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Two Nobel Prize winners want to cancel their own CRISPR patents in Europe

(www.technologyreview.com)
167 points thisismytest | 4 comments | 17 Nov 24 03:03 UTC | HN request time: 0.2s | source
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ixaxaar ◴[17 Nov 24 04:45 UTC] No.42162021[source]▶
What a sad fucking world. I like what China does in the regard to patents. That is exactly what patents deserve.
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kergonath ◴[17 Nov 24 10:50 UTC] No.42163357[source]▶
It works when you are catching up. Japanese companies used the same strategy post-WWII. And a lot of other countries, Japan is just a striking example as it was so visible and quick. “Made in Japan” went from derogatory to a sign of quality in about a generation.

Surprisingly when you are in the lead and others have to catch up, IP protections sound much better.

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1. dnh44 ◴[17 Nov 24 18:04 UTC] No.42165700[source]▶
There are possibly also longer term repercussions from abolishing patents in that people or companies will naturally instead protect themselves via keeping trade secrets instead. This will probably result in some inventions being lost to history instead of being on the public record once the patent expires.
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2. 627467 ◴[17 Nov 24 23:05 UTC] No.42168155[source]▶
Yeah, trade secrets will become bigger, so? You need to expose the product. Or the process, things get reverse engineer. Overall, the net effect will likely be positive if monopolies end.
3. stoperaticless ◴[17 Nov 24 23:18 UTC] No.42168235[source]▶
How useful are patent records for rebuilding technology?

I imagine that patent is not a recipe, but description used identify infringements.

If goal is only to identify infringements, then I would leave bunch of stuff out of patents. (Later I could fill new patent for same thing just describe those parts that were left out in the first one)

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4. dnh44 ◴[18 Nov 24 00:43 UTC] No.42168673[source]▶
In theory the patent is supposed to describe everything necessary to reproduce the invention. If something is left out that is critical then there isn't really any invention there and the patent shouldn't be awarded. I understand that in practice some patents are written in such a way to make this difficult.