Reddit Inc., the social media platform gearing up for an initial public offering this week, said Nokia Oyj has accused it of infringing some of their patents.
I’m starting to get the feeling that we are both repeating ourselves, but this is not a just a side effect, it is systematic. Turning an idea into property means only capital can play the game. In effect patents do two things: Firstly they inhibits innovation, the exact opposite of what they are supposed to do, this should be ground enough to get rid of them. Second they entrench big players, big players have more money to play the patent game and so tend to win patent fights regardless of merit. So besides not achieving their so called stated goal they also have a huge negative externality. And all this before we even take patent trolls into account.
I’m starting to get the feeling that we are both repeating ourselves, but this is not a just a side effect, it is systematic. Turning an idea into property means only capital can play the game. In effect patents do two things: Firstly they inhibits innovation, the exact opposite of what they are supposed to do, this should be ground enough to get rid of them. Second they entrench big players, big players have more money to play the patent game and so tend to win patent fights regardless of merit. So besides not achieving their so called stated goal they also have a huge negative externality. And all this before we even take patent trolls into account.