“The patent system was established to encourage inventors to disclose the details of their inventions. Its purpose was to help society rather than to help inventors. At the time, the life span of 17 years for a patent was short compared with the rate of advance of the state of the art. Since patents are an issue only among manufacturers, for whom the cost and effort of a license agreement are small compared with setting up production, the patents often do not do much harm. They do not obstruct most individuals who use patented products.”

1980s, GNU Manifesto (1985)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

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Richard Stallman130

American software freedom activist, short story writer and … 1953

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“Software patents may be used as a form of outright coercion, providing protection against theft of ideas as a potentially high cost to future inventors.”

Nathaniel Borenstein (1957) American computer scientist

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“The lesson is that the number of patents (produced by Taiwan) is irrelevant. After all, products that are discarded do not need patents. Universities and researchers must adjust their modes of thought. It is not just the sheer quantity of papers published, but whether the topics of such papers would be of help in ensuring the future of Taiwanese society.”

Chen Liang-gee (1956) politician

Chen Liang-gee (2017) cited in " INTERVIEW: Minister says role is to be ‘trailblazer’ for technology http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2017/04/03/2003667988/3" on Taipei Times, 3 April 2017

“Unless we find a solution to the problem of interlocking patents, the patent system may actually impede the very innovation it was designed to encourage.”

Ha-Joon Chang book Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism

Source: Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism (2008), Ch. 6, The tyranny of interlocking patents, p. 128
Context: The days are over when technology can be advanced in laboratories by individual scientists alone. Now you need an army of lawyers to negotiate the hazardous terrain of interlocking patents. Unless we find a solution to the problem of interlocking patents, the patent system may actually impede the very innovation it was designed to encourage.

“If people had understood how patents would be granted when most of today's ideas were invented, and had taken out patents, the industry would be at a complete standstill today.… The solution to this is patent exchanges with large companies and patenting as much as we can.”

Bill Gates (1955) American business magnate and philanthropist

" Challenges and Strategy http://web.archive.org/web/20010218085558/http://bralyn.net/etext/literature/bill.gates/challenges-strategy.txt" (16 May 1991). Note that this quotation has been paired with a misattributed quotation. <br class="br">1990s

“If we fail in our efforts to achieve harmonisation of patent law relating to computer-implemented inventions in the European Union, we may well be confronted with a renegotiation of the European Patent Convention. The process of renegotiating the European Patent Convention would not require any contribution from this Parliament.”

Frits Bolkestein (1933) Dutch politician

Speech to the European Parliament (23 September 2003)
2000s

“An invention is something that was “impossible” up to then—that’s why governments grant patents.”

Robert A. Heinlein (1907–1988) American science fiction author

Source: The Door Into Summer (1957), Chapter 6

“We do not have any production secrets. We invest a lot of effort and money in new research projects. However, before our new invention is used in real life, we usually invent something better. For this reason, we do not have a single patent to protect our inventions.”

Tomáš Baťa (1876–1932) Czech businessman

Attributed to Tomas Bata at tomasbata.com, 2015
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“Well, the people, I would say. There is no patent. Could you patent the sun?”

Jonas Salk (1914–1995) Inventor of polio vaccine

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Context: Edward R. Murrow: Who owns the patent on this vaccine?
Jonas Salk: Well, the people, I would say. There is no patent. Could you patent the sun?

“Fighting patents one by one will never eliminate the danger of software patents, any more than swatting mosquitoes will eliminate malaria.”

Richard Stallman (1953) American software freedom activist, short story writer and computer programmer, founder of the GNU project

"How to fight software patents - singly and together", Newsforge (9 September 2004)
2000s

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