How would you suggest society repay the guy who invented the material? I can't think of any way except a temporary monopoly on its use.

The problem is that as it stands now, someone like Intellectual Ventures will have a patent like "cooling metal with water", and either force him to sell for a few hundred bucks or just interfere with anyone else who actually tries to do this. It'll be 20 years before anyone figures out a way through all of the legal mess and starts production. Even then, it will cost more, not less thanks to this.

Well no, because nobody does or legally could possibly have a patent on cooling metal with water. So I'm not sure what your point is.

It strikes me that many of the folks who most stridently object to patent law don't actually know much about it.

It's an example. And hyperboly at that. But you'd be surprised (at least I am) at the patents that are granted that really shouldn't be, but once they are have nearly magical powers given to them by existing laws to resist being overturned. The point was that it's possible to have an extremely stupid patent that really shouldn't have been legal or possible get granted anyway and cause big problems to small guys like this. He's got a great idea but not much money or clout. The patent system will almost certainly do him more harm than good.

It strikes me that many of the folks who defend patent law as it stands now most stridently are largely oblivious to the innovation that is being stifled by it's operation.

It's worthwhile to point out that he's producing this steel through his own venture where the process "is run at his proprietary lab setup at SFP Works, LLC., in Detroit."

Perhaps you and he share the same view of the value of patent protection. Certainly, I'd be concerned about the appropriation of this technology by foreign countries with less respect for US intellectual property protections.

(http://www.gizmag.com/stronger-steel-in-a-flash/18882/)

I don't know much about patent law. However, when I search for "cooling metal with water" on Google Patents, I get over 27000 hits. So, the concern is there that maybe someone does.

http://www.google.com/search?q=cooling+steel+with+water&...

In the real world, patent trolls are an insignificant minority of patent holders. Patents are either left fallow (b/c the invention has no practical commercial use), or licensed out.

The easiest way to "figure out a way through all of the legal mess" is to simply license the patent. Indeed, there is no legal mess unless you're trying to get around the patent.

Patent licensing is not a zero-sum game. A patent holder will not demand unreasonable royalties. 0.1% of something is better than 1000% of $0.

There's no way to value the contribution or potential contribution of a technology to society, nor the damage done by granting a monopoly. Not by an eminent scientist or humanist, and certainly not by a clark in a patent office.

You used the word repay - there's no way to be confident that a temporary monopoly will come within an order of magnitude of repayment.

Further we need to consider the destructive side-effects of these flawed attempts at compensation. Patents create an environment that stifles innovation: consider the threat of being taken down for inadvertently doing something that has a monopoly has granted on discourages both innovation and communication. Imagine applying for a patent, publishing, and only through that process discovering that you were infringing an existing patent! You need to pay lawyers lots to protect against that. And many inventors couldn't even be bothered with applying for a patent even if it were easy - many are inventing technologies because they have a problem to solve, not because they're aiming to create something thaqt will milk repayment from society.

The net beneficiaries of the patent system are business processes that are dedicated to playing that system.

Given the choice between something very complicated, expensive and unreliable (patent system), and something simple, free and also unreliable (the default - absence of patents), I opt for the latter.

That's all good but in the absence of patents, you'd have to resort to trade secrets.

One of the biggest reasons for patents was the public disclosure. If they are trade secrets instead, the inventor does not get any legal defense once the secrets are reverse engineered.

So I think it's a tough problem and society should err on the side of benefits for the inventor.

Software patents should be limited to 1 year :)

You have to resort to trade secrets anyway. There's never going to be a legal system that is dynamic enough to move with the whims of a collaborative technology team.

   > So I think it's a tough problem and society should err on the
   > side of benefits for the inventor.

I tried to explain above - supporting patents doesn't err on behalf of the inventor. It errs against them. Patents granted to non-inventors and used to hit inventors over the head with.

There's a great book I recommend, "Against Intellectual Monopoly". It goes back to the original patent on the steam engine, and what a bad deal for innovation and innovators that was, and proceeds from there.

Awesome, I'll definitely pick up that book.

Trade secrets.

Yeah but once the secret is reverse engineered, he has no legal defense. With a public disclosure, someone might be able to say "ah, so if I make this little twiddle here, it jumps up to 14%!" and they both benefit.