Ernest and Patents
Ernest Adams is one of the most prolific writers about game design. He was one of the main reasons I started writing game design articles 8 years ago. In his recent article about video game patents, he said this:
"By far the best Gamasutra article on the subject [of patents] is David Sirlin's well-researched 'The Trouble with Patents.'"
Well-researched! Someone noticed, phew. Also, "by far the best." He probably wrote that off-handedly. Also I know that being motivated by external factors like what someone thinks about you is a bankrupt way to live, but it's somehow a gratifying full-circle feeling in this case. Thanks Ernest.
It's also amusing that he should call my patent article by far the best on the site when there have been *several* patent articles written by actual patent attorneys! And I'm just a guy who peeked into their world. I guess they aren't likely to point out that their own profession has spiraled out of control into a mess that now hampers innovation, rather than fosters it.
Anyway, check out Ernest's article about patents here, and also check out his older article about copyrights. The copyright article actually got me to reconsider my opinion on the matter, so I'm glad Ernest writes these things.
--Sirlin
March 15th, 2008 at 6:58 pm
Rock on, Dave!
March 15th, 2008 at 11:16 pm
Sirlin said:
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Also I know that being motivated by external factors like what someone thinks about you is a bankrupt way to live, but it’s somehow a gratifying full-circle feeling in this case.
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I think you can still be motivated by what someone thinks of you without it going to your head and strengthening your sense of self — your ego. To me, mindfulness starts with full acceptance of present circumstances. Sure, you acknowledge the usefulness of certain responsibilities and character traits, but if you worry about them too much, it tends to come at the expense of your “groundedness” in reality.
From my (albeit limited) experience, humans generally like to both do good and feel good, and we all benefit when that happens. Sometimes it’s nice knowing what you created is helping people. You may know you tried your best, which can be gratifying itself, but it’s nice to receive a bit of external validation.
I find such validation usually alleviates any worry or doubts you have associated with your creations and allows you to focus more energy on doing more creating instead of what people might think of it.
Sirlin said:
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It’s also amusing that he should call my patent article by far the best on the site when there have been *several* patent articles written by actual patent attorneys! And I’m just a guy who peeked into their world. I guess they aren’t likely to point out that their own profession has spiraled out of control into a mess that now hampers innovation, rather than fosters it.
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Ha, you’re certainly not “just a guy.” If you were, you wouldn’t get the praise and reactions you do from your articles.
What makes you different? A number of things, but mostly you said it yourself — most people aren’t likely to admit that there’s something wrong, or at least, that we could be doing much better. That takes courage, especially when you draw your livelihood from a largely redundant position, easily filled by a machine with less capacity.
This may be a simple insight, but it certainly isn’t common-place. As a rule, I find that most bad things are common place, and most good things are in a minority, heh.
Eg. I’m sure lots of people would complain if they lost their jobs to an automation machine that could do the same job without aid from a human, but those people are looking at the glass as half empty – as if they lost something.
If you look at the full half of the glass, you’ll see that everyone benefits since a task that previously required a human can now be automated, freeing up the human for more “worthy” tasks (such as furthering human potential). Sure, it may require some adjustment, but it’s very worthwhile adjustment. If there is any “loss”, it’s in the fact that said job-less person in this example didn’t make this shift sooner.
This, I believe, is one of the underlying concepts that Ernest talked about in his copyright article, and I believe it all points to one thing: money (which ultimately points to other things, but I digress). One paragraph in particular jumped out at me:
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“There’s no intrinsic reason why someone should continue to get paid for something long, long after the labor they expended on it is complete. Architects don’t get paid every time someone steps into one of their buildings. They’re paid to design the building, and that’s that. The ostensible reason we have patent and copyright law is, as the US Constitution says, “to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts.” [and] allow inventors to profit for a limited time on particular inventions, not to allow huge technology companies to put a stranglehold on innovation by patenting every tiny advance they make.”
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The sooner people stop seeing “work” as a means to an end and start seeing it as a worthy pursuit in itself, the sooner people will focus on creative, impactful contribution instead of trying to make a buck.
This doesn’t mean that we won’t need money — I suspect that we’ll always need some sort of exchange of value. It means that you acknowledge the positive impact you could have on the world if you did what truly inspires you and leverages your talents, and you do your very best to not settle for lesser pursuits (i.e. working “just to pay the bills) and instead focus on establishing what is needed for impactful contribution.
It may require some hard work (largely because our current society doesn’t support these ideas), and it may not be conventional, but it’s certainly worthwhile.
When, after interviewing thousands of people and asking the question, “do you get to play to your strengths most of the time?”, less than 2 out of 10 people reply with “yes”, you really start to see the enormous amount of untapped human potential and why it’s so important to have the courage ask questions such as, “am I making the best contribution I can, both to myself and others, and if not, what can I do to start doing so?”
The fact that you acknowledge this, Sirlin (as evidenced by your actions), along with your “contrary” ideas and perspective, is what makes you valuable. You have what it takes to be a leader in this “revolution.”
- Bruce
March 16th, 2008 at 1:34 am
I believe David Sirlin to be novel, non-obvious, and useful. Can we patent him? =P
March 16th, 2008 at 8:13 am
When Ernest makes a real game, then I will listen to what he has to say. Until then he is just an internet designer.
March 16th, 2008 at 8:39 am
@internet designers: Ouch. That’s pointy.
@the article: I’d have to say that the current patent system is the best it’s gonna get.
March 16th, 2008 at 12:23 pm
spudly: Are you insane? Ernest points out within his own article how the European patent offices are already working with rules that solve most, if not all, of his complaints. The main one being that they’ve ruled out software from being patentable at all. You’d have to be blind not to see room for improvement in the current US patent system.
March 16th, 2008 at 10:24 pm
The distinction between software patents and hardware patents is a really interesting topic that has had a lot of disucssion over the past 5-10 years.
I have a really difficult time drawing a line between the two. I studied both electrical engineering and computer science in college and it was interesting because there was so much overlap. It really taught me that there is basically no difference between the two. Basically, anything that can be implemented in software can be implemented in hardware, and vice vera. Using that as a backdrop, I have a hard time understanding how or why a computer program for doing X should be unpatentable when a system that includes a controller for doing X would be. That just fundamentally does not make any sense to me.
March 16th, 2008 at 10:47 pm
Bleat: I struggle with that too. The thing is, the patent system is supposed to promote invention, and as it is, it only stifles it. I don’t see how one could argue otherwise. The truth that is so plain to me is that software advances faster when developers are free to use each other’s ideas; object-oriented programming is rooted in this notion. Making software ineligible for patent protection might not add up from a certain perspective, but if it would allow us to advance our technology/culture/society more easily and naturally, wouldn’t it be a viable option?
March 17th, 2008 at 12:15 am
Bleat makes a good point, and I’m aware of that problem, but don’t really know what to say. If I remember my research correctly, there was a point in patent history when patents weren’t given out for software, but companies wanted them so they came up with these vaguely worded patent applications that tried to emphasize that the process described could be done in hardware. Eventually the charade was dropped. Michael B makes a good point that we might be better off in the practical world if we pretend hardware and software aren’t the same. Kind of an unsatisfying answer to be pretending things that aren’t really true though.
March 17th, 2008 at 12:50 am
That’s still using hardware to implement what is essentially software, though (hardware controllers are often nothing more than extremely optimized software routines, as in the program is represented as logic gates instead of op codes). I know there *must* be some kind of distinction here… I just can’t come up with it right now.
March 17th, 2008 at 12:58 am
Damn submit button… anyway, there must be a difference between hardware that in and of itself is useful, novel, and non-obvious, and hardware that implements software routines which take virtually no investment to create, and hence should be exempt from patents.
March 17th, 2008 at 9:21 am
I think the biggest problem with patents is the amount of time they’re good for. Way back in the day, our technology progressed at a far slower rate than it does today. I don’t think the idea of software patents is bad in theory, but their current duration in computer-years is ages. As our technology continues to advance even faster, I think the effects of this will become more and more clear.
For example, Pixar patented a random sampling method to make convincing motion blur back in the 80’s. By the time that patent finally expired, everyone was starting to move from scanline renderers over to ray-tracers and thus no longer really needed that technique. In other words, an entire generation of technology happened while they held the patent. That’s just too much, in my opinion.
March 17th, 2008 at 10:17 am
Johnny’s post has some interesting implications. I think it’s safe to assume that our ability to advance technology accelerates every year. Will it eventually progress so rapidly that it wouldn’t even be worth patenting software or hardware because something much better will be created before the patent is even approved and granted? Are we near or at that point already?
March 17th, 2008 at 12:35 pm
Michael B: Try looking into some of the books by Ray Kurzweil (Sirlin mentions him in the GDC 2008 entries here). I’m reading his book “The Singularity is Near” right now, and basically all it talks about is how the speed at which technology is advancing is increasing, and what that potentially will mean in the future. He never directly talks about things like patents, but it really is exactly what you’re talking about.
April 8th, 2008 at 8:30 am
Ugh. The problem with Ernest’s arguments vis-a-vis copyrights is the same problem I’ve seen with every other “copyright is dying, so we should let it die” treatise. Even when they acknowledge, as Ernest does, that the death of copyright means the death of the movies and video games we love to play, the best they offer up is “well, we’ll find a way.”
Well, until someone actually finds that way, the death of copyright means the death (or, at best, malaise) of creativity and progress.
April 8th, 2008 at 3:00 pm
Justin: That has to be the silliest thing I’ve heard in a good while.