Artificial Leaf

[Minute]

Pretty badass.

http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2011/arti ... -0930.html

[Arathena]

... Wanna bet on how long it takes for the oil supermajors or an OPEC cartel component to buy the IP? (And if they do, I hope the government can be petitoned to invalidate the patent and open source the IP. The constitution clearly states that patents are to promote the progress of the useful arts, not impede them.)

[Raelesyn]

Can that be avoided somehow so these oil company's can't get their hands on it? The applications alone are worth it!

[Freecare Spiritwise]

The patent system is so screwed up that basically only huge companies can develop anything big. I remember working at a software company where the president said in a meeting: "We're either going to get sued by Microsoft, bought by Microsoft, or they will be our partners."

There's much more litigation than innovation.

[Arathena]

Patents expire, and the government may revoke them at any time. You can also get granted patents that are extension of ideas from other patents - and if you do it subtly enough, and snowjob the reviewer, you can basically lock a concept up for decades that way. It gets very tangled, very fast.

[Fallakin Kuvari]

The patent system is so screwed up that basically only huge companies can develop anything big. I remember working at a software company where the president said in a meeting: "We're either going to get sued by Microsoft, bought by Microsoft, or they will be our partners."

There's much more litigation than innovation.

Those who innovate are the ones with enough money to litigate.

[Arathena]

The patent system is so screwed up that basically only huge companies can develop anything big. I remember working at a software company where the president said in a meeting: "We're either going to get sued by Microsoft, bought by Microsoft, or they will be our partners."

There's much more litigation than innovation.

Those who innovate are the ones with enough money to litigate.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Whatever you say, Johnny G. This is a nation where IBM and Halliburton filed patents on methods of patent trolling.

[Fallakin Kuvari]

In retrospect I should've put innovate in quotations.

[Freecare Spiritwise]

Those who innovate are the ones with enough money to litigate.

Pretty much, though companies use other techniques such as buying up their own patent portfolios or just ponying up the "patent troll toll."

[Freecare Spiritwise]

In retrospect I should've put innovate in quotations.

Yeah, most of what passes for innovation is a joke. What little innovation there is, is incremental and almost always derivative.