pmarca + peter thiel on patents

patents.txt

Marc Andreessen: There are some areas in tech—drugs and mechanical equipment,
for instance—where parents are fundamental. In these areas there are long
established historical norms for who gets to do what. But in software, things
change extremely quickly. The big companies used to have huge war chests full
of patents and use them to squash little guys. Now they’re fighting each
other. The ultimate terminal state of big companies seems to be a state in
which they build nothing. Instead, they just add 10,000 patents to their
portfolio every year and try to extract money through licensing. It’d be nice
if none of this were the case. But it’s not startups’ fault that the patent
system is broken. So if you have a startup, you just have to fight through it.
Find the best middle ground strategy.

Peter Thiel: In some sense, it may be good to have patent problems. If you
have to have problems, these are the kind you want to have. It means that
you’ve done something valuable along the way. No one would be coming after you
if you didn’t have good technology. So it’s a problem you want to have, even
if you don’t.