Qualcomm, National Security, and Patents
HN readers regularly miss the point of Ben's posts. I admit I'm a bit of a fanboy but sometimes I wonder if this audience just doesn't "get" Stratechery. Ben doesn't really care about Qualcomm here. It's just a poster child for what in his view is actually wrong: technology patents. Let me quote for those who skimmed:<p>"There is a certain amount of irony here: the government is intervening in the private market to stop the sale of a company that is being bought because of government-granted monopolies. Sadly, I doubt it will occur to anyone in government to fix the problem at its root, and Qualcomm would be the first to fight against the precise measures — patent overhaul — that would do more than anything to ensure the company remains independent and incentivized to spend even more on innovation, because its future would depend on innovation to a much greater degree than it does now.<p>The reality is that technology has flipped the entire argument for patents — that they spur innovation — completely on its head. The very nature of technology — that costs are fixed and best maximized over huge user-bases, along with the presence of network effects — mean there are greater returns to innovation than ever before. The removal of most technology patents would not reduce the incentive to innovate; indeed, given that a huge number of software patents in particular are violated on accident (unsurprising, given that software is ultimately math), their removal would spur more. And, as Qualcomm demonstrates, one could even argue such a shift would be good for national security."<p>IMO this is the more controversial claim he makes and nobody discusses it. I think I am in favor but I'm no legal expert. We just take it on faith that the patent system is the way the world works, but what if it's only the way the world -used to- work?