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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."
The protocol is broken. Consider the following case, I file for 10 patents, I put them up for auction per the protocol. I then bid for the patents myself (possibly through one of my offshore companies).
Under such a scheme I can bid a billion dollars for my own patent, secure in the knowledge that if I am forced to pay I will be paying myself.
The CMU scheme sounds like the work of someone who has spent too much time reading Aynn Rand and too litte time noticing that most markets are rigged.
Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
Watch me pull a scenario out of my ass!
So, let me get this straight... company A spends 5 years and $4.3 billion developing a new technology. They don't (or can't) patent it. Companies B,C and D all come along and "use" this technology to market their own products, creating a competition lowering prices. Great for the consumer! Now company A is only making 1/4th of the profits (probably less than that due to decrease in cost due to competition) then they would have been making and never recover the $4.3 billion they spent developing their technology. Investors then pull out, employees leave the company, and the company goes out of business. Investors will then not see spending money on investments as a lucrative means of making money for themselves and will stop investing in technological advancements and all funding will go out the window... no more R&D because companies won't be able to afford it without their investments. How is this "conducive to encouraging invention?"
Sorry, but you're going to have to back that argument up with some facts. When has this happened? Who were the companies involved? What was the invention? I'd be willing to bet some big money that you can't come up with any solid examples because it doesn't work that way. If you spend over 4 billion dollars on research, I'm willing to bet that you've come up with something so damn fantastic that the competition can't build a competing product without spending a huge amount of money themselves.
Look at the Mach 3 razor: Gillette spent a fortune (over a billion dollars, IIRC) on R&D for that sucker. Razor designs are commonly duplicated, but I still haven't seen any other triple bladed razors on the market. I don't think it's because somebody patented the "three blades on a razor" idea or that nobody can reverse-engineer it. It's because manufacturing something like that is fiendishly hard and requires a substantial investment in both R&D and implementation. Even if someone did come up with a cheap knock-off, Gillette has already made a huge amount of money on the Mach 3 because they had first-mover advantage and brand recognition as "The developer of the Mach 3".
For an even better example, look at the software industry before the advent of software patents. Companies like IBM, AT&T and Xerox spent billions on research and development, yet their ideas were publicly available and by your argument should have gone out of business. Guess what: IBM, AT&T, and Xerox made vast fortunes off of their software and are still giants today. After software patents came in, innovation slowed down and you got things like Apple suing over "look and feel" and the DMCA bullshit that put Dmitry Skylarov in prison.
You're a patent troll apologist and you make me nauseous. Next time, back up your flights of fancy with some real world examples and I'll take you seriously.
This
The best reform idea I've seen (which I think was thought up by an economist at MIT's Sloan School of Mangaement) works something like this: Once you get issued a patent, you must put it up for auction. After the auction is over, flip a coin. Heads, and the government pays you 120% of the winning bid and puts the patent in the public domain. Tails, and the high bidder buys the patent.
send all spam to theotherwhitemeat@ropine.com
I tried a crack at it, but my solution resulted in a huge reliance on the courts.
Totally unlike current IP laws, which result in a huge abuse of the courts.
BTW, what was your solution? I'm sure we'd all love to hear it.
You are absolutely correct.
I made a similar point in another discussion with respect to copyright law (and its abuses), but I think it applies to any sort of "artificial scarcity" which all IP law ultimately relies on.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
AN/"intel corporation": 3598 patents.
I am sure you can see the difference in value between patents awarded to a corporation with a R&D department which actually researches the stuff they have patents for, and those of a leech with no research, just the "administration" of other people's patents.
Did you see the 60 minutes the other night? It was about bio-tech companies patenting genes. Someone DISCOVERED the genes related to breast cancer and patented them. Later on two researchers where doing studies related to breast cancer and got a letter from some lawyers. They had to stop doing research as they were infringing on the patents!
Apparently economists really want to change the patent laws. But unless an economist can come up with a revolutionary new theory, stuff isn't going to change because big corporations have too much vested interest in patents. The problem of patents dates back to radio, but we keep seeing it get worse and worse as time goes by. If you didn't have lawyers and thieves, patents could be a beutiful thing... Imagine open source on all intellectual property instead of restricting access... Bleh, lots of problems, but if you can solve em, everyone would love to hear from you. I tried a crack at it, but my solution resulted in a huge reliance on the courts.
God spoke to me
Well, in fact there is the comparatively rarely exercised latches doctrine. Roughly the idea is that if a patent holder encourages others to freely make use of the patent by making it appear as though it will not be enforced, waiting for them to expend lots of resources in doing so, and then blackmailing them with the patent, the patent can be invalidated with regards to the users. The courts do require that patents not be abused so as to function against their purpose.
Positively enticing use would probably qualify; I'm mostly curious about negatively silently permitting use.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
But the threat of an injunction which stops production for a year or so whilst the lawyers fight it out in court is a gun to the head of these companies. So we have what amounts to a protection racket: pay up or be put out of business. At the moment the fees are tolerable, but this kind of thing has a way of growing exponentially as more people catch on to the idea of easy money. Once patent trolls start making a measurable dent in the bottom line you can bet that these companies are going to start complaining to their tame congresscritters.
(Not that I've got anything against large companies in themselves: some things just really do need a large organisation to make happen. But I've noticed that getting something done is just so much easier when you have the president of a large company backing you)
Paul.
You are lost in a twisty maze of little standards, all different.
Someone invents something, but doesn't have the money to produce it. There's no way they can protect their invention, so either they keep it secret, it's stolen by someone who can manufacture it. In either case they make no money on the invention. A tax break on $0 amounts to a $0 benefit. Guess that inventor will be too busy flipping burgers to invent something else.
The players
Company A
Company B
Mr Brain.
Under the new system Mr. Brain would patent his new widget the same as he would now. So Company A sees Mr Brain's (our hero scientist/engineer) widget. Company A decides to manufacture Mr. Brains widget and can do so without his permision under the new system. Mr. Brain is very frustrated and continues flipping burgers.
Company A lets out a manical laugh as it rakes in gobbs of money from Mr. Brains brainy hard work. Big Ego(tm) CEO guy of company A meets Big Ego(tm) guy from company B for lunch and brags about how smart he is and how much money he is making selling widgets.
Company B CEO decides to make some money selling widgets too. His team crunches some numbers to determine his gross profit and decides to start makeing widgets. Then he remembers, "why don't we check the USPO?" He finds the patent #234507458734957349574985798457 and discovers it's for widgets and belongs to Mr. Brain. He contacts Mr. Brain and offers him a cut of their tax break if he sells them the patent. Mr Brain likes the sound of getting paid to do research so he decides to agree. Lawyers are dispatched.
CEO B meets CEO A for lunch and brags about how much money he is going to save with his tax breaks because he bought the rights to and the associated tax breaks for patent #234507458734957349574985798457. His numbers look good, widgets will be cheaper and he now will be making gobs of money.
Fuming that Mr Brain and CEO B has outwitted him CEO A dipatches high speed lawyers(TM) and gets to Mr. Brain first. He offers him more money for the patent. Since no deal was offically made Mr. brain stops, thinks about it and says "I'm waiting for a better offer".
Mr Brain now hires an economic anylist who tells him to wait 4 years and then the widget sales will be close to peaking. Mr Brain holds out and works on other things. And in 4 years plays company A and company B off each other making 25 times what he would have originaly.
Whats different than the current system? Markets can't develop because government granted MONOPOLIES stiffle them. Inventors sell at a much lower cost and profit than they could if they waited for the market to develop. They can't do that now as we know from the .gif situation.
This is the way for the "market to sort it out" Currently the government is sorting it out and that just isn't working. When the government has taxes at stake it will be more picky with patents.
As for copyrights that is another discussion and my hands are tired :)
Novel theory: Modern Man evolved from psychopath
I'm not convinced that the "croak and poke" strategy really represents a solution in this case.
Unless, that is, you could expedite the croaking somehow... Perhaps you could patent that process :^)
Bryguy
microsoftword.mp3 - it doesn't care that they're not words...
Ignoring the issue of Ethics and making pacts with the Devil etc, I believe (especially with the current IT downturn) that I'm in the wrong business! :-)
Some of these Lawyers made $200,000 just by filing a comlaint! And the other guys are trying to sue intel for $7Bn ++!!!
And all this is a legal way to make money!!!
On the one hand I bust a gut working 65hrs+ a week or I sell my soul to the devil and sit on my ass writing ppl nasty letters for a couple of hours a week for exponential sums of money!
Not much competition there...
-- "To ask a question is to show ignorance; Not to ask a question means you'll remain ignorant."
As with all legal areas involving technology, if we as technology professionals do not make our voices heard, as the group most immediately and directly impacted by actions like this, then we have no one but ourselves to blame.
As for the sections of the article dealing with "abuses" by the infamous Jerome Lemelson (I'll let you search yourself if you are not familiar with him and his patent portfolio) and his "submarine patents," the particular aspect of patent law that allowed him to file applications, let them lie dormant for years while industries sprung up, then have new patents issue covering already established practices, the article is merely proagating more FUD. The law has changed and it is no longer possible to do this. In fact, the rule now is that applications are now published 18 months after filing - even before issuance.
Finally, ask yourself: If you worked hard and invented something, wouldn't you want to benefit from it instead of having someone with more resources steal it and sweep you under the rug? Patents provide that benefit. A good patent lawyer is the inventor's best friend because he will make sure the inventor is protected to the maximum extent permitted. And despite popular opinion, the PTO statistics say that fewer than 3% of all patents issued make money for the inventor, so getting a patent is not an instant win in the lottery.
Laws affecting technology will always be bad until enough techies become lawyers.
If I do get this correctly, if the enginer who made it dies, someone can come along and buy the patent off ? Supose you invented ISDN, these guys come, buy it off from you for 10 000 bucks, wait until all companies use it and sue for billions in damages? It hinted somewhere that it was intel engineers who put out the ammo for Techsearch's suit. In that case its partly intels fault (if they pay them like shit and treat them bad). I'm not sure Techsearch are the good guys either, how much of the billions will go to those who really deserve it, plus did the guys who "stole their work" actually made major contributions? Maybee it's the "janitor" who stole the enginer's plans? Its no news that people get away with produceing stricly nothing. Unless you make Patent void when the inventor dies, it'll keep on happening. Its the same for copyrights, J.Hendrix is dead! Why are his cds so expensive?
Unfortunately, this doesn't imply that he can't sue you for infringing. Merely that if you buy a sufficiently good lawyer you should be able to defend yourself. A then there's the filing fees, the transcript fees, the...
This is a battle that only the wealthy have any chance in, even when to an outsider it would appear an open an shut case. If you aren't a patent attorney, you don't even have the right to an opinion. (That trims down the list of mathematicians substantially.)
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Well when apple created the sound "sosueme" it was because of the Apple brand of audio equipment.
The deal was something along the line of; we are a computer maker so we can have the same name as you because we dont do audio. Then apple decided to make audio a part of the computer and they created the alert sound "sosueme".
I had a point to this story and then I remembered that the closest thing to me has just pushed me away. Now I have no reason to talk about anything. Good bye....
"Not my manner of thinking but the manner of thinking of others has been the source of my unhappiness." - M
Start from a plausible moral point:
In one case : Some people spend their lives working for other people, one the sole fact that the latter own the means of production
In the other case: Using (whatever 'using' means) ideas,art, whatever that someone else has made (whatever 'made' means) amounts to taking advantage of that person's work without due compensation
Second step : governments steps in, and tries to devise from scratch a totally arbitrary legal system, consisting in restrictions to freedom, in order to change the things are naturally:
In the case of communism, change the natural scarcity of means of production into an artificial abundance.
In the case of IP, change the natural abundance of an idea into an artificial scarcity.
Third steps, when the shortcommings of the laws become obvious, the government reacts by saying that it will be OK when the next generation has been indoctrinated at school (see recent /. news about the UK), and tightens the restrictions to freedom.
this search at the USPTO, and found:
Searching 1996-2001...
Results of Search in 1996-2001 db for:
AN/"intel corporation": 3598 patents.
Hits 1 through 50 out of 3598
and wondered how I would find the time to burn both ends of that candle.
Poor Intel! my heart bleeds! Something must be done to protect our beloved Intel from these trolls!!!
Can't we charge them under the DMCA or something?
How did a system that was supposed to encourage innovation turn into a moneymaking machine for bottom-feeders? I can not imagine any way that repealing patent law and disbanding patents would be any worse than the situation we have now. It appears unsalvagable -- can't we just hit the reset button and start from scratch?
This is a horrible idea. So much for the little guy being able to make money on inventions. This would destroy the garage inventor. Right now if someone invents something on their own, and can't raise the initial capital to produce the product themselves, they can license the patent to other people who can use it. Without a patent they have to try and raise the money to do this themselves, and their invention itself may be the only thing they have that is valuable enough to use as credit. Besides, what god is a tax credit if you ren't making any money. If other companies aren't paying any development costs, then in many cases they will still be able to undersell you. Technology companies are also a very large part of the US economy. If you give them tax credits on all their inventions, then where do the taxes that run our government come from? If you think the government is just going to spend less, then you're delusional. If you give me the "companies don't pay taxes anyway argument", then what's the purpose of a tax credit in the first place. I don't think this idea was thought through very well.
More of the patents that never should have been issued are issued to companies that in some cases attempt to patent every iteration of some piece of garbage their research department came up with.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
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)...
/. 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.
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
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.
You better not be doing any encryption technology or else you'll be in violation of the DMCA by doing that reverse engineering.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Companies would even brag about holding a patent in their advertising.
But today, when I hear about someone getting a patent, I'm inclined to think "On what? Fire, the wheel, or did you go all out and invent an incandescent light bulb? By the way, where did you say you got your MBA again?"
Do patents have any prestige left?
He put his boots up on the table and made a face. "The sig," he smirked. "You can waste your life in search of the sig."
Winter 2010: With Glowing Hearts
that was sarcasm. It's worth slightly more than 1% of that now.
-- the most controversial site on the Web
wait a minute, you say I cannot patent the right to have no rights?
This guy is a lawyer working for TechSearch and is going after intel for $2 billion to $7 billion in damages. After reading the article it's disgusting how the people patent office can justify some of these patents. I never thought the day would come when I actually would pity Intel. Thanks to Niro, that day has come.
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..
The earth is 98% full, please delete anyone you can!
Your suggestion about Time To Live just gave me a silly idea...
:-)
Imagine if the Patent system was operated like that of the DNS system. $70 to register a patent for two years; first come first served! Time to live on the Patent servers might be set at 24 hours, so your patent might temporarily expire if your local patent server crashed...
GreatPatents.com - the Internet's Number 1 patent marketplace - could sell you the leading patents at discount prices!
OK, I'll do some work now!
http://www.themeparks.ie
It's just before 9:00am where I am. Not everyone in this world lives on the East Coast of the USA :)
http://www.themeparks.ie
All right, we've established that the patent system is not bad in and of itself (it encourages manufacturing investment in a situation where information is temporarily vulnerable) but simply that there are people who abuse it, like any other system.
I wonder what the judges would think if many of these cases went to court? Surely the fact that the companies suing have never involved themselves in the manufacture or design of any product would weigh against them. Certainly, their track record would show that these people aren't inventors trying to win back the right to produce the fruits of their labors, but pirates who board a company and wave swords around until someone brings up the doubloons from the hold. Their case rests not on the strength of their position, but on the money it will take to pay someone to swim the legal moat to push it over.
A clever bit of roguery, my congratulations. After all, everything worthwhile in the world was built through backstabbing and piracy.
What we call folk wisdom is often no more than a kind of expedient stupidity.-Edward Abbey
First and foremost, being awarded a PATENT means very little per se. This is nothing new; it has been this way for at least 100 years. The patent systems main function is largely to be a repository of CLAIMS. Merely making CLAIMS does not mean that it is UNIQUE, WORTHWHILE, or even INNOVATIVE. Contrary to popular opinion, the patent office is not supposed to be the final arbitrator of a patent. Their main role is to keep the database to a reasonably manageable size and scope, to this end, they do some filtration, but only nominally so. It is enough to keep out most of the population's complete and utter flatulence out, but not much more.
All that has really changed is society. PEOPLE today are far more inclined to see the value of mere IDEAS, whereas decades before, PHYSICAL GOODS and SERVICES were more respected. This increasing popularity has lead to MORE patents, unsuprisingly. As a result of this surge of patents, more have been accepted. In the process, the patent office has gotten a little overwhelmed, and has had to step back their review process to some extent; however, when it comes to real industry and substantial companies, not much has changed. Companies and capable innovators still file and recieve sufficient protection. When their patents are challenged, it is the COURTS that play that final and important role, never the patent office.
While it is true that the patent office could improve some things, I think slashdot needs to take a step back and really understand the history and the way the system really works before they jump to conclusions. For instance, I often hear that patents need much more scrutiny (completely ignoring for a minute all the fools that say IP should not exist). But would they really want this? First and foremost, in order to cope with even the legitimate flow of patents, it would require orders of magnitudes more funding. Society would either have to subsidize this or filing fees would have to be dramatically increased--neither are really desirable. Second, this would put a tremendous amount of power into the hands of a few patent office employees (or the "panel" of academics that decides). Patents are NECESSARILY complex animals and there is really no fair and equitable way around some kind of litigation process, whereby both, contesting, parties can make themselves heard--to bring forth their best evidence, experts, and such. In both cases, in order to make the system equitable and profitable, we would still end up with a terribly complex and expensive system, much like the system we have today. Furthermore, if you force this level of review up front, you would lose many of the advantages of our existing system. Our current system allows the amount of resources to scale with the worth and the value of the patent to a large degree.
...oh well this is too involved to lay it all out right now. Just THINK, people.
Intellectual property can be the most valuable asset of a high-tech company. Many times, a company's product(s) are based on technology that they have patented. If a competitor uses that patented technology to market a competing product, that can affect the revenue stream of the company holding the patent.
Many companies (including the one I work for) routinely purchase competitors products and take them into product evaluation/reverse engineering labs to see what makes them tick and also to see if they are using technology patented by the company doing the evaluation.
Typically, if a patent violation is found, a letter is sent to the company requesting a meeting, where they try to hammer out a licensing agreement. If that doesn't work, it may end up in court.
I actually work in the patent licensing division of my company. And to tell you the truth, most companies (except for a few of the super big ones) do NOT wish to go to court, even the ones trying to patent enforce. It is too costly for both sides, and it turns it into a lose-lose situation. Of the big companies that I have seen, only TI is not scared to litigate (but then again, they do spend 250 million a year on lawyer fees alone). Patent enforcement may be going downhill, but I still think it's respectable. IBM, as an example, is quite fair (they do use all their patents), and they charge relatively little. If it weren't for patent enforcement, many companies would lose their products and might end up having to PAY for their own inventions. Look at what everyone is doing off of Stuart Parkin's MTJ patents, for example. It's as if they treated Parkin like he didn't exist.
Check out James Bessen's paper "Sequential Innovation, Patents and Imitation" who makes an economic arguement about why patents are harmful in innovative industries.
My personal interest here is protecting those who do true innovation from being screwed by those who purchase and enfore patents which Should Not Be. I work for such a company, and intend to always work with folks doing new and interesting things. Thus, seeing those who are actually doing and creating be sued by those who don't pains me very much.
It doesn't really matter that it's Intel in the example -- it matters that it's someone who, by creating a thing of value, has a certain level of merit which the slime who do nothing but collect legal fees have not.
And no, these bottom-feeders (like TechSearch) never did any research, except for looking through the list of registered patents for ones that could be enforced -- which they then bought for a pittance and are using offensively.
This is pure briliance. Seriously, tax amnisty or at least seriously deep cuts for related profits for 18 years!!!
Someone invents something, but doesn't have the money to produce it. There's no way they can protect their invention, so either they keep it secret, it's stolen by someone who can manufacture it. In either case they make no money on the invention. A tax break on $0 amounts to a $0 benefit. Guess that inventor will be too busy flipping burgers to invent something else.
This could fix the copyright system too.
A songwriter writes a song. That song is performed by some great artists. Recording companies record and sell the music. Media outlets (MTV and radio stations) play the music.
The songwriter gets nothing. Tax break on $0 is still nothing.
The artist/performer gets some money from performing, however if they aren't interested in touring all over the place, or aren't good performers as well as musicians, then they get very little. Tax break on very little, doesn't amount to much. Guess they'll be flipping burgers too, which limits their ability to tour. Maybe McDonalds can work something out where they can work in the closest store to where their concert is.
Recording companies get to sell the media on which they distribute the songs. Of course anyone could make their own media, and sell it as well. Professionally producing music can be very expensive. It's hard to believe that they could offset these costs by tax breaks on their sales of media. Especially when there are no significant media costs when it's distributed over the internet.
Media outlets would have to pay significantly less for their programming. Of course they would probably have to directly contract with artists in order to get quality programming, and as soon as they broadcast it, anyone else could just rebroadcast it, so it's hard to think that they can raise the money to pay for quality programming by advertising. After all why not just advertise with one of the rebroadcasters.
One of the purposes of IP laws is to make it possible for creative people to profit from their creations. A tax break only provides a benefit, if you're already making money from the creation, but doesn't provide a way to make that money.
What utter horseshit. Companies like Sun have whole divisions who do nothing but this. They scour the world looking for possible patent violations and then hold up the other party at legal gunpoint. My company does the same - it's a $400 million a year business to us. Listen to them whine they're just being pussies. Hey I think I'll send some lawyers over to them now.
I think most of us agree that the patent system needs to be either scuttled or at least massively reformed. However, until that time, I do have an idea on how to fight these 'patent trolls' by using prior art to protect good ideas (even if obvious). IANAL, but maybe someone can suggest if this would be legally tenable..
/. style where people can post neat ideas they've had. Others can then comment on them, improve upon them, etc. The original poster can then write a slightly more formal description of the idea, taking into account the comments. (but not written in confusing patent legalese.. just plain understandable english) Then if someone tries to get a stupid patent, the site can be used as example of prior art. As a side benefit, it would be a fun place for geeks to share innovative ideas and perhaps even for businesses to get ideas on how to improve their products. Sorta like Open Source, but for ideas. (not that it should be necessary..)
Set up a web site in
The CMU scheme sounds like the work of someone who has spent too much time reading Aynn Rand and too litte time noticing that most markets are rigged.
You point about rigged markets, and the possibility of tremendous abuse and defrauding of the government are very valid (and yes, Ayn Rand's view of economics and the human condition was profoundly two dimensional and myopic, but I digress). Clearly if one is bidding on one's own patent in order to drive up the government's 120% then one is engaging in fraud. People have become Prime Bitch in Cellblock A for less than that.
Nevertheless I think the notion deserves some consideration. I would couple it with my own idea (a 100% tax credit for N years to the patent holder, but no, I repeat, no monopoly privelege whatsoever), and modify the notion as follows:
1) Patents confer a 100% tax free profits on the invention if sold alone as a whole, or a pro-rated portion if incorporated into some other product, for a period of time N years. No monopoly privelege, no exclusionary rights beyond the tax credit.
2) A free market will determine the patent's sale price, when the patent holder is ready to sell, he or she may sell at whatever price the market will bear. This may be early or late in the product's cycle, and the patent holder my calculate the pricepoint wisely, or not, as anyone might, selling anything, in a free market economy.
3) The government may purchase the patent at twice the market value (selling price) if it wishes, thereby saving the tax credit burden and enriching the patent holder even further. This may only be done on the First Sale of the patent, all further transactions are at market value and the government may outbid the market as any other company might. The only reason for this clause is to discourage the government from buying up all patents initially (thereby perhaps depressing or inflating the market and certainly influencing it one way or the other in an untoward way) and to reward the initial inventor even more greatly should the government buy up the patent. The only reason the government might buy a patent is to (obviously) avoid the loss in tax revinue it represents. Once again, I reiterate, the patent confers no other privelege beyond the tax savings.
Details can be argued, hammered out, and some reasonable solution reached. What is unacceptable, and must stop, is the issuing of government sponsored monopolies remeniscent of the Royal Monopolies granted inside friends of the King under the British Monarchy with the economic damage, scientific and technological stifling that ensues. Replacing it with a tax-free burdon, then letting free markets reign, appears to be very reasonable, especially if the free market is "rigged" slightly to favor and more generously reward the initial patent holder.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Law.com has some of the shittiest HTML I have ever seen anywhere on the web. Standards? They have no clue.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Until a "geek" comes up with a new and great idea
... unless someone else has been given a government sponsored monopoly on something similar, in which case they are forbidden from doing so for the next twenty years. Indeed, it is rather obvious that patents have the opposite effect ... the forbid anyone from making money on the R&D they have done, unless they happen to be the one who filed with the USPTO first, or (more often) have the most money to hire IP lawyers to defend their own patent or overturn someone elses.
... something I think most women at risk of said disease would not find in the least amusing.
You are clearly a troll (how such a rediculous post got moderated up to +4 is beyond me, but there have been enough tirades about the decline of slashdot this week, so I'll leave it at that), but such misinformation must be responded to nevertheless.
As for geeks comming up with innovative ideas, a quick, short, (and probably patented, but not by their inventors!) list:
The Internet
Usenet NEWS
The World Wide Web
Networked Computer Games
Non-Linear Video Editing
CGI Animation (seen any movies lately?)
Mutli-tasking computer operating systems
Windowing systems (used X or Windoze lately? Both came from Xerox via Apple, invented by geeks, then coopted later by industry, something a patent might well have prevented)
... and the list goes on
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.
What an absolute crock of shit.
It is unnecessary to have a 20-year government sponsored monopoly in order to make money from one's idea. Monopolies are antithetical to the primary means by which free markets operate, namely competition. Furthermore, no idea more advanced than the stone hammer (read: pounding something with a rock) stands alone. Every idea incorporates aspects of earlier ideas, every invention stands on the shoulders of the giants who have gone before. By locking up every new or innovative idea (much less every trivial variation of an old idea the way we do now) you slow down any advancements that might be based on that idea. Dramatically.
Most ideas, when patented, are being developed by numerous, independent people. Why? Because generally, when an idea's "time has come" (ie. it become feasable or technically possible for the first time, usually because the necessary groundwork or supporting technologies become available for the first time) a number of creative people jump on it at roughly the same time. The vast majority of patent infringements aren't a result of people cribbing from the patent applications or even reverse engineering their competitors' products, they are a result of inadvertant infringement resulting from having developed the same or similar idea completely independently.
Whoever wins the footrace to the patent office is granted a monopoly, and everyone else who had developed, or "invented" the idea concurrently is suddenly left in the unenviable position of having their invention stolen out from under them, and being forbidden to exploit their work, or their idea, under penalty of law.
This is not conducive to encouraging invention or progress. Quite the contrary.
Patents do not "allow someone to make money from the R&D they do." This is allowed regardless, by a free market in which anyone can develop an idea, build it and market it
Another example is breat cancer, in which promising research has been scuttled because of existing patents on the genes which were discovered to have an impact, perhaps even be the cause, of the affliction. Scuttled research does not lead to LEAPS in innovation, unless, of course, you use the Microsoft definition of the word
You want to reward someone for winning the footrace to the USPTO? Fine. Give them a 20 year amnesty from federal taxes for income derived from their "invention." Do not give them a monopoly and lock up the very idea (and its derivatives) for the next twenty years! To do so is antithetical to the free market, slows technological development, and cripples the very open exchange of science that is ultimately the foundation of every invention, everywhere.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
These still seem like "discoveries", not "inventions." What exactly did they invent?
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Do you really think that most of the investors will sell their stock becuse of this? Their stock price would probably go up. After all, breast cancer treatment is a huge business, and if this company has patents in that area, they are likely to make a fortune from them. The holders of the patents will say that the researchers should license their patents. The researchers didn't get their equipment for free. Their workers don't work for free. They'll ask why they should get the results of their research for free.
Even before the patenting of genes (which I strongly oppose), this moral issue exhisted with the patenting of drugs. In order to research cures to disease, researchers need to use many drugs which they have to buy at extremely high prices from the companies that own the patents on them. This increases the costs of discovering cures to many diseases. This has been drug through the press many times, but those companies stock prices are far from hurting.
Don't think that any publicity is good publicity. Think "RAMBUS".
Rambus' stok price was soaring dispite the bad press. The thing that caused Rambus' stock to go down is when they were found to have committed fraud, and it became likely that they wouldn't be able to collect all the royalties they had claimed they were due.
From the Law.com FAQ:
Can I use Netscape Navigator with Law on the Web?
Don't worry, it's just some lawyers helping out their buddies who happen to own some intellectual property!
Ohhhh, Mr. Hosier, rumors can be soo inaccurate! They definitely should have realized that 3 jets and 2 planes is not the same as 5 jets! I mean, if you count the planes as a half jet each, then it only adds up to 4 jets. What an atrocious mistake!
The problem is with the Patent Office. They are understaffed (due to constant budget cutting by Congress) and the people they do have are incompetent (like most government employees) and technologicly illiterate. As a result, people are able to obtain patents that never should have been issued.
The body of law is the aggregate weigh of the totality of human cupidity, stupidity, control-freak-ism and special-interests.
Its killing itself and burning us all on its funeral pyre.
The flaw is simple and singular, laws never expire, and the remedy obvious, laws need to have a built-in expiry date.
But the political system is filled with and controlled by lawyers so its never going to happen until the same thing happens to it that happens to all water kingdoms, a drought comes along and the kingdom gets wiped out.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
I will not argue about whether or not patents are a good or bad idea, personally, I don't have an opinion.
Patents, like you describe above, can promote progress by forcing people to do things better, and creating an incentive to do it in the first place.
However, it works both ways. Patents, in their current highly abused form, simply provide a means for companies (law firms, Rambus?) to extort money from others. Patents are far to general, granted way to easily, and are granted by peole who don't even understand what they are granting patents for. All this does is allow companies to make themselves rich by patenting broad ideas and forcing people to pay them.
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
If you look at the history of patent law you will find that it does a very, very poor job of "protecting the little guy." History is repleat with examples of inventors never seeing a dime on their patents because they couldn't afford the lawyers to enforce them against large companies, of others using various methods to "steal" their patents (Thomas Eddison was notorious for this, for example. See also the history of radio.), etc.
... possibly benefiting the smalltime inventor far more than the current system of handing out absolute monopolies, and without the terrible economic side effects.
A tax credit in place of a government sponsored monopoly would make the situation neither better, nor worse, for the "garage inventor" than it is now. If the "garage inventor" sells their patent to a large company, then that company becomes entitled to the tax break rather than the individual. If anything, there is more incentive to purchase the patent legitimately rather than ignore it or try to get it overturned
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
I have no issue with people getting rich because others willingly enter into mutual agreements with them. I have a great issue with people getting rich because of forceful (read: government) intervention.
I believe that allocating capital is another form of social contribution. Individuals who invest in those ventures they believe are likely to be profitable result in a higher standard of living as resources are allocated away from wasteful or unlikely ventures. Surely that's not so hard to accept?Neither of these points is particularly valid, because they ignore the fact that the scarcity that IP protects is one of creation. It does so by insuring the creator has control over any and all production of the idea.
That is simply not true, or rather it is deceptively stated. Intellectual Property creates an artificial scarcity both of the creation and, in the case of patents (at least), in the creative process as well. Multiple peope often do come up with the same or very similar idea(s) independently, but only he or she who wins the footrace to the USPTO gets any rights, and everyone else is excluded for twenty years!
Creativity isn't scarce. What is scarce is the freedom to use it. As noted elsewhere, the vast majority of patent infringements are a result of people accidentally "rediscovering" a way to do something, not a result of plagerism or reverse engineering. Those who do creatively come up with a solution are then forbidden from using it because someone else was granted a government sponsored twenty-year monopoly on the idea.
To paraphrase, it seems as though people defending IP end up into a pattern of formulating very weak arguments whenever they talk about the need to artificially reward invention at the expense of everyone else.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
1) Working models were originally required. The USPTO stopped routinely requiring this late in the 19th century because they ran out of storage space for all the inventions. (I think the examiner _can_ still require a working model, but it's only invoked when they really don't believe it can work -- and obviously they're quite a bit too credulous.) We need to bring this requirement back, at least to some extent -- the patent office can't store physical models, but they should ask for them, take some photos of the thing running (if it does), then ship it back. And of course software patent applications (if allowed at all) should come with all source code and a working executable on CD-R; if they can store all the paper in an application, they can certainly store these. Without this requirement, every real inventor is hostage to the Lemelson technique: look at what people need, guess what will be invented to fill that need, file a vague, broad application, then sue the real inventor later.
2) Market it or lose it: If you don't build your invention or license it to someone who can, after 2 or 3 years it should become public domain. (I thought this was once the law.) You do not promote the "progress of science and the useful arts" by letting people just sit on a good idea for 20 years. (The same thing should apply to copyrights, and to items that are removed from the market for long periods. If Disney wants to keep it's copyright on Snow White, let them either keep the videotape in stores, get the movie into theaters every couple of years, or post the MPEG on the web with a "download for non-commercial purposes only" notice. Not hold the damn thing off the market for a generation.)
3) Tighten up the definition of "invention." Under the rules of 1960, one could not patent a mathematical algorithm (LZW compression, public key encryption), or a thing of nature (any naturally occurring gene).
If the patent couldn't be issued at all, then if someone else started producing the product, there'd be competition. As long as the patent system exists as it does, of course lawyers working for patent holders must proceed to protect the property. So focus your efforts on fixing the system.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Fraunhofer/Thompson: MP3 patent
Both of those were probably instances of silently permitting use for a while, so I guess it is legal.
You want to reward someone for winning the footrace to the USPTO? Fine. Give them a 20 year amnesty from federal taxes for income derived from their "invention." Do not give them a monopoly and lock up the very idea (and its derivatives) for the next twenty years! To do so is antithetical to the free market, slows technological development, and cripples the very open exchange of science that is ultimately the foundation of every invention, everywhere.
This is pure briliance. Seriously, tax amnisty or at least seriously deep cuts for related profits for 18 years!!! This could fix the copyright system too.
The best part is the lawyers get to keep their jobs (proving proportions of profit, same IP ownership fights just a different prize.) so they won't fight it.
Monopolies are always bad, even govenment granted ones. When you introduce monopolies the markets ability to "sort it out" is stripped from it. That is what is going on now. The economy will not recover until IP law is fixed! Idea power must be redistributed.
Novel theory: Modern Man evolved from psychopath