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FTC Investigates Submarine Patents

Posted by michael on from the depth-charge dept.

Schnake writes: "An article on USAToday talks about how the FTC is investigating Sun Microsystems, Unocal, and Rambus to determine whether they illegally kept patents secret while helping set industry standards! And a quote from the ZDNet article: "It noted that all three companies had filed patent infringement lawsuits against firms they say owed them royalties. But the litigation backfired when those firms countersued, charging them with concealing their patents, and complained to the FTC.""

5 of 119 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Patents not secret by Asic+Eng · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Is a law necessary, though? As I understand it the rules of these standards bodies require the companies participating in a standard to reveal their patents anyway. That seems to be the basis for these countersuits.

    As far as volume goes - maybe there should just be a cap on patents. Something like "x patents a year can be awarded". The patent office would then be charged to award the patents with the most merit, each year. If a patent application doesn't make it in one year, it may make it in the next. If it never makes it... well then it probably shouldn't. :)

  2. Re:That's a scary concept... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Patents aren't really secret. They're "published" in a dead-tree-focused database in a format that's essentially unreadable even by most competent programmers. Just finding out whether an invention is already patented takes thousands of dollars worth of highly skilled, mind-numbing legal work.

    Since publication is what the 20-year monopoly rewards, any patent that competitors didn't find and learn from obviously failed to promote progress in the art. This system doesn't work.

  3. Wonder if they'll check out others by weslocke · · Score: 5, Insightful

    For example, Unisys's patent for the LZW compression in the GIF format leaps to mind. They didn't exactly keep it a 'secret', but they did wait ten years before trying to enforce it. By that time the vast majority of the developers out there had forgotten about it.

    --

    'Life is like a spoonful of Drain-O, it feels good on the way down but leaves you feeling hollow inside'
  4. Re:How can a patent be secret? by SnapShot · · Score: 3, Insightful

    To paraphase a wise man...

    They are on display in the display department. In the basement of the courthouse. The lights are out. So are the stairs. In a locked filing cabinet with a sign that says "Beware of the Leopard".

    Just because something is a public record doesn't mean that you necessarily are going to find it...

    --
    Waltz, nymph, for quick jigs vex Bud.
  5. Re:Some others worth investigating perhaps ? by wurp · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I don't know about in Europe, but in the US patents are not "to protect the inventor so they could profit from their invention". The limited monopoly is a sacrifice we make to satisfy the real goal. From the US Constitution: "To promote the progress of science and useful arts by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries."

    Here in the US, people seem to lose sight of the real goal (to promote the progress of science and useful arts) and think that the purpose of patent law is to let them make more money. Any time patent law gives a company or individual a monopoly that hinders rather than advancing the state of the art, then the law has failed to meet its goals. This can happen because the length of the patent was longer than the usefulness of the technique patented, because the technique patented was already common knowledge or obvious to anyone trying to solve the problem, or for any number of other reasons.

    And I'm not a patent examiner, or a lawyer.