Google owes $338.7 mln in Chromecast patent case, US jury says::Alphabet’s Google violated a software developer’s patent rights with its remote-streaming technology and must pay $338.7 million in damages, a federal jury in Waco, Texas decided on Friday.

  • gapbetweenus@feddit.de
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    6
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    11 months ago

    Especially with software it’s rather clear that you don’t need copyright or patents for innovation, make everything open source and public domain.

    • FantasticFox@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      4
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      11 months ago

      Yeah, I think with software due to the low barrier to entry etc. it makes sense for it to be further towards the less protections end of the spectrum.

      But still, if you’d paid a load of PhDs to come up with some really clever algorithm (think of like how Shazam had it’s music recognition algorithm long, long before modern ML) and then someone could just steal it well, it’d harm innovation and ultimately the tech industry and investment would go elsewhere and those clever PhD grads just wouldn’t find employment.

      It’s a balance that depends on the properties of each industry, but I don’t think that no protections whatsoever is ever a good answer.

      • nivenkos@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        11 months ago

        The Shazam thing is a bad example though as the patent is still valid even when nowadays it’s a solved problem. So it should be much shorter duration.

      • gapbetweenus@feddit.de
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        11 months ago

        Why would people do anything without clear financial gain. Written on lemmy. Or just think of science, imagine fundamental science not being public domain, that would suck.

        • FantasticFox@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          11 months ago

          Yeah, but some things cost a lot of money to develop. The higher the cost of the R&D, the less likely it is to occur without some patent system. Although I agree that in programming specifically the Open Source model seems to work quite well - look at the Apache Foundation.

          You could have a model where all research was done by a public body or something like the Apache Foundation, but this reduces innovation as it means there is less opportunity for some people to try something that may not be considered likely to be successful, as publicly funded research tends to focus on the safest path. For an example, look at how public nuclear fusion research is continuing on the traditional toroidal tokamak model with ITER compared with the more experimental designs being tested by private companies such as Helion, Focus Fusion, Tokamak Energy (they are using a high aspect-ratio 'spherical tokamak).

          • gapbetweenus@feddit.de
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            2
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            11 months ago

            Again, take a look at fundamental science. I don’t buy the argument that free flow of information will stiffen innovation, quite sure it’s the opposite. Right now it seems that patents are just a way for big players to control the market, since they can buy patents, just pay a licence fee or hire an army of lawyers. Imagine a world where basic math operations would be patented - we basically live in this world.

            • FantasticFox@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              1
              ·
              11 months ago

              Fundamental science is mostly publicly funded though and has little immediate practical application. The lack of funding in much of science also shows the problems this approach has.

              • gapbetweenus@feddit.de
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                1
                arrow-down
                1
                ·
                11 months ago

                Again, just imagine basic math operation being proprietary and how it would help innovation.

    • anlumo@feddit.de
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      11 months ago

      Most open source software also relies on copyright. The GPL doesn’t work without it.

        • anlumo@feddit.de
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          11 months ago

          That’s why I’m not in favor of completely abolishing copyright. It should protect for a much shorter time, like 10 years, though. For example, companies would be free to use a ten years old Linux version (3.10 would be the newest affected version) and do whatever they want with it, but for newer ones the GPL protections would still apply.