Patents are about sharing information – don't shroud them in secrecy

Re:Patents are about sharing information – don't shroud them... by buyingarmor on Saturday October 26, 2019 @05:24PM (#21366317)

People usually think of incentivizing R&D in general, but patents also help to prevent trade secrets.

A trade secret can be kept secret indefinitely and can potentially be lost if the company loses interest or is shut down. Patents help encourage publishing advances in technology so that they eventually advance the public domain. If they weren't interested in that then they probably wouldn't make patents expire.

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Re:Patents are about sharing information – don't shroud them... by bnjms on Saturday October 26, 2019 @06:20PM (#21366621)

Can you give an example of something today’s scientists and engineers could not reverse engineer or make from scratch given a working implementation? Espionage and industry standard will get at most of it too. I don’t know trade secrets are the problem they used to be.

I’ll give you moon rockets and the pyramids.

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Re:Patents are about sharing information – don't shroud them... by saagarjha on Saturday October 26, 2019 @06:51PM (#21366775)

DRM software?

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Re:Patents are about sharing information – don't shroud them... by Filligree on Saturday October 26, 2019 @10:55PM (#21367633)

The same software that is regularly reverse-engineered and made useless within six months of release?

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Re:Patents are about sharing information – don't shroud them... by saagarjha on Saturday October 26, 2019 @10:57PM (#21367641)

Illegally, unfortunately :/

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Re:Patents are about sharing information – don't shroud them... by Avamander on Saturday October 26, 2019 @11:39PM (#21367756)

Just say you did the research in Estonia. Reverse engineering for the purpose of compatibility with other software is techically always allowed.

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Re:Patents are about sharing information – don't shroud them... by edoo on Saturday October 26, 2019 @05:40PM (#21366408)

Patents started out as 7 years and have been extended through lobbying efforts.

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Re:Patents are about sharing information – don't shroud them... by marcthe12 on Saturday October 26, 2019 @07:40PM (#21367023)

Yep I have no issue with patents but in certain cases even 10 years is to much. Software industry can move fast at times.

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Re:Patents are about sharing information – don't shroud them... by mr_toad on Sunday October 27, 2019 @08:12PM (#21373356)

Software patents are entirely useless if you want to implement what is described in the patent. Even the best intentioned patents are too vague and generalised to be of any use at all. And the patents filed by trolls are a mix of outlandish unworkable misleading claims, and bald-faced gibberish.

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