Shuttleworth on Patents

[We] caught up with Mark Shuttleworth, the man behind Ubuntu Linux [..].

MS: The patent system is often misunderstood. It’s sold as a way of giving the little guy an opportunity to create something big … when in fact patents don’t really work that way at all.

What they do very well is keep the big guys entrenched and the little guys out. For example, it’s very common in established industries for all of the majors to buy up or file as many patents as they can covering a particular area. They know and accept that the other majors are all in the same industry and essentially cross-license each other to keep the peace within that defined market. But they use that arsenal to stop new entrants coming in and disrupting the market.

That’s almost the exact opposite of the way people think about the patent system. They think it’s supposed to catalyse disruption and innovation, but in reality it has the opposite effect [..].

DM: Does there need to be reform of the global patents system?

MS: Absolutely. I’ve long said that and motivated for that reform. The patents system was originally designed to encourage disclosure. It comes from an era, hundreds of years ago, when innovation was kept secret and kept inside family businesses for many generations. There was a recognition that if you could publish information, then other people might innovate on top of the original idea.

Patents were essentially a trade for disclosure of an idea that created a good for society in exchange for a short-term monopoly.

Two things have happened [since]. Firstly, you can’t keep secrets anymore. These days, everything can be reverse engineered. Secondly, the definitions of protection have been expanded, so it’s not good for society. You’re not really gaining disclosure you would have got anyway, and in the process you’re helping sustain cartel-type behaviours in just about every industry, but especially in technology.