tech that takes many millions, even billions occasionally in research. A company will pour a ton of money and years of work in to something because it is worth it. But it is only worth it if they can make that R&D back. Suppose a company invents a new battery with 100x the capacity of current lithium batteries that is cheap to produce. They spend $250 million doing it, and in quantity the batteries cost only $1 per cell to make. Ok well they need to sell those for like $3-4 per cell or so, maybe more, to recoup their $250 million. Remember until they've cleared that, they are making zero dollars total on the product. However a competitor? Well they could sell the cells for $2, maybe even $1.50 each. They have only the production cost, so as long as they cover that the rest is unit profit. Without patents, they could do that.
The problem with patents currently isn't that they exist or can be licensed. It is that they are too broad, granted for too many things, and many of them are way too obvious. Parents are supposed to be for new, non-obvious things that took a lot of effort and/or creativity to make, not for any and everything. They are important to encouraging and supporting R&D, they just are too easy to abuse as it stands.