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How to Become a Patent Millionaire
An anonymous reader writes "SF Gate has an article about people who patent ideas for things they have no intentions of building, hoping to license technology or block competitors from doing something similar. As if the patent system weren't screwed up enough already."
Somebody patent that!
ah i see, its the kind of thing we dont want anybody to do, so we just /. it out of the net, right?
Heh wonder if you could file a patent on patent blocking... then sue everyone for royalties when they try to do it....
WOOT.
sig. "I didn't do it."
We need a department that has the power to review and revoke a patent. If you're not going to produce what you patent, or if your patent is overly broad (or just plain stupid) it should be revoked.
Amazon and Microsoft announced joint patents of a new concept: "A grant made by a government that confers upon the creator of an invention the sole right to make, use, and sell that invention for a set period of time."
They're expected to make billions off the royalties.
The entire process of patenting something.
I got nothin'.
I'm patenting the process of obtaining patents on patenting the idea of patents being used to become wealthy without actually doing any work.
It was a joke! When you give me that look it was a joke.
If only I could patent patenting patents i'd never normally patent!
whew!
I have a *patent* on making money through patenting inventions that I have no intention of inventing! I'm gonna SUE BIG TIME now! Where's David Boies when you need him? ;)
My journal has hot
Comment removed based on user account deletion
This just chaps my hide. Why do people have to be such fuckwads. If you have a idea that you want to market then by all means patent it, but to patent it and have someone else all the legwork is just not cool.
This is a sig, there are many like it, but this is mine.
I'm sure someone else has said it, but patent patenting things. If you have that pesky 'prior art' to deal with, and not the limitless budget of M$, make it more specific: patent patenting things with whatever new form they come out with.
And as soon as they come out with a new form, patent that, too.
Offensive patenting, defensive patenting... and now obstructive patenting.
-lw
Mods: Disagreeing with me != my post Offtopic / Flamebait.
World without hate or war, invaded. Tragic?
What's wrong with that?
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
I've decided that I'm going to patent the act of retaining a representative to pursue legal actions against another entity.
"Times have not become more violent. They have just become more televised."
-Marilyn Manson
This is the definition of an inventor. There are many patents which require large amounts of capital to produce. What some inventors will do is patent the idea then pitch it to companies hoping they will purchase the rights to the patent and produce the product.
The entire design of patents is to prevent someone from bulding something you claim as yours. This article just points out the obvious.
What's wrong with inventing something and then charging someone else to develop and market it? Think of it as being an independent R&D department.
What's wrong with the patent system is people getting patents for things that should not be patented, not that you don't have to build the item yourself to enjoy royalties from its invention.
Trouble making decisions? Just flip for it.
Who knows how many products have seen the light of market through this process?
Hardly limited to the tech arena, I think.
Everything which is absolutely fucked up in our legal system and capitalistic society. No, I'm not advocating communism/socialism/etc-ism...But I do think are on the path the pricing ourselves right the fuck out of existence because of pedantic laws made to cover every fucking possibility as well as squeezing every possible fucking nickel from the consumer.
Excuse me, it's now time for me to go take my meds.
Geez, this sort of thing is as old as capitalism. Most people are inherently lazy and ideas are cheap. Thus the patent. However, implementing the ideas is where things get expensive. This is one of the reasons behind the whole .com bust, in that folks were getting VC funding for ideas and products that they had in their heads. Yet, 1) No code existed for many of these ideas and 2) The ideas had no infrastructure to support them. For an interesting documentary of this whole bit in action, see a film called humorously enough ".com".
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
having first posts !!
"Blessed are the poor in threshold: for theirs is the Kingdom of the Page-Lengthening and Page-Widening Posts.
"Blessed are they that mourn the death of *BSD: for they shall be comforted with an ultradense Linux server from VA Linux, now sold by California Digital Corporation.
"Blessed are the posters of smug one-liners: for they shall inherit an Account Capped at 50.
"Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after The First Post: for they shall have the Third or Fourth Post.
"Blessed are the karma whores: for they shall obtain "Score: 5, Insightful".
"Blessed are those who dismiss out-of-hand: for they shall fail to see the Point of the Original Post.
"Blessed are those who seek to associate themselves with the latest techno-fad: for they shall be called 3L33T for at least Another Half Hour.
"Blessed are they which are persecuted for their own self-righteousness' sake: for theirs is the Kingdom of "Ask Slashdot".
"Blessed are the over-eager, who believe that Open Source is a social movement heralding the rise of a new generation: for they shall not realize that There Are No Sacred Cows.
"Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for the sake of your Favorite Operating System.
"Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in Heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.
THIS IS THE WORD OF THE LORD
But I have been fined for it.
There are quite a number of companies that perpetuate fantasies that the ordinary person can make a lot of money by getting a patent on an idea, and then marketing it to companies. Things go so bad that Congress passed a law to control these invention promotion firms. A form for reporting abusive forms of these services can be found at http://www.uspto.gov/web/forms/2048.pdf
(It is sad to see people who paid $10,000 to have a really bad idea for a dishwasher written up in 10 pages of form paragraphs, and the promotion activity be limited to being told that GE and Whirlpool make dishwashers.)
The reason for the reporting that is required is that many of these companies had never had a patent issue and be licensed to anyone.
Sure, there are the rare exceptions, I know of a couple personally, but for each of those there are 100 people who shelled out $10,000 for pretty much nothing.
You don't have to do any work. Just guess what will happen.
Then, if you guess right...
MO' MONEY!
MO' MONEY!
MO' MONEY!
And the great part about this is that it is your "competition" that does all the real work and real investment to actually SOLVE the problems and PRODUCE a product.
but then we have power hungry people in charge of who gets credit for patents. This could spell trouble when Amazon makes a donation to the "Patent Protection Agency" then signs up for 100 new patents
- Your stupidity got you into this mess, why can't it get you out? -Will Rogers
Where's the obligatory inane, pro-socialist, anti-progress quip at the end ?
Are you sure it was michael who posted this ?
Someone should check slashcode.
1) Start Lord Slepnir beverages. I'll need to scrounge around for startup capital, get a factory, distribution, find a way to market it, etc. If I fail, I have to declare bankrupcy, and wind up having my house and car repoed. If I end up making a lot of money off of it, I have about 7 years to grow enough to compete with Coke and Pepsi, who will push their own knockoff of this flavor as soon as the patent runs out.
2) I contact coke or pepsi and tell them I have a new flavor. They give me a lump of cash, they take all the risk (I'm not ruined if it fails), they market it, and I get a small royality check to live off.
Here's the first step. Check the pricing.
h tm l
http://www.patentservices.com/provisional_apps.
I do, and I am going to sue the pants of you!
SF Gate has an article about people who patent ideas for things they have no intentions of building, hoping to license technology or block competitors from doing something similar
How about people who buy land they have no intention of building on, hoping to sell it to others while blocking other people from building on this land?
Too much prior art.
He cited the standards of Wi-Fi (wireless fidelity) technology, in which transmission speeds have been rapidly advancing during the past three years from 11 megabits per second in 1999 to more than 50.
I was aware that the "fi" in "hi-fi" stands for "fidelity", but I don't think the same can be assumed here . . .
You make a good point, but I'm not sure what the composition of such a group would be. If it were simply an appointed panel of beaurocrats (like the FCC), you might end up doing more harm than good. If we had a group tightly under the control of their political masters, it's quite possible that many patent decisions could result in highly anti-competetive decisions (especially under the current administration). Additionally, it would have to be clear where the power of this regulatory body ended and that of the judicial system began. Patent lawsuits aren't going anywhere anytime soon - but I could see the federal government trying to enact something like you suggest under the auspices of reducing frivolous patent lawsuits, but instead end up offering competetors heads on a plate to big corporations without them even having to ante up for massive legal fees.
You don't have to carry an idea through to fruition to patent something.
Example: I'm a chip designer. I design a new type of CPU and patent that. My patent is invalid because I don't own a fab and don't produce chips myself??? RIDICULOUS!
There's nothing wrong with patenting things you have no intention of building yourself.
Now, when the patent office gives patents for things that are obvious, overly broad, or other bogus patents, that IS A BIG PROBLEM.
If you have a patent, you have every right to make them yourself, sell it to someone else, or sit and DO NOTHING. It's intellectual property. You can do what you want with your propetry. It's still (mostly) a free country.
But don't confuse the two.
It's more fun to patent the concept of patents themselves. Then you could force the USPTO out of business.
However, no one could block your patent because then you could sue them for infringement.
☠
Lemelson did not invent the bar code. In fact he engaged in practices very similar to the ones described in the article. His patent was an extremely generic one for machine vision applications, which according to his interpretation covered bar code readers. He was one of the people who never implemented any of their ideas, preferring to wait for other people to reinvent them and then ask for royalties.
Soemone should give them both a head shot - 45 cal. or better. Or maybe a "head shot" the same way PeeWee Herman did when he was arrested for stroking off in a theater - virtual chat room my ass! As if there's any other type of chat room. Fucking idiot.
You mean a smaller company like, oh say, SCO, might be infringing on one or more of IBM's 30,000 patents, and therefore should try to avoid pissing off the bigger company?
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
Monopolies are bad, because they stiffle competition and usually cause prices to rise. While patents on the other hand are good, because they stiffle competition and cause prices to stay artificially high through legal lack of competition. Yeah, I know that the idea of patents is disclosure, but for software shouldn't that include the source code? I really don't see how someone like amazon should be able to patent one click shopping, it just seems like the only reasonable way to do it,or even a business method at that. So which is it?, patents help or hinder competition?
They aren't inventing anything. They are getting patents for things that don't exist, that they have no intention of building and that they don't even know if they could be built.
In the US, the burden of proof in patent litigation is on the defence to prove infringement. That makes it difficult for these 'offensive' blockers to protect themselves, especially in light of the following:
An inventor that makes no attempt to commercialize their patent ends up invalidating their patent! That's right, a patent for which there is no attempt at commercialization is invalid. Bye-bye 'offensive' inventor. Sucker.
The "First Post" patent hold has got to be a millionaire now...
Does this appy to those companies that rudely snap up domainnames and turn them into email addresses or just let them sit there until some sucker pays 10 times what the domain is worth?
Can I patent something that is going to make some huge corporations tons of money and then release it to the public? Basically that would mean that now no one has an exclusive patent on it and everyone benefits. When Salk invented the polio vaccine I think he either refused to patent it or he patented it and then gave it away so everyone could manufacture it. He didn't want to profit off of the pain and suffering of others. Cool guy.
Isn't something just wrong with the very concept of people really doing nothing but thinking up of obscure concepts or ideas and getting money off of them when an individual or company, with genuine intent to create a working product, wants to create a product that happens to be covered by their patent?
Your point is baseless, as if this was to continue, there would be billions of patents out there by these "patent squatters". Companies who wish to legitimately market a product would have to verify that it does not violate an existing patent, and then have to pay royalties if it already is a patent. Smaller companies and individuals who have that legit intent would probably not have enough capital to pay the royalties. This practice damages the IP marketplace more than anything else.
A patent is useless and counterproductive to the good of capitalism if no product comes out of it. This is just like cybersquatting, where people just register seemingly random DNS names just so large companies can buy them later. This was made illegal. Take that for precedent if anything is to be done about this.
If a company decides to build a product based on his idea, it might have to buy the patent from him, pay him a licensing fee or face getting shitted on by tubgirl.
Which dumb moderator modded this shit up? If youre going to moderate, check the WHOLE text first!
So why can't the Patent Office do something similar? Would it be so hard to ask, "Gee, how's that invention coming along? Have a prototype yet?" and after a certain amount of time, just revoke the patent because work hasn't been done on it yet. This might actually stimulate some growth once the patent is back up for grabs. Perhaps even offer it up at auction. Then companies could be compelled to make good on the patent application because of the captial investment to get it at auction.
Let's see now... if I register a domain name with the intent of selling it to someone else instead of using it myself, I'm "cybersquating" and ICANN will forcibly take the domain name aways from me. However, if I register an idea with the intent of selling to someone else instead of using it myself, the US Patent Office will assist me in extorting money out of anyone who wishes to sell a product based on a simular idea? I find this curiously inconsistent.
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
1. Register patent
2. ???
3. Profit
Skiers and Riders -- http://www.snowjournal.com
Something similar is already happening in healthcare - doctors cannot afford to do their job while paying the "lawyer tax" to protect themselves against being sued for malpractice. If a powerful lobby like healthcare can't fight the lawyers - what hope do a bunch of geeks have when their beef is even less-easily articulated to the general public?
The patent system is rapidly achieving the exact opposite of what it is intended to achieve. It is providing strong disincentives to true innovation while lining the pockets of those whose only innovative ideas consist of new ways to exploit the patent system.
The solution? I propose a non-profit organization to which patents can be donated, which will use those patents to defend anyone sued for infringement of a software patent. email me if you are interested in helping me to make it happen.
This is stupid. Of course you use patents to do this--this is how Mr. Inventor in his basement develops an idea, spending years to do so, and then gets the idea into production.
It is completely impractical to start a company to pursue every individual patent, particuarly when there are already companies in existance that can do so simply by purchasing the R&D time from the inventor.
How is that different from the company spending money on R&D in the first place? The only difference is that the creator (inventor) has control over the patent from the get-go, rather than the company (if it performed the R&D, it would own the patent outright).
Jim
If I could patent "first post" or "In soviet Russia ..." or "1. ... 2. ??? 3. Profit!", then I could make millions off of Anonymous Cowards in no time.
Cyde Weys Musings - Scrutinizing the inscrutable
I do not believe that patents promote science and the useful arts.
.sig
I propose we put a 10 year moratorium on filing patents.
-- this is not a
There will always be people who abuse things. It is just ashame that a lot of them do it under the auspices of "the law".
Top "abuse" topics on /. are:
Let's add to this list the number of cybersquatters who register a domain name that is close to a famous trademark or brand name (such as goggle.com) and then dump fifteen cookies into the person's computer.
I'm sure I've missed about a half-dozen others...
A forum like Slashdot is great for bringing these stories to light, but, at some point, we all need to stop posting about them and start doing something about them. I'd like to see some sort of organized effort to do something... perhaps a collective Slashdot readers' donation to the EFF or EPIC...
I'm an aspiring inventor. I've thought up some fairly useful ideas some having a market share so large the potential is inconceivable. However I have enough of a hard time taking care of my family much less hiring a patent lawyer. I've taken advice from everyone in the book including several /. articles in the past. So it really infuriates me to see people abusing the system. The idea that someone can patent a hypothetical concept infuriates me. I say if you do not have the technical capability to show a working model of sound theory in detail there should be no patent award. I remember doing research on patents done in the 17 hundreds and was impressed with how many models, and drawings there are. On the flip side I recently saw the patent for the guy who claims he invented online auctions. The patents basically stated a system to use computers to manage a bidding process. Thatâ(TM)s it. I say if you cant' at least come up with a flowchart showing the details of your concept you should not waist peoples type making the patent office a glutinous waste of paper.
I think most posters are missing the point of patents be a claim on intellectual property.
I like slashdot, but when I see tirades about copyrights or other intellectual property should be free I realize most of these posters haven't yet realized that this is the most important emerging area of ownership.
To say I could've thought of that or something like, misses the boat and that the credit goes to the swift and in this case the thorough and with enough forsight to claim credit for their ideas.
I'm sure someone will soon post that many of our great inventors who held many patents did just that and claimed rights to nothing but the idea.
Inventors patent ideas to pre-empt their rivals
Companies then must buy rights to the devices
Benjamin Pimentel, Chronicle Staff Writer Monday, June 9, 2003
Click to View
Dennis Fernandez has come up with an idea for TV sets with built-in cameras and small screens that would let viewers talk to one another while watching a show.
"Let's say we're both watching a 49ers game," said the 42-year old Menlo Park attorney. "You and I will show up in this bubble picture. You'll have a head shot, and I'll have a head shot, and we're talking to each other during the game. It's as if you and I are in a virtual chat room watching the same broadcast event."
Fernandez has every intention of actually building such a device. He says the idea was his -- even though he has no certificate from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to prove it.
If he decides to build a product based on the idea, he might have to buy the patent, pay a licensing fee or face the patent owner in court.
It's part of a legal tactic called "intellectual property" in which businesses or individual entrepreneurs use patents as tools to build new products, not as legal roadblocks or bargaining chips against competitors or corporate giants.
Some legal experts, including those representing big corporations, are skeptical of this approach, which they say is impractical because of the enormous leverage that patent litigation affords.
Still, the tactic underscores the growing importance of patents as a competitive weapon in the technology industry, as demonstrated by the recent $35 million judgment in favor of a Virginia inventor who sued EBay for alleged patent infringement. Inventor Tom Woolston accused the San Jose online auction operator of using programs he developed for processing certain sales.
Typically, patent attorneys help companies patent technologies to protect them from rivals. Fernandez, who is also an electrical engineer and inventor, and other Silicon Valley attorneys are taking a more aggressive approach: They discourage clients from analyzing their rivals' technology and trying to obtain patents to make it harder for them to move forward.
"It's less valuable to have a patent that covers your competitor's products (rather) than your products," Fernandez, founding partner of Fernandez & Associates in Menlo Park.
Peter Eng, a senior associate at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, a Palo Alto law firm, said that while most patent attorneys would simply cover what a client is working on, "those with foresight think ahead and predict where others may or may not go."
THE BRICK WALL
John Ferrell, founding partner of Carr & Ferrell in Palo Alto, likened a patent portfolio to a brick wall.
"What I advise my clients to do is to analyze their competitors' road maps, " he said. "Successful companies become successful by spending time thinking about competitors and avoiding the competitor's recognized intellectual property rights."
He cited the standards of Wi-Fi (wireless fidelity) technology, in which transmission speeds have been rapidly advancing during the past three years from 11 megabits per second in 1999 to more than 50. Wireless firms expect the standard to reach more than 100 megabits per second soon.
"There will be technical challenges, so one way we might use our patent portfolio is we might sit down with our smart guys to figure out what we need to do," Ferrell said.
The company can then apply for patents on it's own inventions. An applicant must prove to a patent examiner in written statements and with drawings and diagrams that the invention is novel and original. But the applicant doesn't have to come up with a prototype.
"You don't have to build it," Ferrell said. "You just have to conceive it. By filing a couple of patents, you essentially have protected your idea. Anybody who wants to go from G to X has to get through your toll road."
Fernandez said that because his
The article misses the point: The reason patents exist is to create incentives for inventors to publish their ideas. Yes, they may be implemented by someone else. So? Very few big tasks are accomplished alone, but without the germ of an idea, they'll never get started.
Still, the tactic underscores the growing importance of patents as a competitive weapon in the technology industry
I was under the impression the technology industry was about innovation to improve humanity, not clog up the legal system with "I thought of this first, even though I have no intentions of doing anything with it." I was also under the impression patents were designed to protect, not attack.
Silly me.
Sounds to me like this tactic is a weapon to make Joe Thinksalot rich overnight, while at the same time stiffling innovation by limiting potential advancements to Megacorps who can flip the bill for pre-ordained patents.
At the same time, why don't I put a patent on an idea to make cars float. I'll call it a "hovercraft." Fifteen years down the road, when Developer comes up with the technical specs of how to do it, I get a pay check for having thought of the idea "first."
People are fuckwads. Welcome to the world, nice of you to catch up.
How do you think the republican party gets votes? They appeal to fuckwads. How else would someone vote for a person who has the intention of bankrupting the government while attacking sovereign countries? People are fuckwads. (for some reason my spellchecker suggested duckwads! lol)
Aritcle Here
REDMOND, WAâ"In what CEO Bill Gates called "an unfortunate but necessary step to protect our intellectual property from theft and exploitation by competitors," the Microsoft Corporation patented the numbers one and zero Monday.
Above: At a press conference beamed live to Microsoft shareholders around the globe, Bill Gates announces the company's patenting of the binary system.
With the patent, Microsoft's rivals are prohibited from manufacturing or selling products containing zeroes and onesâ"the mathematical building blocks of all computer languages and programsâ"unless a royalty fee of 10 cents per digit used is paid to the software giant.
"Microsoft has been using the binary system of ones and zeroes ever since its inception in 1975," Gates told reporters. "For years, in the interest of the overall health of the computer industry, we permitted the free and unfettered use of our proprietary numeric systems. However, changing marketplace conditions and the increasingly predatory practices of certain competitors now leave us with no choice but to seek compensation for the use of our numerals."
A number of major Silicon Valley players, including Apple Computer, Netscape and Sun Microsystems, said they will challenge the Microsoft patent as monopolistic and anti-competitive, claiming that the 10-cent-per-digit licensing fee would bankrupt them instantly.
"While, technically, Java is a complex system of algorithms used to create a platform-independent programming environment, it is, at its core, just a string of trillions of ones and zeroes," said Sun Microsystems CEO Scott McNealy, whose company created the Java programming environment used in many Internet applications. "The licensing fees we'd have to pay Microsoft every day would be approximately 327,000 times the total net worth of this company."
"If this patent holds up in federal court, Apple will have no choice but to convert to analog," said Apple interim CEO Steve Jobs, "and I have serious doubts whether this company would be able to remain competitive selling pedal-operated computers running software off vinyl LPs."
As a result of the Microsoft patent, many other companies have begun radically revising their product lines: Database manufacturer Oracle has embarked on a crash program to develop "an abacus for the next millennium." Novell, whose communications and networking systems are also subject to Microsoft licensing fees, is working with top animal trainers on a chimpanzee-based message-transmission system. Hewlett-Packard is developing a revolutionary new steam-powered printer.
Despite the swarm of protest, Gates is standing his ground, maintaining that ones and zeroes are the undisputed property of Microsoft.
Above: Gates explains the new patent to Apple Computer's board of directors.
"We will vigorously enforce our patents of these numbers, as they are legally ours," Gates said. "Among Microsoft's vast historical archives are Sanskrit cuneiform tablets from 1800 B.C. clearly showing ones and a symbol known as 'sunya,' or nothing. We also own: papyrus scrolls written by Pythagoras himself in which he explains the idea of singular notation, or 'one'; early tracts by Mohammed ibn Musa al Kwarizimi explaining the concept of al-sifr, or 'the cipher'; original mathematical manuscripts by Heisenberg, Einstein and Planck; and a signed first-edition copy of Jean-Paul Sartre's Being And Nothingness. Should the need arise, Microsoft will have no difficulty proving to the Justice Department or anyone else that we own the rights to these numbers."
Added Gates: "My salary also has lots of zeroes. I'm the richest man in the world."
According to experts, the full ramifications of Microsoft's patenting of one and zero have yet to be realized.
"Because all integers and natural numbers derive from one and zero, Microsoft may, by extension, lay claim to ownership of all mathemat
Inventors patent ideas to pre-empt their rivals Companies then must buy rights to the devices
Dennis Fernandez has come up with an idea for TV sets with built-in cameras and small screens that would let viewers talk to one another while watching a show.
"Let's say we're both watching a 49ers game," said the 42-year old Menlo Park attorney. "You and I will show up in this bubble picture. You'll have a head shot, and I'll have a head shot, and we're talking to each other during the game. It's as if you and I are in a virtual chat room watching the same broadcast event."
Fernandez has no intention of actually building such a device. But the idea is his -- and he has a certificate from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to prove it.
If a company decides to build a product based on his idea, it might have to buy the patent from him, pay him a licensing fee or face him in court.
It's part of a legal tactic called "offensive blocking patents" in which businesses or individual entrepreneurs use patents not so much as tools to build new products, but as legal roadblocks or bargaining chips against competitors or corporate giants.
Some legal experts, including those representing big corporations, are skeptical of this approach, which they say is impractical because of the enormous costs associated with inventions and patents.
Still, the tactic underscores the growing importance of patents as a competitive weapon in the technology industry, as demonstrated by the recent $35 million judgment in favor of a Virginia inventor who sued EBay for alleged patent infringement. Inventor Tom Woolston accused the San Jose online auction operator of using programs he developed for processing certain sales.
Typically, patent attorneys help companies patent technologies to protect them from rivals. Fernandez, who is also an electrical engineer and inventor, and other Silicon Valley attorneys are taking a more aggressive approach: They help clients analyze their rivals' technology and then try to obtain patents to make it harder for them to move forward.
"It's a more valuable patent that covers your competitor's products (rather) than your products," Fernandez, founding partner of Fernandez & Associates in Menlo Park.
Peter Eng, a senior associate at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, a Palo Alto law firm, said that while most patent attorneys would simply cover what a client is working on, "those with foresight think ahead and predict where others may or may not go."
THE BRICK WALL
John Ferrell, founding partner of Carr & Ferrell in Palo Alto, likened a patent portfolio to a brick wall.
"What I advise my clients to do is to analyze their competitors' road maps, " he said. "Successful companies become successful by spending time thinking about competitors and reacting to competitors proactively."
He cited the standards of Wi-Fi (wireless fidelity) technology, in which transmission speeds have been rapidly advancing during the past three years from 11 megabits per second in 1999 to more than 50. Wireless firms expect the standard to reach more than 100 megabits per second soon.
"There will be technical challenges, so one way we might use our patent portfolio offensively is we might sit down with our smart guys to figure out what we need to do," Ferrell said.
The company can then apply for patents on those inventions. An applicant must prove to a patent examiner in written statements and with drawings and diagrams that the invention is novel and original. But the applicant doesn't have to come up with a prototype.
"You don't have to build it," Ferrell said. "You just have to conceive it. By filing a couple of patents, you essentially have co-opted the standards road map. Anybody who wants to go from G to X has to get through your toll road."
Fernandez said that because his clients and their competitors talk to the same customers, "you know what holes need to be plugged, and you plug it
okay, IANAL,but just for amusement here's an idea.
Get some sci-fi writers involved, to sue the patent holders for copyright infringement, as most of these "blocking patents" are stolen directly from the science fiction films and books of the past decades. There's prior art for you.
you have to point out the joke for the dumb americans
Whatever claims people had that the current copyright and patent system work are refuted by this.
Companies could make their entire business collecting royalties from patents they will never use. The company would never need to produce a product to profit, relying instead on revenues from lawsuits and royalties. The company would probably only consist of Marketing and legal departments with a few inventors to make it look vaguely legitimate.
Oddly enough, this report focused on small companies doing this. I would think that large companies with powerful market research divisions and possibly knowledge of industrial espionage would benefit more from this than a small corporation.
read my blog
musings on politics and technol
Here are some of the patents I have decided to file:
10. Time Travel. I've registered any method of moving through time. This includes moving into the future at the regular pace. If I have to sue, Johnny Cochrane will have a slogan for the courtroom: "If you live another day, then us you will have to pay".
9. Death. I should be able to collect through the funeral parlors on this one. Cochran zez: "If into the coffin you fall it will come from your wallet"
8. Space Travel. If I see you step one foot past Jupiter, buster, you're going to pay.
7. A patent on the drink dispension technique of spilling hot coffee on your own lap. I'll sue that lady who sued McDonald's.
6. The Internet itself. Al Gore may have invented it, but I'm the one who patents it.
5. Pop-up ads. I'll charge those who do this without permission so much they will never do it again.
4. I've patented the monopoly. Not only does Milton-Bradley owe me money, so does Microsoft, Cisco, etc etc etc.
3. I've patented "Item # 3"
2. Top 10 Lists. Letterman, you will get a letter from my attorney, man.
1. The Knife-Spoon-Fork icon. If you use such an icon anywhere, such as a News for Nerds site, you need to pay me.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
There are like these rooms.. real rooms.. for people to chat in.. they're called chat rooms.. no need to call them real chat rooms.. as if there's any other type... fucking idiot...
I own a patent on "posting the same old lame 'I patented the concept of patents' comments and so forth on a computer-based discussion forum". You all have to pay me a $100 license fee or immediately cease and desist your slashdot postings.
That's why they call it "Intellectual" Property. And it's not too obscure if a company ultimately finds value in it.
Companies who wish to legitimately market a product would have to verify that it does not violate an existing patent, and then have to pay royalties if it already is a patent. Smaller companies and individuals who have that legit intent would probably not have enough capital to pay the royalties. This practice damages the IP marketplace more than anything else.
Yep, that's right. Then they should have thought of it first. And for what it's worth, it'll play out kind of the reverse - the chances are much better that a small company will have the capital to file a patent but not ramp up to production. If anything, offensive patents allow the "little man" to play the IP game. It's only the big companies that have the capital to do both, generally. So if an individual without a lot of cash has an idea, he generally has two options: 1) forget about it, or 2) sell it.
A patent is useless and counterproductive to the good of capitalism if no product comes out of it. This is just like cybersquatting, where people just register seemingly random DNS names just so large companies can buy them later. This was made illegal. Take that for precedent if anything is to be done about this.
Completely different - a patent requires (or should) a great deal more innovation than making up a URL. People should be rewarded for ideas. And this can be good even for those who eventually produce the product, as the patent serves as a great way to publicize an idea, making it more likely to get done. Naturally, this depends on the "nonobvious" nature, but if patents are awarded as they should, then even offensive patents benefit everybody. Any product with value gets made, the person who thought of it gets compensated justly, and the product likely gets to market sooner through the advertising nature of the patent registry system. The patent helps the inventor and a potential manufacturer find each other.
But the main thing here is that offensive patents help people with little cash the most.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
Here is an idea I had about 20 years ago, feel free to patent it and make a bunch of money: A digital cell phone with built in 128-bit (or whatever) public key encription. If you call a regular phone, it will not encode the voice stream, but if you call another encripted cell phone, then a the phones would exchange encripting keys and voice data would be encripted/decripted by the phones. sell them to drug dealers, or whatever.
"You don't have to build it," Ferrell said. "You just have to conceive it. By filing a couple of patents, you essentially have co-opted the standards road map. Anybody who wants to go from G to X has to get through your toll road."
This waste of egg and sperm should be hogtied and sodomized with a hardcover edition of the law he is so fond of exploiting.
And to think that the EU is working to adopt a more US-like patent system:( The only thing more lame than these pricks are the politicians who are trying to get this mess into Europe.
ahh... it felt good to rage a little... won't do any good, but still...
How many patents could a patent millionaire patent if patenting patentable patents were patentable? The patently patentable answer to this patently stupid question is patented under patent 1,234,567 and any violations of this patent's patented licensing patent will be punished to the fullest extent of the law (patent pending).
Healthcare article at Kuro5hin
The problem is: A jury is made of 12 people of average intelligence. Such people are not always capable of detecting bogus patents.
We would have less legal problems in this country if they only allowed the top 2% (130+ IQ) to participate in jury duty (and paid them at least $400/day for their time).
definition of chat room from dictionary.com ... or for those too lazy to click ...
Sorry, you lose.
What if there were a two-stage patent process?
1. You are obviously working on something, or have a concept that you're trying to shop around. This patent expires relatively quickly, 18-24 months. (Kind of like a conditional patent).
2. You move the item (product or service) towards financial reality, either by producing the product or offering the service. Once this step is complete (or about to be completed) you are granted the full patent. Fail to develop the concept you patented, and it becomes Fair Use.
bun-fhuinneog agam!
We got it. Damn... That one's getting old. My grandma made that joke on Slashdot in 1843.
I notice he doesn't say anything good about *pple!
My wife came up with an idea a while back for a product, and we're still trying to get a prototype built. When we went to do an online patent search, we discovered at least 8 or 9 potentially troublesome patents already in place for similar devices to ours. Upon closer inspection though, they all appeared to be filed by people who never sold a product based on any of them. In most of the cases, it looked like they were written up by other people like us, trying to piece something together from parts lying around the house. (One guy described how his unit functioned using such things as an aquarium water pump and a tire inner-tube, for example.)
I can understand why the people wanted to patent their ideas, but as others pointed out - it seems like these unimplemented patents should automatically expire after a period of time. (Perhaps 2 years is enough of a time-frame to say "Show evidence of progress, or the patent gets removed."?)
As it stands now, all of these existing patents place artifical limits on the ways we can opt to accomplish specific goals inside our final product. I'd prefer not to disclose exactly what we're trying to do, but just for example - if we want to heat and distill some water in our product, we might have to use a peltier device instead of a heating coil. Even if the heating coil is the superior solutuon, it might put our device into questionable patent territory, since another (fairly broadly worded) patent already describes a device not too different than ours, using a heating coil for this function.
The purpose of patents is "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. . ."
The practice of pre-emptive patenting does not "promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts."
Therefore, if current law permits this practice, then Congress has a clear responsibility to change the laws.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
"As if the patent system weren't screwed up enough already"
The patent system was screwed up since inception. It is a flawed idea that can never be perfected. There will always be ways to abuse the system. As if the idea of patents wasn't screwed up enough, we have people that still have a strong belief in the system. Some of the wisest people were against the system, yet the masses go along with it. Thomas Jefferson did not like the idea, he only agreed to the system at the time because it helped distribute ideas which is something we have no problem doing today.
Question everything.
hi!!!!!!!!! For the people who like SF!!! In the book wrote by John Barnes, Mother of Storms, a personnage, John Klieg became rich by this method! Rahhhhhhhhhhhhhh SF is the ONLY true litterature of this Century ;=)
Sorry for my English, i'm french.....
bidibulle
It's part of a legal tactic called "offensive blocking patents" in which businesses or individual entrepreneurs use patents not so much as tools to build new products, but as legal roadblocks or bargaining chips against competitors or corporate giants.
I think the use of "Offensive" was quite appropriate.
Somewhat like what people did with doamin names? Great. Maybe I should start filing for those 1Gazillion combinations of DNA tomorrow. Got to be in it to win it right?
"Last one in is a rotten goblin!" - Kepp
Come on, this is why we have patents.
The purpose is to create an incentive for people to take ideas, clearly document them, then publish them for others to use.
The incentive is either they will pay you to use them now, or you can keep anyone from using your idea for a limited time.
After that limited time, everyone gets to use your well documented idea for free.
This is the public good arguement of patents, I agree with it. The only way these guys become patent millionaires is if the company can pay them millions for the idea, and still end up with a profit themselves.
Yeah, that's bad. And admittedly, I'm not saying there aren't problems with the patent system - but requiring someone to have full production capacity for an idea (or capability thereof) before granting a patent isn't the answer, and as far as I can tell, that's the only obvious solution to the problem of the "sleazy lawyer" syndrome. In other words, I'm not against solving the problem, but I don't want to lose my rights as a potential inventor in the process.
The problem is that we are no longer at the point where virtually any invention required less than a few thousand dollars worth of tools to make. However, that doesn't mean, necessarily, that someone is incapable of coming up with a kickass new design for a widget, or whatever. Bottom line is I still want the possibility of doing that without having a fabrication facility.
As I've said, I would be certainly in favor of tightening the "nonobvious" clause for things not reduced to practive (ie, made). Or whatever. But I don't want to lose the right to get a patent based effectively off of a blueprint.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
I have a patent for beating idiots like Fernandez with a baseball bat.
:) )
Who wants to violate it?
(silly moderators, it's a joke, chill out
-- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
0.02 cents is not 2 cents, (frustrated with America's mathematical ability, or lack thereof)
Only one problem, that is not a jury of your peers. Definitely not of your peers anyway.
No doubt. My take on it is this : the intent of the patent system was to protect methods of doing things, not ideas of what to do. The different between patenting the design of a loom, and patenting the idea of a loom is huge. The patent office is at fault for granting these overly broad patents. The government is also at fault for treating patents as a source of revenue. Personally, I don't think this problem will be fixed, or even repaired, in the least. The "broken" patent system gives everyone exactly what it wants, an extortion tool.
In Soviet America the banks rob you!
But my patent on it was held up in the court system
When I was a child, we used to play with plastic dolls, and the the Ginny doll, the Vicki doll, the Barbie doll, the Madame Alexander doll, etc. I guess some of them were off-brand. One of my friends always referred to her doll as her "Pat Pending" doll!
"for suggesting ideas or musing on thoughts or making witty commentary in response to stories posted on www.slashdot.org"
...
Actually, if a patent was worded that way, I'd just do as I usually do - connect http://slashdot.org - and skip the www.
Then again... I could violate the DMCA... Boohoo... As if I was ever going to visit the US...
It's called capitalism. Why do so many slashdotters get upset about this stuff? Are slashdotters terrorists or terrorists apologizers? Are they against freedom?
Getting shitted on by tubgirl is a great risk to incur. And as such, he provided great insight.
The sad thing is, I don't think that's just your take - as I understand it, that's supposed to be the very definition of a patent. It's supposed to be an implementation. Sadly, these days, it's not. Blah.
The patent office is at fault for granting these overly broad patents. The government is also at fault for treating patents as a source of revenue.
Damn straight. Supposedly, the government got the idea that encouraging patents=encouraging ingenuity, when the misapplication of patents has the opposite effect. Morons.
The "broken" patent system gives everyone exactly what it wants, an extortion tool.
Well, if not everyone, at least everyone's lawyer. ;P
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
That will tell you how to do a thorough and professional patent search yourself? I'd hate to go throught the pain of independently inventing and building something only to find out I have to pay the leach that patented it later....
Eat at Joe's.
Trip down memory lane here....
Remember Steven and Peter Olsen the next time you decide to swing sideways on the swing and optionally give out a Tarzan like yell. At least they've told the media that they're not going to persue patent violations in court.
Wish all of the ludicrous patents would follow suit...
-B
O'WONDERWe're working on it.
Somebody with 40 billion dollar could make a lot of offensive patents. From zero to ifninity. And then due to the sheer volume use it as a leverage. Not that I am citing the favorite nemesis of slashdot... But think of it. 20 K offensive patents (300 million $) would not even cost a % of their treasure trove. And afterward they would have a big leverage even if 1% of the patents hit home.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
The big problem I see here is that too many of the patents are on a device that does "blank". Never mind that really, most of the work that goes into "inventing" is really in coming up with the "how".
I can speculate "Wow! Wouldn't it be cool to have a time machine!", but unless I can suggest a specific mechanism for creating one, there's no way I should be granted a patent. I can speculate "Wow! Wouldn't it be cool to have a machine to let you fast-forward commercials on live TV" -- but unless I come up with the idea of a memory buffered digital video system and slight delays and dropped frames etc, there's no way I deserve a patent. And unless my "how" is non-obvious to one versed in the arts, there's no way I deserve a patent, either.
Part of the problem seems to be that our system seems to have opened the floodgate to patenting the "what". The other problem is that they're apparently not paying much attention to the non-obvious nature of the "how".
An inventor comes up with a non-obvious "how". The IP-sharks who are nothing but deadweight on the engine of industry use the legal system to get their cut of "what".
Tweet, tweet.
Case in point. My father was an engineer in the 30's and early 40's. He patented the first working variable pitch propellor. The first two patents were for designs that couldn't handle the stresses involved - he figured out how to solve both problems simultaneously. Chances are you've flown on a plane that used a variant of his invention. He tried to peddle the design but the company he was dealing with didn't like his terms so they just took the idea. The contingency lawyers he talked to wanted such a big slice of any payout that he didn't figure it was worth pursuing that avenue. My father didn't have enough money to fund a lawsuit and that was that. He did a bit more work after that - designed the landing gear for the DC-3 among other things.
It's worth noting that the article is talking about a lawyer patenting his own ideas. That perfectly illustrates who the patent system is set up to benefit.
There is one thing I learned some time ago about the french law on patents, and that times it is good news : according to these laws, if some organization buys a patent and has not begun to commercialize something in a given lapse of time after that (two years, if I remember well), the patent author gets his rights back :-)
That forbids a corporation to buy a patent just to bury it; the legislator here estimated that such a thing did not go in the way of public interest.
I do not know how it is in other countries, european or not.
Not having patents on software or algorithms is a good thing for mankind as a whole, I am pretty sure of that, but probably not for the inventors themselves. Don't you think abnormal that the inventors of the Fast Fourier Transform never got a cent for their invention (which was a bright one) from the people who use it daily, and even sell devices using their algorithms ? Did not Boyer and Moore deserve something from the community for their clever string-search algorithm? And what about Quicksort?
I guess that if software and algorithm patents are forbidden, something should be put into place so the human community recognizes contributions of great value, and rewards them accordingly. As there are perhaps not more than one or two VERY bright ideas (like Boyer-Moore's) each year, or at most a score of them, this should be a manageable thing.
Signature omitted in order to save space. Thanks for your understanding.
IANAL (YET!)
So, first of all, a patent can easily cost $15K. Patent a few things that nobody wants and pretty soon, you've got through a lot of cash. Even if you do actually get a worthwhile patent, enforcing it is completely another manner -- your target company can tie you up in court for YEARS (costing tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars), at the end of which you may lose.
Secondly, you can't patent obvious or already existing technologies -- it's one of the reasons people can lose patent fights -- they patented something that somebody else invented or that anybody reasonably knowledgeable in the field would predict.
Finally, though, you can't just patent an idea -- it needs to be "reduced to practice." In other words, Wilbur and Orville couldn't just say "We have this great idea -- a flying machine. Please give us a patent on it." Part of the patent describes exactly how it works. Just patenting an idea while lying to the patent office that you've reduced it to practice is considered fraud.
Now, the problem with all this is that people regularly patent already existing ideas, they regularly patent obvious things and they regularly patent things that don't (or can't) exist. The patent office does not have the ability to make sure that every patent is good (cost, manpower, cost, speed of technology, cost, etc....) Instead, the USPTO effectively relies on patent litigation as a method of getting rid of crummy patents. Very inefficient and leads to people licensing technologies rather than spending the money to litigate obviously bad patents.
The article in particular is referring to a kind of predatory patenting: figuring out what your competitors are working on, and patenting it before they can develop it.
It's basically taking advantage of inefficiency in the patent scheme. I don't usually file a patent until I've worked out the idea. Meanwhile, you can file a patent on the germ of the idea without exploring the details, a lot more cheaply. I can't bring my fully-thought-out idea to market without paying you royalty fees, which can be arbitrarily high.
There is no good way to say, "Yeah, congratulations, you've done $1.95 worth of thinking, here's two bucks, keep the change." The patent is an absolute block, which can be held over your head for whatever you will bear.
It's not a practical way of doing business: it takes too long and too much money to file a patent. It's not entirely like domain name speculators: you can do it but it's going to cost you a lot of money and time, probably too much to be worth your effort.
But until they've discovered that, it will prevent several good, real companies from bringing practical ideas to market.
what is wrong with people?
it's a fucking JOKE
why was this modded into troll obvilion? where are people's senses of humor?
i don't expect +5 funny, but it's not an evil troll, it's a fucking JOKE
the humorless assholes out there man...
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
How about simply enforcing existing rules about things like harassing litigation? If judges slapped contempt of court fines on every lawyer who tried to drain his opponents funding (and at punitive levels) then we'd see these tactics disappearing. Big corporate industry group goes after small guy who states online that they bought the product and it didn't work? See if they do that again after getting a $50 million contempt of court fine. Big companies can afford to just throw $50k at a trial knowing that the little guy will sign anything to make it go away.
There are at least maintenance charges to continue a patent. But there's nothing like evaluating the value of the patent and collecting taxes for a percentage of that.
Seems like SOP to me.
When you decide to construct a building and file for a site plan and building permit, they both have limitations in them, such as "significant construction must commence within 12 months of the granting of this application". There are fairly rigid definitions of what that means. If we had something like that for patents, then in some number of months after granting a blocking patent, it would be pulled and would have to be re-applied for. Meanwhile, other parties could make progress on the subject.
Edison said invention is something like 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration. The patent system wasn't set up to provide a means for one-percenters to stake a claim on the future hard work of the 99-percenters.
When you get a permit to build a house you generally have 2 years to complete the work, then if the work isn't done you have to get a new permit. Patent applications should expire like that. Otherwise we will have an idea-squatting industry akin to domain name squatting.
Some have said that the USPTO has no impetus not to issue a patent because they only get paid for issuance, or at least, the patent, once issued, costs more than the process of issuance.
How about we require a fee for filing the patent (and for each resubmission in case corrections need to be made) and then charge no additional fees once the patent is issued.
This way, the costs are incurred regardless of whether the patent is issued and perhaps the onus won't be on the patent investigator to allow a patent through.
If you had the brains you would be generating IP instead if whining about it.
I recently saw the patent for the guy who claims he invented online auctions.
Really?!? Were there diagrams/pictures of a prototype model of this guy?
On the bright side, the future creation of guys that claim they invented online auctions might be blocked by the patent holder.
Then charge every single human based on a scale. Payment will include allowing me to slap you in the face for some cases.
Somebody please rescind this gentleman's license to use the English language posthaste.
This has always been the problem with PTO.
The Device has to have been built and made to work. Otherwise the patent system can and is evolving into nothing more than a vast roadblock to progress.
The example in the article is the perfect example of why things should have to be built before they can be patented. We have a tv set that has a camera and connects people that are watching the show. This is a cheat. Its not enough to produce such a device. It completely misses the work and related inventions that would be needed to make such a thing work. Properly speaking its not even an idea its a description of an Idea.
Edison once said "Genius is one percent inspiration, 99 percent perspiration". The patent system is awarding people patents on the one percent.
sorry for the typoes in the last. It's just that the constant whining get's so annoying that I just can't type it out fast enough.
http://www.telegen.com/
WIPO Decsion
Patent examiners generally start at the GS-7/9 grades making roughly 50-60k a year. Promtion can be rapid, and it is possible to make 90k a year before bonuses/overtime. There was a pay increase several years ago to keep examiners from quiting to work in the private sector as patent agents.
http://www.popa.org/newsletters/julaug00.shtml
Patent examiners are paid on GS scale with specailly 1224, it tops out around 120k for a gs15/10. Attorneys generally make around 100k to start and go up to around 400k.
Bring back the old version of slashdot.
(1) Not Invented Here
(2) Good idea. We'll take it / steal it / burglarize it, and if you fight us, we'll ruin you.
This is the Granfaloon syndrome, and patents have nothing to do with any of it. It happens with or without patents (but item #2 happens more often with patents. Item #1 happens more often without.)
Either way, you don't make money.
Possibility #3, as suggested by electronics guru Don Lancaster (who also wrote The CMOS Cookbook): You develop one, and take lots of photos while you do it. You *publish* your idea in a related journal, thus triggering Granfallon Reaction #1, and immediately getting *some* profit, and *some* advertising. Then you start selling "consultation", "instruction booklets", "kits", and whatnot.
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
I wouldn't let any wanna-be patents get in the way of something that's going to make you money. Your company, Widgets-R-Us should start cranking out as many Whizzy-Wigs(TM) as possible (first mover advantage is your friend). It will take a while for those patent holders to figure out that you are infringing on them. Then they'll have spend some real money to sue you. Your counter move is to use the court system in the way it works best. That is: delay, delay, delay. With only minimal attorney's costs, you should be able to get continuance, upon continuance. When two years down the road your court date arrives, you have a choice to make: either Widgets-R-Us is a highly sucessful enterprise which can afford to fight in court (or possibly license the patent), or Widgets-R-Us files for bankruptcy, in which case the trial will be put on hold. Then, by sheer coincidence, Widget-Factory, Inc. decides to hire you as President/CEO and gives you 100% ownership in the company as an incentive. Wash, rinse, repeat.
Journal: Beyond irrational numbers (continued fractions)
Dude! You've just described Rambus.
DMCA - Chilling free speech since 1998.
If everytime I thought of something really good I waited to build it then I'm going to lose out to someone else. If you think of a revolutionary wing design that computer simulations show will double lift are you going to build the fucking airplane first?
I'm not an economist, but it's frequently said that our economy (in the US) is built off of progress. The more progress we make, the better our economy gets. If the progress stops, then the economy starts to go down.
One of the examples in the article was saying "there's going to be technical issues in making wireless any faster, let's find out solutions to them and patent them." If someone does this, and tries to extort massive royalties out of someone else for making faster wireless, then people aren't going to use their technology. That's kind a like the case with RAMBUS. Their stuff costed more, so people didn't use it. However, in that case, someone came up with DDR, so no one really cares about RAMBUS much any more. But if the only way to get something to work getter has huge patent fees, it's going to slow down innovation and the economy.
However, under the US PATRIOT act, if they slow down the economy, we might be able to label them as terrorists, take away their patents, and send them to live with our good friends that we've locked up in Guantanmo Bay!
By design, there is no requirement that you "work" an invention in the U.S.
Other countries have or have had it, the concept of requiring an inventor to "work" an invention is generally similar to the concept of "compulsory licensing" (google that with "patent").
The requirement to work a patent used to be in the Japanese patent system and some other systems (In Japan, a person who intended to work an invention could force a non-exclusive license or an arbitration bu MITI when the patent was idle). Google "work the invention" and Japan, etc.
Compulsory licensing is hated by, you guessed it, U.S. trade negotiators. The complaint is generally under the theory that, for example, GM patents in Japan should not expire there just because GM builds nothing in Japan. Such lobbying and other pressure is usually paid for by the pharma industry, who would like to prevent countries from saving the lives of their citizens by making patented drugs themselves when there are buckets of cash to be made from forcing them to import the drugs. Of course, the laws are the same for drugs and for any other widget/software/method/material/etc.
That is, it's been tried, and it isn't advantageous to U.S. industry, so forget it.
So I don't get it. Progress is progress... if the motiviation for inventions and creative thinking is only to block your enemy, so be it!
The first one to think of the idea should get control of it. The problem however, is the ideas being credited as novel. The main issue here is that even though there is no "prior art", there was lots of "prior thought", which is why people don't like the current patent system.
IANAL but IWAPE (I was a Patent Examiner (Damn, there goes any credibility I might have had)) but I think most patent infringment/validity trials are (or, at least, were) held in front of a US District Court Judge without a jury who makes rulings on both law and facts. A trial before a jury, however, is an option available to the accused infringer (defendant).
Now if there was just something that could be patented such that the Patent Office would have to pay royalties... I have it! A patent on the process of approving bad patents. The Rubber Stamp Patent! They will be out of business in no time!
Next, on Fox, Patent Millionaire! One guy, 12 women, and 550 frivolous patents!
..as I understand it, is that the PTO gets more money if it actually grants the patent then if it refuses it.
Considering that it gets squat for federal money these days, you can see how this situation leads to the patenting of crap-on-a-stick and so forth.
So to fix this, do it the other way around. Charge slightly more should the patent examiner determine the invention is "obvious" and a lot more should it be determined that there is prior art.
I'd even be willing to give the examiners a direct incentive should they find prior art. (But set up an appeals process if you do that) This would discourage companies and individuals from patenting utter crap, and strongly encourage patent applicants to do a good search of the prior art, rather then (as now) choosing to avoid looking (because if you don't see it, you can say you didn't know)
That Jesus Christ guy is getting some terrible lag... it took him 3 days to respawn! -NJ CoolBreeze
I can't see much wrong with this "offensive" patent blocking at least when it's being done by individuals or small companies. We all get great ideas sometimes, but how many of us have the resources to follow them through ? Most of the article was heavily biased against the lone inventor it did all but call them anti-american anarchists. Their analogy is arse over tit, it's more comparable to the land rush in the American west. Anyone can in theory can stake a claim and if you're very lucky you've pitched your tent over an oilfield. No inventor in their right mind would sit on a patent forever without allowing it to be developed, that's just plain perverse but it seems to be okay for big business to do exactly that. There's nothing wrong with this practice it's one of the few areas where Joe Public still has some leverage over faceless mega-corporations. Right and wrong rarely matter in the courts these days, it's simply who's got more money to throw at the lawyers, it's nice to see the little guy with a chance for a change.
But we would get our phones cheaper.
I had an idea for a web site I like to call my technology wish list. Basically everyone can enter their ideas for products they would like to see, like "a wi-fi access point in a cell phone that my pda, laptop, and my car's on-board computer can use to connect to the internet" and then cross our fingers and hope someone decides to make it. Others could comment on and improve the ideas or tell the person that it already exists and where to find it.
If there is a patent case comes up involving one of the wishes then the postings might serve as prior art.
(If this web site already exists somewhere please post a link to it.)
Coding Blog
"You don't have to build it," Ferrell said. "You just have to conceive it. By filing a couple of patents, you essentially have co-opted the standards road map. Anybody who wants to go from G to X has to get through your toll road."
That quote, from a patent Attorney, says all anyone needs to know about why patents on non-tangible things are bad. If you're going to patent something, I think you should have to build it before you're allowed to apply for a patent. If it can't be physically built, then it can't be patented.
Just be sure to wear the gold uniform when you beam down -- you know what happens when you wear the red one.
I see nothing wrong here. The patent system is designed so that if an inventor has an idea, he is given protection of his idea while allowing him to share it with the world.
The other option is total secrecy. This article describes what has been SOP in patents since the patent system was created. In many cases, a person simply doesn't have the resources to produce and market their idea. Patents allow them to sell the rights to that idea to someone who DOES have those capabilities.
Both parties win. The producer is given a really cool idea for a (hopefully) innovative product, which allows him to make some profit. The inventor gets a cut (or a flat payment, it depends) which he rightly deserves for coming up with the idea. In short, he's being paid to do R&D.
Are you saying that the Bell Labs research staff should not get paid for their work, even though they themselves won't be producing the items?
Abuse happens when people try to patent blatantly obvious ideas and it gets right through the USPTO because the USPTO is so understaffed. Abuse also happens when people are unreasonable in their terms. (For example, using patents to shut down open-source projects. As opposed to a number of patents which have licenses essentially stating, "You may use this in software distributed under the GNU GPL. If you want to use it in any commercial application, negotiate licensing with us."
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
Step 1: Patent obvious idea
Step 2:
Step 3: Profit!
Someone should patent litigation, the laws, our rights so that no one is allowed to sue, or to abide by the law. (without paying a licensing fee)
The reason an individual should get a patent he doesn't intend to build is to sell it. The purchasing company is then paying for the time and effort he took to develop a sound idea. This would be in place of paying their own people to do it.
Trying to patent what a company will probably develop later is simply squatting. Just as cyber-squatting is being dealt with fairly well through an international organization (ICANN), a similar appeals process should be set up by the patent office.
The difficulty is in establishing regulations and standards that define what patent-squatting is and how to identify it. Once somebody figures that out, they could patent it and sell it to the US patent office.
Its not quite as big as ebay, but if someone coded this up, you could make around 1-10 million$ each month.
I need either a guy who knows how to patent stuff.
Or
A team of developers who understand how to make agent programs that use websites to generate an outcome...
I'd code it myself but its really a TON of parsing unstandardized websites and I don't see myself being too thrilled doing all of it.
My email:James_Sager_PA@yahoo.com
God spoke to me
I am applying for a Patent on the process of applying for a temporary monopoly on a particular design, idea or business process. I am thinking of calling this a 'patent'. I am going to make my 'patents' capable of being hopelessy vague and inclusive and so I can enforce my 'patent' on a very similar process I have noticed going on around the world ( co-incidentally this is also called patenting ) and make a huge amount of money for very litte actual work. I'm not sure if this will catch on very well though so I will set up my first 'patent office' with just a couple of temps, I only anticipate maybe half a dozen 'patents' being applied for a year so they should have plenty of time to research them all thouroghly even given the fact they can't hope to have any real knowledge of many of the areas my customers may wish to buy their patents in. It will be great. I will be rich.
I'm sure I saw this on a cheesy sci-fi movie that ran on MST3K last year !
Prior art !... Prior art !... Prior art !
;)
"Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech."--Benjamin Franklin
I agree, but that's what slashdot has become. Now I've gotten some actually useful information from this sight, but just about every other article can be summed up as "information wants to be free". By the way it's ALL intellectual property that are evil, not just software patents. But there's nothing more to say about it really.
-Libertarian secular transhumanist
There is nothing wrong in principle with patenting things you don't expect to be producing. After all, inventors and scientists aren't businessmen or builders--in theory patents would allow a beneficial separation of labor: inventors invent and they get paid by commercial companies build and produce.
What is wrong with "offensive blocking patents" is that companies can patent trivial things and basically extort money from their competitors. The "brick wall" analogy is quite apt: people patent nearly worthless "bricks" of patents, but if they stack them up in front of their competitors, they can make money from the nuisance of it alone. It really is like if you could legally put a brick wall in front of the entrance to your competitor's factory. If the patent system worked as it is supposed to, it would restrict people to patenting gems, highly valuable and rare ideas that are actually sought out by companies for licensing.
I suspect that if the patent system worked the way it is supposed to, there might be a few thousand patents a year granted at most, not the several hundred thousand patents that are actually granted.
Journal: Beyond irrational numbers (continued fractions)
Outlaw ALL intellectual property laws. Change the constitution. This is worth going to war over (just like over slavery).
-Libertarian secular transhumanist
From the article:
It's part of a legal tactic called "offensive blocking patents" in which businesses or individual entrepreneurs use patents not so much as tools to build new products, but as legal roadblocks or bargaining chips against competitors or corporate giants.
Patents are never tools to build new products. You don't need a patent to build your own product. And if your product partially infringes on somebody else's active patent - then a patent of your own wont give you any rights to build it at all.
The only use for a patent is to stop others from using your technology.
Personally, I am a bit of an inventor and I often come up with different ideas for business software. When I do, I ask myself if I can develop it myself as a stand-alone product. If I can, then I start develop it; and I don't necessarily file a patent.
But sometimes I find that my idea would be most useful as a part of a large existing piece of software. In that case I try to file a patent, and I can then approach a bigger company with my idea. I don't see anything wrong with this.
Tor
I can't help but think of a story in which a person is consulted about ideas to patent, and in his disgust starts to bring forth ridiculous ideas such as the see-through public shitter; exchanging short text strings across a computer network was seen as crazy once too!
And yet, he realizes the great potential he holds as his crazy ideas eventually become common place due to the "herd mentality". See-through public shitters -- why didn't we think of that? So he begins to craft his utopia and the successive ideas that need to get our civiliation there...
Seems humorous to me...
"This isn't a study in computer science, its a study in human behavior"
My god, this system is absolutely fucked due to the very nature of capitalism.
But the one thing we CAN do to bring some sembalance of order to the system is fight money with money. I mean, come on, nobody patents anything 'just because', they use the patent to make money or prevent competitors from making money.
People with no money complaining about getting caught on prior art? That's their problem, every single US Patent is available their disclosure before they file.
Man is the animal that laughs.
And occasionally whores for Karma.
Years ago, when I was young and so much more
foolish than I admit to today, I worked for a
large company best known for its mainframe
systems. During the course of developing a new
product, a team of three of us came up with a
scheme for statically compressing executable code
to be dynamically decompressed into memory for
execution at run-time(This was pre-Stacker days).
The three of us who developed this system - being
fairly normal CompSci people - gave no thought to
the idea of pantenting it. However, the Powers
That Be (PTB) decided otherwise and had us do the
paperwork for a software patent. Amazingly, the
Intellect Property (IP) people (Lawyers) decided
it wasn't worth the effort to patent (They were
probably taking turns kicking one another when
the MS-Stacker suit over just this issue came
around). So... instead of a patent application,
they had us file a "Technical Disclosure" (TD), The
purpose of a which is supposed to be to introduce
"prior art" into the public domain so that it can't
be patented by someone else later who can then
come back at you and demand royalties.
If there was some sort of license that made it so you were allowed to break into anyone's home and take their stuff, how many people would do it?
Lately I'm starting to think that number is not so small.
Isn't this patent business morally equivalent?
"Dear Inventor,
We would like to implement a means for people to talk to each other while watching a TV program.
We have absolutely no idea how to do this, and this brilliant, totally new idea needs your expertise to implement.
What possible technologies are there to achieve this? We've had many conference calls and online interwebcam-webchats, and examined all the interactive TV technology and are at a total loss!
Perhaps you geniuses could suggest a way forward?
Yours sincerely,
Alan Cretin"
Seriously, I work in interactive TV, and how on *Earth* can this be called a problem with a non-obvious solution? It's like patenting a videophone... anyone got that one's patent number??
There is nothing wrong with obtaining a patent on something you have no intention of producing. The fact of the matter is that there are many great sources of legitimate innovation that operate exactly this way. Biotechnology companies that build a new drug and then sell it to pharmaceuticals to manufacture and market. Universities that obtain patents on technologies invented in their labs, and then sell the patents to industrials to realize their commercial potential. Research consortia set up to develop new technologies and then license them back to the companies who fund the consortia.
The list of these sorts of operations is long, and quite distinguished. There is a tremendous amount of legitimate innovation that results from companies and individuals being able to patent results of research and development, and license the patents to companies whose strength is manufacturing, not innovation.
The real issue with the 'inventions' described in the article is that they are really not inventions, but rather obvious combinations of technologies already released to the public. Most of these patents should have never been granted.
I think part of the problem with the patent system is that there's no redress for filing an obviously frivolous patent. You file your patent, and if the off chance someone sues, the patent is invalidated. The legal fees are hardly a deterrent if you were willing to gamble the $15K in legal and filing fees in the first place. Or is there some civil or criminal penalty for wilfully abusing the patent system that I'm not aware of?
Patents: Useful arts, inventors, discoveries
Copyrights: Science, authors, writings
Reduce the filing and maintenance fees to zero.
WHAT!!!???
Here's why: Right now, the PTO is a cash cow for the government. They've got a nice little business going. PTO actually generates "profit" which helps the government fool us into believing they can balance a budget.
Filing and maintenance fees are only a small disincentive (if any) to wealthy lawyers and deep-pocketed corporations. Eliminating the fees won't spike the applications as much as you might think.
What would happen is that the PTO would have to be supported out of the general fund. They would have to figure out how to run on a budget, and what would they do? They would do many of the things that we want them to do: Stricter guidelines on what could be patented, elimination of the controversial software and business method categories, and fewer examiners.
Now, I wonder if we can slip this one in as "pro business" and fool them? Somehow I doubt it. Also, the city of Alexandria, Virginia would be pissed off because the huge new PTO complex being built there would have to find a new tenant.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
It's funny how hippocritical our government is:
(According to our governmnet) one is good business (get something someone else wants to buy), the other is cybersquatting. What is up with that?
For over 200 years, the basic role of the Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) has remained the same: to promote the progress of science and the useful arts by securing for limited times to inventors the exclusive right to their respective discoveries (Article 1, Section 8 of the United States Constitution). Under this system of protection, American industry has flourished. New products have been invented, new uses for old ones discovered, and employment opportunities created for millions of Americans.
The PTO is a non-commercial federal entity and one of 14 bureaus in the Department of Commerce (DOC). The office occupies a combined total of over 1,400,000 square feet, in numerous buildings in Arlington, Virginia. The office employs over 5,000 full time equivalent (FTE) staff to support its major functions--- the examination and issuance of patents and the examination and registration of trademarks.
The PTO has evolved into a unique government agency. Since 1991-- under the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (OBRA) of 1990-- the PTO has operated in much the same way as a private business, providing valued products and services to our customers in exchange for fees which are used to fully fund our operations. The primary services we provide include processing patents and trademarks and disseminating patent and trademark information.
Through the issuance of patents, we encourage technological advancement by providing incentives to invent, invest in, and disclose new technology worldwide. Through the registration of trademarks, we assist businesses in protecting their investments, promoting goods and services, and safeguarding consumers against confusion and deception in the marketplace. By disseminating both patent and trademark information, we promote an understanding of intellectual property protection and facilitate the developments and sharing of new technologies world wide.
If you can't provide a prototype you shouldn't be able to patent something. Didn't it used to be that way?
I would hate to figure a way to travel faster than light then find out someone filed 20 differant patents that your idea falls under.
How about we make an "Obvious Idea" database, then seal it with a verisign certificate every night?
Everyone could pitch in and add "Videoconferencing on TV" type ideas all day.
The person I heard about this kind of assoholic behavior was James Watt (yep, the unit of power).
He did the same thing with steam engine patents.
Why don't the headlines ever read 'Psychic wins lottery'
Dennis Fernandez, that is. He gave a seminar at a conference on artificial intelligence in Honolulu last year. His presentation was very focussed on the use of patents as an offensive business weapon. Basically, he was telling us to look very carefully at what the competition is doing, then file patents on anything they could develop from what they currently have. He called it ring-fencing the competition.
Although I don't agree with his sense of ethics in this matter, he is actually a pretty nice guy.
The main characters agent has patented thousands of yet to be named cures using every possible greek/latin/english combination. He keeps the 'medicine' (which is just M&M's at the moment) in labelled vials which he carries in his suitcase.
The agent also gives his client the 'cure' for anxiety, because he seems stressed.
Feed me a stray cat.
I know this is a oft villified method of making money from your inventions, but if you don't have thousands of patents in your portfolio it is the only way you can do it.
If you actually make a prototype or worse try to sell the invention you can't protect your invention from IBM or another megacorp. If you build something you are violating hundreds if not thousands of patents and any large corporation that wants to use your patent can just send you a list of 10 or 20 of theirs that you are using. So you have to cross-license. If you simply sell licenses to your patent to others you can contractualy abide them to get any additional licenses they need to build the thing and the interested megacorp can't sue them to get the license and it can't sue you for violating their patent. They either pay your price or they abort the product. If they can force you to cross-license you don't generate any revenue and your patent is now worthless since no one wants to pay you to compete with some company that doesn't have to pay you a dime for the use of the patent.
I personally think the patent system should be scrapped in favor of a one or two automatic year "copyright" on ideas from the date of first publication. "Publication" would have to be refined to mean indexed in one of a short list of industry specific databases and available for free and within 5 seconds. Just so that you could properly figure out if your idea was covered by someone's "copyright". Then add a layer of comments, al la slashdot, and a 48 hour method for getting frivalous claims authoritatively marked so by experts... It would be much much more efficient and you could additionally have licensing prices published (perhaps even with URL's to commercial clearing houses). and the the two year window should assure that "copyrights" on fundamental concepts can only destroy only a company or ten and not entire industries. I also think the experts should be paid directly by the government (no fees) and voted for by the users of the system, on a field/sub-field basis, with intersubfield jurors selected on an ad-hoc basis. Maybe 48 hours isn't enough, but at least extra time should have serious discouragements. The jurors/reviewers should also be able to penalize a claim that does not properly site other people's non-frivalous claims (at least within a 2 year window.) Industries with high regulatory burdens, like drug companies, could get an extra year tacked on if they get approval within the two year window. -- This would force people to actually move in order to get six months to a year of monopoly prices, they could then continue as a commodity producer with first mover advantage or simply leave the generics to others and pluck something else from their invention pipeline. Big companies would probably continue making the products as they are usually inefficient inventors but efficient producers, and smaller outfits could innovate and actually make some licensing revenue from the big guys. $50,000 on your little invention can keep you working on the big one for six months to a year on the big one.
This doesn't fund basic science since that can take 5 to 50 years to become practical, but the R part of R&D is usually not so well executed by industry. Leave that to market leaders and universities which have the motivation to make those discoveries anyway. You could even continue the tax credit schemes we have now for research or fund them with industry taxes like we have for milk advertising and the like (for recession proofing, tax credits aren't as useful when your not profiting this quarter...)
"Great article", he said. "Offensive blocking patents!! We need to be a lot more active ourselves. Need to start thinking about this."
He wasn't being sarcastic. Until the patent system gets a real shake up, people will abuse it.
No, I did not read the f***ing article!
There already is one: the USPTO. The process, Patent Reexamination.
Reexamination may be initiated by any person willing to petition the office and setting forth any substantial new question of patentability. The Patent office can also begin such a process sua sponte (by its own initiation), as it did with the patents in the RIM and Compton's cases.
people who patent ideas for things they have no intentions of building, hoping to license technology or block competitors from doing something similar. As if the patent system weren't screwed up enough already.
It's frequently been remarked here that misuse of a law meant to encourage innovation can actually discourage it, instead.
As the great Daffy Duck used to say, "Consequences, shmonsequences! So long as I'm rich!"
When all you have is an axe, everything looks like a grindstone.
Someone once told me I can't even copyright an idea. I had the idea then that he was an idiot looking for a nonexistent semantic nit. What's an implementation, if not an idea? Is it still an idea after it's written down? What's intangible, something that isn't in writing?
Am I the only person who ever had a detailed and specific idea about an implementation? I have no idea how anything complicated is done or written down without an idea. Can someone explain? Does a written idea about an implementation become an implementation when it surpasses a certain implementation-dependent length in writing? Is this all about finding a dismissive label such as "intangible" to apply to ideas that shouldn't be called implementations, or does one look at ideas on a case-by-case basis?
No, but once I came in first and third in a circle jerk.
I swear I read awhile back, that in order to patent something, you have to have a working model of it. Not that the multi-user/chat interface would be that difficult to create.. but still..
;-)
Or there's also the option of doing it ouside the country and outside of the US legal system
We would have less legal problems in this country if they only allowed the top 2% (130+ IQ) to participate in jury duty (and paid them at least $400/day for their time). ..for your faith in the myth of IQ numbers, I declare you incompetent to sit on a jury.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Yes, when you look back into older patent submissions, it becomes quite obvious that the patent office used to require real development work and a serious (if not perfect) model before granting anything. My great grandfather was a chemical engineer who patented some refinery technology in the early 1900's, and the designs he had to submit were pretty amazing. He still hadn't finished development work on his process, but he was required to publish extensive designs of the process engineering, and that allowed him the funding to build pilot plants and work out the actual details of the running process.
When did the patent office start giving patents for "concepts" with no development work?
If you think you can find valuable minerals (gold, silver, etc) on public land you can file a mining claim. A claim gives you the right to control the land and develop the minerals on that land. But the Bureau of Land Management (unlike the patent office) requires that you do actual work on the claimed land, either significant prospecting efforts or mining development, or else you lose the claim (and the rights revert back to the government). This system works pretty well because squatters can't just hold vast amounts of land that they do nothing with, but people who are serious about mining can explore for minerals while protecting their investments if their efforts find "pay dirt."
The patent system lacks such checks and balances, and it's becoming clear that we need such a process that requrires that a patent holder at least show work on developing their idea or else lose control of it back into the public domain of free human thought.
There are two issues here.
Firstly, on the point of obtaining patents for inventive ideas, there is nothing wrong with focusing just on that activity. Some people are very inventive, and if they can help advance society (and make a living for themselves at the same time) by coming up with patents then that's good for us all. It's better than them having their bright ideas stolen and used without any remmuneration in return. There are many other examples of industrial specialisation in society, and this is one of them: here the specialisation is on producing new technologies. If it turns out that many of these new technologies are not feasible or require further work to implement, well that just devalues that worth of the patent (potentially) and the collorary is that the incentive for the patent producers is to produce worthwhile patents (rather than waste money on unworkable ideas). If people are "lucky dipping" and "jackpotting" by creating realms of dubious patents, then so be it.
Secondly, there's always going to be some level of dodgy practice - but this goes two ways: you have peope filing "bogus" patents, but you also have companies and organisations that work around legitimate patents so as to avoid paying royalties. Everybody is playign the game - it used to be a gentleman's game, but society isn't so much like this anymore, and I don't think that's a per se issue in the patent system but it reflects an ethical and moral position that we all take. On the other hand, new technology is always going to cause problems with existing systems, so there's another problem of "good faith" dodgy patents simply where filer and examiner aren't aware that the patent doesn't reflect the situation with a new technology (and the kinds of people that read slashdot are very technologically savvy and can see these points straight away, but the rest of the world isn't quite there).
In fact, I say this because I'm one of these inventive people that has a lot of good ideas, but I'm quite useless at implementing them. I hate it when people criticise me for this, and in return I say that there are many people out there with bad ideas (or no ideas) but are very good implementors. The world requires people of all sorts to work together - and if there are structures and systems in the world that help facilitate this (and every sensible person accepts that all structures and systems have some degree of flaw) then that's to the benefit of us all.
Look; ideas are ten (or more) a penny. Good ideas are about 1% of all ideas (at best). Good ideas that can make money in the real world are about 1% of all good ideas. That's a low production rate. In order to generate these ideas, we have to do all sorts of research, be aware of wide areas of technology, employ experts in consumer interaction, etc etc.
So, if we develop a good, marketable idea, what do we do with it? How does one sell ideas? That's our niche; we understand how to protect and sell ideas. We understand patents, design rights (registered and unregistered), copyright, NDAs... the whole shooting match. That's where our expertise is, not in manufacture or distribution or marketing or sales. We deal in ideas.
As a consequence, we never make anything (except prototypes and some demos). And we never will. We sell the ideas (license the patents or designs) to people who can and will make money from them. And there's nothing wrong in that.
Note, though, that I'm not arguing the patent system isn't flawed. It's just that if anyone wants to protect a good, novel, inventive idea then there is no real workable alternative.
Anna
http://delvedesigns.com/websites/clancrazy/resume/ ideas.html
This new one WILL make millions. I just don't feel like writing alot of parsing code. I'd rather take a bullet in a bank robbery than code anything else right now.
God spoke to me
Uh... why on earth should you *have* to commercialise something you've patented? (unless you're talking about the standard "give me the product of your intellectual endevours... information wants to be free" etc etc... argument).
Patent law gives a limited monopoly in exchange for an inventor disclosing to the public how the invention works - not for actually marketing and selling the product. Patents are legal tools for protecting innovation - whether this is by defensive patenting, licensing or by litigation.
Any proposal to restrict patent rights based on commercialisation (other than the already existing compulsory license regimes you find in most countries patent law), would in one stroke kill off most small inventors/tinkerers who might hope to license their idea to a manufacturer or large company. And before anyone starts bleating about the evils of big business, this does happen.
Also, how would you enforce this across national boundaries? Would you have to sell/manufacture/etc in every country you have a patent? Would it be enough to license it? What would constitute commercialisation? (and to whose satisfaction...).
There's not really any justification for enforcing such a limitation. The compulsory license regimes are sufficient for cases of non-working (eg - pharmaceuticals etc). There is also the widely used mechanism of escalating maintenance fees (they get bigger during the life of a patent - specifically to encourage owners of useless patents to let them expire).
People need to learn some patent law. Chicken Little is still on the loose.
I'm still trying to figure out why Al Gore didn't patent the Internet. He could have made a fortune, and saved all that time he wasted in politics!
See article here.
This is the public good arguement of patents, I agree with it. The only way these guys become patent millionaires is if the company can pay them millions for the idea, and still end up with a profit themselves.
It is a terrible idea to lock up human knowledge for any period of time, or to try and promote a so-called free market economy by granting government entitlements to monopolies right and left. Free markets DEPEND upon competition to function. Monopolies are antithetical to competition. Artificial monopolies on knowledge that restricts whole genres of human endeavor eradicate free markets in entire industries, to everyone's detriment (including, quite often, the monopolists' themselves).
Not only is the idea itself locked up for at least 20 years (longer in many cases, as folks like the pharmaceutical companies have become clever in patenting one portion of a process, then patenting another portion of the same process, extending their patent for several iterations), but every idea which would rest upon the first is locked up and delayed as well.
The initial 20 year stifling of knowledge is bad enough, but the domino effect is sufficiently horrible that we drive around in cars not a great deal different from those built 20 years ago, fly in airplanes not a great deal different from those built 50 years ago, and have doctors and laboratories working on cancer and AIDS treatments ordered to cease and desist their most promising researches by thuggish lawyers more concerned with lining their own pockets than with the tens of thousands of lives such an indefensible policy costs.
There are many other ways to finance R&D than giving away monopoly entitlements, be it for 1 year, 20 years, or (to stray from the topic of monopolies on human knowledge for a minute, to those granted on human expression and information), life+75 years or 95 years. Even the least effecient of the alternatives, using government grants to finance R&D, would cost the economy orders of magnitude less than the system of monopoly entitlements and micro-managed[1] planned economies being touted as "free."
Innovation has already become difficult. Not because there is any shortage of new ideas, or even a shortage of new ideas that are viable and would enrich both the implimentor, and society as a whole as the customer able to obtain new goods and services that enrich everyones lives. Innovation is difficult because all innovation relies on the work of those who went before, and these days, virtually everything relevant to the current leading edge of technology is locked up, and will remain so for a decade or more.
It may serve politician's interests and the interest of large, lethargic corporations to slow progress to a crawl and have enough lead time to stifle any disruptive technologies that emerge (as they are now trying to stifle the Internet, the one disruptive technology that actually managed to surprise the ruling oligarchs), but it certainly does not serve the interests of society at large, and most certainly not of humankind in the more general sense. Quite the contrary.
[1]Don't believe me? Take a look at the byzantine copyright and patent laws on the books today, designed to manage the information and knowledge economies in minute detail. Soviet planned economies were positively laissaz-faire by comparison.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
I used to be like you, slaving away whoring for karma day in and day out. Constantly searching for the perfect post from the first time the story was posted to copy-n-paste into the dupe story. And then I learned the secret karma-making technique that all the '1337 kwh0r35 use.
Ask about my new seminar, " I may get modded down for this, but: ". Sure people sneer at it as being a cliche, but it works!
At that point no company would ever do a patent search and the entire point of the patent system would be nullified. In the same way that companies use "cleanroom" design to avoid being tainted by copyright, they'd do the same thing for patents. But since patents are much more general and intended to be exclusive (hence the registry), that would be a bad thing indeed.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
Oh what a novel idea...
Yet it seems I win on the 'who has a sense of humour' challenge.
If you say so, but it seems to me it's more like those "real" chat rooms you were making reference to - non-existent in the real world, virtual instead of virtuous, etc. :-)
Note, "willing to petition" is a euphemism for paying USD 2520.00 to the USPTO. This will not be refunded, whether they admit to having screwed up again or not, nor is the filer penalized for having abused the system and hindered their industry.