> “That is, of course, the irony of the patent system. Without patent protection, a competitor can simply replicate an invention and undercut the inventor’s price — which necessarily includes all the time and expense of research and development — so the incentive to experiment and create is severely inhibited. But if innovators such as Glenn Curtiss cannot build on the progress of others without paying exorbitantly for the privilege, the incentive to continue to experiment and create is similarly inhibited.”
That's not really irony. The patent system exists (or did exist) not to benefit the inventor, but to provide a mechanism by which he may share it with other people who want to build on it. The alternative was keeping trade secrets.
This is an oft-repeated lie. The point of patents, as stated in the US constitution, is to incentivize inventors by giving them a monopoly for a limited time. It says nothing about disclosure.
Promoting disclosure doesn't make sense anyway since once an invention is commercialized it can usually be reverse-engineered.
I don't understand where this idea comes from or why people always bring it up.
The US Constitution didn't invent patents; it enabled them based on an earlier tradition. That tradition had come to include a descriptive/disclosure requirement, as part of the mechanism by which the patent promoted technological progress.
The US Constitution's language is sufficiently open-ended –"promote the progress of science and useful arts" – that it covers not just incentivized conception but also the 'progress' of knowledge-diffusion (disclosure). Also, in that era, before mass-manufactured products or even a proper understanding of elements and molecules, it was far less likely that the delivered product itself embodied enough information to reverse-engineer the processes that made it.
So:
• not a lie;
• the significance of disclosure is brought up because it was familiar to the authors of the US Constitution;
• the Constitution's language is generic enough to include 'disclosure' as one aspect of the 'progress' it describes;
• modern reasoning about the supposed ease of reverse-engineering doesn't apply to the early patent systems.
You are saying that we should ignore the plain language of the constitution and instead look into the authors' minds and invent a convoluted hidden meaning that supposedly has something to do with disclosure.
Many of the same people who wrote and ratified the constitution (1787-1789) also then wrote and ratified the Patent Act of 1790, which (just like earlier English law) included disclosure requirements.
I trust them on what they meant by "promote the progress", over your idiosyncratic interpretation from 225 years later. Especially since even today "progress" is understood to be advanced by widespread-knowledge, not just first-knowledge.
You can't grant a monopoly on an invention without describing the invention. You need something for judges to decide if there is infringement. Disclosure is just a side effect of how patents work, it's not the purpose.
The idea is to promote science by granting exclusive rights, as it says in the constitution. Not to promote science by publishing vague legalistic descriptions of inventions. Inventors do not go rummaging through patent documents for ideas.
Patents were already a legal device long before European pilgrims settled Jamestown. The original reasons behind patents existing, assuming the non-existence of time machines, has nothing whatsoever to do with the constitution of the USA.
The constitution is rather pithy. It simply states that:
"To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries."
No incentive mentioned either. It's just understood that providing the exclusive right for a limited time will somehow promote progress. So you need to go to the founders' more expensive writings and generally understood truths of the time to argue intent.
It's not to "incentivize inventors" (you) it's to "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts" (the US constitution).
It comes from the USPTO, for one place. It's called the "Enablement Requirement". It requires that you enable other people to make the invention.
That's where it comes from, and that's why people always bring it up.
"The purpose of the requirement that the specification describe the invention in such terms that one skilled in the art can make and use the claimed invention is to ensure that the invention is communicated to the interested public in a meaningful way."
> Promoting disclosure doesn't make sense anyway since once an invention is commercialized it can usually be reverse-engineered.
Well still don't know for sure how people built the pyramids.
It is difficult to imagine a world with guilds and trade secret like the middle age. Everything from the simplest element to the most complex is only available to selected member of the guild. But the accumulation of undisclosed tech ends up mounting and make reverse-engineering much harder.
> Promoting disclosure doesn't make sense anyway since once an invention is commercialized it can usually be reverse-engineered.
The idea is to encourage inventor to disclose details of his invention before it is successfully commercialized so others can take it into account in their own ideas and actions. To develop complementary or improved inventions. Basically not to invent exact same thing twice.
I've often been told I should not read patents related to my work as it could result in a worse judgement against me if I were sued and found to be infringing. Unfortunately, it's so difficult to know if you're infringing that it doesn't seem worth trying to prevent reinvention.
It's a shame, but the idea doesn't seem to have worked out in practice.
For a lot of this stuff, trade secrets wouldn't really keep people from sharing innovation.... Anyone could have looked at a Wright airplane and figured out how the lateral stabilization worked.
That's not really irony. The patent system exists (or did exist) not to benefit the inventor, but to provide a mechanism by which he may share it with other people who want to build on it. The alternative was keeping trade secrets.