Delphion To Start Charging For Patent Access

adenied writes: "According to this Delphion is going to start charging for full access to their patent database starting June 1. The only thing that will be available will be U.S. bibliographic data. For those of you who don't remember, Delphion is the company that is running the old IBM patent server womplex.patent.ibm.com. This really sucks. Anyone know other free patent servers out there on the net?" Thanks to IBM, there has been amazing free access to these files for a while. But as a public office, it seems reasonable to me that the USPTO be required to make their patent files, well .. public, actually.

Comments

Re:Why should everything be free?

[ninjaz]

I don't understand this crowd. One minute, you're all spouting Libertarian rhetoric, the next, you're demanding that others foot the bill.

The patent office makes them available, but should our taxes be raised to subsidize everything? People doing patent research can pony up the money and pay for this service.

Since the point of the patent system is to encourage inventors to reveal the workings of their inventions instead of keeping them locked up, it only makes sense that the folks responsible for the running the patent office would make the information readily available.

I think the money paid by those applying for patents more than recoups any costs associated with putting a patent database on-line.

I don't see how wanting the patent office to provide access to its files conflicts w/ Libertarian ideology. More likely the concept of patents itself conflicts. Libertarian writings tend to say that the reason for monopolies is that government creates them. This happens to be one of those ways.

USPTO and Public Patents

[Mihg]

But as a public office, it seems reasonable to me that the USPTO be required to make their patent files, well .. public, actually.

So reasonable that they've already done it. See www.uspto.gov for a searchable index.

Re:USPTO and Public Patents

[sbergstrom]

It's great that they do this of course, but even if the files weren't accessible on the Internet, they're still public. The Library of Congress is certainly public but this does not mean that every work is available online. Public does not necessarily mean Internet-accessible.

Patents and Frequencies?

[scoove]

The Library of Congress is certainly public but this does not mean that every work is available online.

Fail to read a book before writing your own, and you might miss some entertainment or information. (The likelyhood of you writing the same book that's there is... well... has anyone got a bunch of monkeys and typewriters?)

Fail to read a patent before making/releasing your own invention, and open yourself to significant liabilities.

The same goes for coming up with that awesome product name - failing to search the trademark database and you might end up spending years paying someone else for the damage.

That all said, I think another metaphor might yield better results. Persons who obtain FCC radio licenses (amateur, commercial, etc.) have to study material and pass a test prior to obtaining the license. Even when the test is passed, they still pay an application fee for the license. Patents are a license of a sort - a grant to exclusivity in many ways similar to the purchase of FCC-administered spectrum.

How about an alternate approaches to patents? Since DNA and arguably all other "inventions" existed in nature and were discovered rather than invented, why don't we instead treat them as a public asset and auction them off to the highest bidder?

Say I discover through DNA research (or whatever it is they /do/) a way to insert a gene into an apple that gives it fireblight immunity. Let's then put that up in a USPTO Auction and give the commercial rights to the highest bidder.

Then, we'll take 10% of the winning bid price and give it to me for the discovery. If I want to commercialize it, then I'd better be the highest bidder too (and end up paying myself that 10%, so I have a built-in discount of 10% if I win - fair credit to the inventor).

This process would then *strongly* encourage patent licensees to actually commercialize and use their patent, rather than acquire them only to sqelch use. (I.e. if you can afford $5 billion and not use the technology, you'll probably suffer the consequences).

The bidding process does another thing by putting up a proposed new invention for sale. It allows disclosure of the proposed invention prior to its assignment - something seriously absent in today's process.

Imagine the FCC announcing a planned auction of 144 MHz to 148 MHz - they'd hear very quickly that someone already has that license. That might have a similar effect with respect to these foolish patent give-aways.

*scoove*

from my university's website

[gr0ngb0t]

Patent Information Users Group

IP Australia

US Patent & Trademark Office (UPSTO)

European Patent Office

for a few