Battling the Patent Trolls

opus writes "There's an interesting series of articles at law.com on the current situation in patent law, which has become "a money-minting machine for a few patent holders". Includes an article on Peter Detkin, counsel at Intel, who spends much of his time battling patent infringement claims against Intel, and who coined the term "patent troll". Apparently it's not just the geeks who are unhappy with the current state of affairs in patent law."

Comments

Patents Aren't Necessarily a Bad Thing

[isa-kuruption]

Until a "geek" comes up with a new and great idea, you all will continue to think that patents are a bad idea. Here's why patents are actually GOOD for the economy, granted there needs to be some changes (specifically to that of software-based copyrights)...

A patent allows an individual or company to make money off the R&D for their products. If a company can't make money off of their original R&D, then why would they bother doing R&D? The perfect example of a company that's primary focus is R&D is Qualcomm. They aren't interested in making products, heck you may be able to name 2 things they actually do make (Eudora and Cell Phones), but they've sold their Cell Phone division to Ericson(sp?). However, if you have ever walked into the main building of the Qualcomm campus in San Diego, CA they have a wall about 20' high and approx. 100' long of just plaques (8x11") of the patents they own. Qualcomm then licenses their technology (the use of their patents) to other companies, and this is where Qualcomm makes their money.

I've never ONCE seen a gripe about Qualcomm's "crappy business practices" on /. or have ever heard anyone say "Qualcomm is a big meanie." But the fact is, if Qualcomm could not patent the R&D that they do, they could NOT make money and would not be in business. Some may say that it wouldn't make a difference if Qualcomm went away, well, Qualcomm DID develope the *FIRST* really NICE Windows-based E-mail program .... then came outlook. Some may say Eudora is STILL better than Outlook (although, I somewhat disagree). The other thing is, the reason Qualcomm started manufacturing cell phones was to prove their technology was superior! Once they did prove this, they were able to sell licensing on their patents to other companies and then sell off their manufacturing to Ericson (at really no profit to them; their profit is in the patent licensing). And some companies STILL DO NOT license Qualcomm's cell phone technology, instead they did some R&D of their own and developed a similar (and maybe better) alternative which they probably have also patented. Which means, companies like Qualcomm will do more R&D for something better again.

Patents allow someone to make money from the R&D they do. Patents also force other companies or people to develope new and better ways of "doing something" other than "just copying the other guy's stuff". This means there are LEAPS in innovation, not just a slow crawl.

nuisance patent

[Anath]

Oh Boy! /me rushes off to patent "a money-minting machine" wonder if I can patent the concept of making money via fraudulent / nuisance patents... Rambus may have prior art though, phooey..