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Creating A Global Patent System
prostoalex writes "May issue of MIT Technology Review discussed the implications of a globalized patent system. For small inventors, it argues, the cost of globalizing the rights for their invention are just unbearable. For example, in Europe it costs about $7,000 per country to file a patent application. As an article bonus, some people might like to take a look at the list of the largest patent holders per industry in PDF format."
With the States current attitude towards international law & agreements, I can't see any form of global patent law being created, except if the U.S. forces the rest of the world to agree with it in some economic or political way.
---
"The chances of a demonic possession spreading are remote -- relax."
I've read a couple articles on patents and where they're going in the past two weeks. One takes a look at all the patents given in the US that don't and can NEVER be produced because they are physically impossible. The second article dealt with how the US government is INCREASING costs for patent filings because there's too much of a backlog as is, and they need more of an incentive to process current patents and to, wait for it..., DISCOURAGE new patents. *sigh*
-Christopher Wu
http://www.christopherwu.net/
Yes, the European Patent Office does not exist. Go away now!
SCO employee? Check out the bounty
No thanks!
Some countries still have a respectible Patent System in place. Why would they want to be polluted with some (many) of the ridiculous Patents granted in the USA.
Patent something domestically and someone in a country with cheap labour will copy your idea and outproduce you.
BOO! TERRO
At least, that's what it seems like with all the cross-border lawsuits.
... surely you would only patent something you thought would reap you many times that amount.
And the price barrier to getting a patent (versus the plain old bureaucratic barriers) discourages companies / people from patenting silly things, where a patent would be a nuisance to the rest of society.
How long before someone tries to patent the Global Patent System?
-- Kircle
I can imagine the United States trying to implement a global patent office, only to be sued for infringing on someone's patent covering global access systems to public information. ...I bet it's already been issued somewhere, waiting for the day it can bite the hand that feeds it.
-Matt
--- Need web hosting?
... and all, but the problem is not with the system itself, but means to enforce the rights of the patent holder.
eg. Let's say someone from Ghana created some cool gadget which has no predecessors or anything even remotely similar already available in the market. How soon would someone from the US inventing a similar gadget would know that there is already such thing patented a few days ago?
Another scenario, assuming that local authorities are given the power to enforce this global patent protection law... would they be able to do it without bias? I mean if someone could build a pet robot dog that is just as intelligent and fun as the Aibo but is priced at 50% of the original Aibo, would the local authorities feel obliged to arrest this guy for patent infringement?
And while we're at the subject of infringement, who decides whether an infringement has occured? And where will these records be stored? This might be one of the most massive database ever created (if this is feasible in the first place)!
Welley Corporation - SLM Scammers
Theres several categories of intellectual property.
If someone owns the rights to a song, are you allowed to:
Re-Record it
Sing it
Say the title in public
Play it in public
Parody it
?
What if someone designs a part to allow flying cars steer? We don't have flying cars yet... But when we do, should we bow down to the inventor of the steering wheel even though anyone could create one. Oh lord almighty who walks on the earth, we must bow to thee because you wrote some dumb fucking thing on a piece of paper and sent it to the patent office.
With all the confusion with current patents, and only big corporations having enough to buy expensive lawyers... Maybe a working system should be thought up before applying it to the world.
Heres how the system currently works. Thousands of little buisnesses try. 90% of them fail. 9% eek out a living. 1% hit it big. A corporation sees the guy who hits it big with a good idea, and steals it for their own.
God spoke to me
There is a Swiss based organisation called World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) with 179 member states promoting worldwide patents.
From the Website:
The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) is an international organization dedicated to helping to ensure that the rights of creators and owners of intellectual property are protected worldwide and that inventors and authors are, thus, recognized and rewarded for their ingenuity.
That's how you get a world-wide IP system: tanks and bloodsuckers. Your country could be next...
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
How about the Patent Office gets money for every patent denied?
This will stop a lot of frivilous patents and only the really and assuredly original works will get through.
The problem is real but there are severe diffulties on the road to global patents.
1. Many developing countries have no interest in commiting to such international agreements. They see the cheap labour their only weapon to get to the international market. And they cannot afford much research.
2. The consept of patent varies a lot. As a well known example many ideas patented in US could never get a patent in Europe.
3. Many countries are trying to protect their own industry and reluctant to accept unbiased treatment of foreign and own patents. That the real world situation. And I'm now talking about the "civililized"/rich countries with many international contracts.
The cost of filing in several different countries is largely irrelevent to a small inventor. The income from one country alone could often result in a significant return on investment. There are other issues though:
1. The cost of filing in one country. Most inventions are failures. $7000 just for one country is a lot of money to invest in a product that the world just isn't ready for. With careful budgetting, this could support the inventor for another few months, allowing for him to perfect his invention
2. Timeframes. 20 years is far too long. Nothing that's 20 years old could ever be considered at all modern. Most cars last about 10 years. Computers are out of date in about 3. Even industrial equipment is usually outdated much more quickly than that. If something has not returned the investment cost within 5 years, just about any organisation would consider it a failure.
3. Lack of protection for independent inventors. It's actually very likely that several people will come up with the same idea at the same time. - for example, Bell beat Edison and others to the invention of the telephone by a short time - Shouldn't others be entitled to actually finish their invention without being charged with breaching a patent that hadn't been granted when they started?
With patents being more expensive, the public (ie the people patents were meant to protect) will not be able to afford them. You also have the 'small' problem of organizing it.
Let's make the global standard for patents five years non-extendable and let's put copyrights around ten years.
Oh, and how about penlties for obfuscatd patent applications since the goal is to increase the knowledge in the public domain. That is the goal, right?
How about patent the rotate clockwise button. It's there in Acrobat Reader and XPDF.
Patents do help drive some technology but only when they are low cost (how much did Edison pay for his early patents?) and the patent office does check for prior art. Unless the a patent office has a better database than google, they simply can't do their job.
His lawyers advised him badly. I work as a patent attorney for a major automotive systems company and their plan is to patent only in US, UK, France, Germany and Japan.
Their competitors can knock off as many copies as they like in third world countries like Ghana, Cambodia or Belgium, but if they can't import them into the major markets then it is pointless.
Always focus your patents on the countries you will sell in, and use them to block imports from elsewhere.
Firstly IBM tops the league by miles. SCO on the other hand do not even register, which given the recent news suggests SCO are on a hiding to nothing(or just a hiding).
Secondly Ericsson tops the telco's league. Considering they seem to still be losing money faster than, well actually I can't think of anyhing that is losing money faster than Ericsson, it goes to show bucket loads of patents is not a guaruntee of success. You still have to do something sensible with them.
Choose your allies carefully, it is highly unlikely you will be held accountable for the actions of your enemies
Yes, you might think that it makes sense. But when a patent is to be granted, there must be no prior art. Therefore a global patent requires a global research for prior art. Consider the current quality of patents granted, how many are bogus. Consider the cost of researching for the admissability of a patent. Now would you want to reexamine ALL patents world wide or would you prefer the status quo? Thanks, Gerard
You fool. The idea behind patents is that it gives the inventor a time limited monopoly thus encouraging technological innovation. No patents means that we start to compete on who has most financial/marketing/political muscle - i.e. large firms win every time. Patents and copy right allow small firms to have a chance against larger companies and actually spur on technological development.
According to the European Patent Office, it comes to about EUR 29800, or over US$ 32700. I'd better start saving.
Great games
Prior art is already considered globally -- everywhere except the US. You can't patent an invention in the UK if it's already been invented somewhere else, for example. But you can patent it in the US even if it's in use in every other country in the world.
Consider what that means. Suppose I patent something in Japan, for example. When a patent is issued, the details of the patent are made public. That means that someone else could take my Japanese patent and use it as a basis for their own US patent. I then wouldn't be able to sell my own invention in the US.
Patents are supposed to promote innovation by protecting inventors' rights. The US law on prior art makes a complete travesty of this -- why bother inventing something when you can just patent a foreign invention?
Effectively, this means that foreign inventors are forced to file a US patent at the same time they file for one in their own country. No wonder the USPTO has a massive backlog.
The author of this post asserts his moral rights.
We're not heading towards World Democracy or even World Communism, but World Feudalism. It is rapidly getting to the point that if you want to invent or create something, you will need to do so under the aegis of a large corporation. You will need the legal and financial backing of a large corporation (your feudal lord) to protect you (with their own patent portfolio) if you want to create anything-- otherwise, one of the other fedual lords will quash you, and you won't be big enough to defend yourself. In exchange, you will show fealty to your corporate feudal lord by signing over any rights to anything you create, hopefully being reasonably well paid in the process.
Most people may be relatively comfortable, or at least fed, but the individualist creator simply won't be able to exist. (And, alas, nobody will think there's anything wrong with this. Most of the world doesn't really care about freedom of thought. Once they're fed and comfortable, people seem to care care more about bread and circuses (or SUVs and HDTVs) than actual liberty.)
Yes, global intellectual property concerns are making the world safe for medieval forms of government and social organization.
-Rob
Such a system would be a disaster for tinkerers and smaller, specialized companies. Frankly, patents should be harder to obtain but quite cheap. That way, we'll get more innovation.
Stop the brainwash
Economically it is not a good idea for a developing country to institute patents. This seriously hinders progress. As it already does this in counties like the U.S. it is even worse for those countries not at any level to compete. Imagine what the U.S. and other countries seem like to these little guys. It would seem that they just see everyone is trying to steal from them. Plus, I've said it once and I'll say it many times again, before it finally goes away: Patents are one of mans worst ideas which intention has been skewed into a rent seeking behavior that hinders progress and creates an unequal playing field in the world of competition. Patents go against capitalism. Capitalism encourages competition, patents discourage it. Should we allow such insanity to continue because we think that patents help the small researcher or inventor? Do some research and you will see all those assumptions and myths about patents and how they are intended to protect the little guy and help him make money does in fact little to this extent.
Question everything.
If companies can just file patents world-wide, it means that source code implementing something patented will probably become unavailable world-wide. This matters even if people don't intend to violate the patent--a lot of open source implementations of patented inventions take place in countries where the invention isn't patented, and as soon as the patent expires, those implementations are available world-wide.
As far as the "small inventor" is concerned, with few exceptions, the patent system stopped working somewhere in the 20th century anyway. Even if you manage to get a patent these days as a small inventor, chances are that whoever has more expensive lawyers and better patent bargaining chips will win, and that won't be the small inventor. All we are discussing when discussing changes to the patent system is how much we want to let ourselves get screwed.
I have been working in the patent field for a few years and I feel bad for the inventor mentioned in the article. There are ways that the costs can be structured to avoid the cash crunch he experienced. The Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT, which is administered by WIPO) now operates to allow an inventor up to 30 months from filing in their first jurisdiction to decide whether to file in other PCT member nations. Most of the world is part of the PCT (with the exception of much of the Arab world, some of South America, and Taiwan). The PCT process is an application which is subject to a prior art search, like any other patent office, and to an optional examination. Therefore, a current inventor faces the following costs (approximately): Day 0 $7000 for preparing and filing in the US Month 12 File a PCT application (charges about $4000); File in non-PCT countries Month 14 $3000 in legal fees for examination process in US Month 30 File in other PCT countries ($$$$$$) While the costs at Month 30 are huge, as mentioned in the article, the inventor has hopefully been marketing his invention since Day 0. By Month 30, the inventor can decide whether the invention is marketable and to what extent. Depending on his cash flow at that point, he can decide how much he has to spend on getting patent protection around the world. One of the big costs to filing in other countries is the translation costs. Japanese translation costs can hit $7,000, as much as to draft and file the patent. Therefore, you can also target a few major languages such as French, Spanish, German etc. Many countries will accept a patent translation in one of these languages and thus you keep your costs to a minimum. As far as the debate about which countries to file in goes, producers vs. consumers, the answer is "yes". With limited funding, generally you would patent in major consumer countries, because their legal systems are generally more patent friendly. With more funds, you would then start to target producer countries. The reason is that it may be easier to stop one producer than dozens of distributors. However, much of this decision rests with the type of product and the nature of the industry. Remember when we're feeling sorry for an individual inventor (and I work with with many of them) that a patent is an asset and that the cost of assets are part of the startup costs of any business. Most small businesses fail just as most inventions fail. The main reason that inventions fail is not in the patent system, but in the marketing. Just a thought to keep in mind.
Well the Register is running with it, but it seems more like she is just helping draft the legislation and keeping on with her wenchery at the RIAA.
First its Cheney's pals, then the GSM thing, now the RIAA gets a look-in. I just hope Australia gets something out of being in the Coalition of the Willing. I wouldn't like to think that i'm a terrorist target on the global scene now without my country at least getting a few tenders!
"I'm tired of all this 'Aren't humanity great' bullshit. We're a virus with shoes" - Bill Hicks