Some examples:
- Rust memory management
- New models in machine learning that enables amazing results
- Protocols
Ideas may also require intellectual labour. But one may not receive the protection of the government for them to give temporary advantage over competitors. Ideas are a collaborative venture, protocols being the very epitome of this - since a "protocol of one" is a bit like a birthday party for one... a bit sad and pointless.
If one wants to make money, by all means invest time in pursuing patentable inventions, but do not presume that mere ideas (most of which are "nothing new under the sun") should be afforded the same protection.
The problem we have today is that the patent system is derelict. The goalposts have shifted to allow almost all and any silly idea to obtain a patent and the system itself is weaponised for extraction. It has not shown any will to reform, so abolition may be its ultimate fate.
Consider the idea of "going to the moon" versus the implementation of Project Apollo.
Your post seems to entirely misunderstand the patent system. “But one may not receive the protection of the government for [ideas] to give temporary advantage over competitors.” This is just flat out wrong. The purpose of a patent is literally to receive the protection of the government for your ideas in order to give you a temporary advantage over your competitors via a government granted monopoly on an idea. The bargain that’s struck is that the patent owner gives the details of their patented idea to the world so that anyone can eventually practice it or build off of it in exchange for a limited exclusionary protection in commerce.
One example I saw just today :
Thomas Savery getting a patent on "make, imitate, use or exercise any vessells or engines for raiseing [sic] water or occasioning motion to any sort of mill works by the impellent force of fire,", which I assume subordinated Thomas Newcomen during the patent's duration = all of his life to Savery, despite Newcomen's engine being much more advanced & commercially successful... (at least he didn't end up destitute, like some of the previous steam engine inventors !)
Rust's memory management was invented without any such incentive, and the world is richer for it.
Even if it would have stopped java from being a thing it's just not worth it.
And if so, do they outweigh legal costs and chilling effects of patent trolling, and the inefficiencies of people having to engineer around patented ideas.
Intellectual property is a fairly artificial concept. It's quite "big government" when you think about it - government grants a monopoly on the application of an idea. It is only worth preserving if it makes the country richer.
Once I had an idea while sitting on the toilet, about how to use past log data to pre-emptively scale up, when the peak hour is about to come.
I had the idea just randomly sitting on the toilet for a few minutes… it was already patented.
I imagine that this is the case for most stuff in the world. Ideas are not usually unique but it's the great execution of the idea that present the real challange.
Just the testing procedures involve massive investment.
I'm not in favour of patents at large by the way, but they make even less sense for software.
