FTC Investigates Submarine Patents

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.""

Comments

Re:Patents not secret

[Asic Eng]

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. :)

Wonder if they'll check out others

[weslocke]

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.