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."

Comments

This is why

[fudgefactor7]

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.

Re:This is why

[Zathrus]

We do. It's called the US Patent and Trademark Office.

Problem is, it doesn't work as well as it should.

Re:This is why

[ender81b]

We do.. it's called the court system. That is the problem.. the Patent Office grants overly broad (and stupid) patents on the basis that the courts are more qualified to deal with the problem than the patent system. That and not granting a patent can probably lead to some bad things (read: people can sue the patent office).

Stupid.. yes but what can you do? At least patents run out after a few years..

Re:This is why

[jcr]

Where do you draw the line as to what is being developed and what is not?

"Ladies and Gentlemen of the Jury, is the plaintiff a bona fide inventor, or just some jerk trying to get in the way of progress?"

We've got a system for deciding issues of fact. I say we use it, and give the jury the authority to bitch-slap somebody like Fernandez.

-jcr

Re:This is why

[TopShelf]

Yeesh... what an ugly solution (unless of course you're a trial lawyer)!

Re:This is why

[Zork the Almighty]

The courts decide on the legitimacy of patents now. It costs everyone tons of money, and wastes lots of time. Hauling every inventor, or even worse, every patent in front of the court system will render the "patents encumber progress" argument moot.

Re:This is why

[isa-kuruption]

An inventor may not want to produce the item him/herself, but to license the patent to others to produce them.

Qualcomm, for instance, does exactly this. Qualcomm makes most of it's money from licensing it's patented technologies to other companies to actually produce and distribute the technology.

Is there anything wrong with this? No.... Qualcomm doesn't have any costs associated with maintainence or manufacturing overhead of a factory, so more money goes into research.

Re:This is why

[EggMan2000]

If you could only patent what you could produce yourself, the only patents would come from huge corporations. Why do you think IBM has 30,000 patents?

The Tradmark and Patenet Office (I think) does the review of all patents. I agree that overly broad should be revoked. -But stupid? Ahh let 'em have a stupid patent. (Dog ear-warmers comes to mind)

The point is that patents allow anyone to invent. If we left invention to the "experts" or those that can afford to produce a prototype, we will be left with the big major coperations running our lives more than before.

Re:This is why

[Moofie]

The Wright Brothers tried to patent the notion of powered flight.

When Glenn Curtiss decided to use hinged ailerons instead of wing warping to provide roll control on his aircraft, the Wright Brothers tried to sue him for patent infringement.

So, you've unintentionally demonstrated how harmful patents can be to improving the state of the art. It is not practical to build large airplanes with wing warping (at least, not with current materials) but ailerons work just great. Had it not been for the US Government nationalizing the Wrights' patents, the state of the art would have been set back by decades.

How can you patent something that happens in nature all the time?

Patent Blockers or Inventors?

[kevlar]

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.

Re:Patent Blockers or Inventors?

[jedidiah]

No, the definition of an inventor necessarily includes being able produce A PROTOTYPE. If you can't manage to come up with a working prototype, or at least a full schematic, you are a SCIENCE FICTION WRITER not an inventor.

So?

[aborchers]

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.

give the patent away

[saladpuncher]

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.

Patents vs. Unemployment

[Torgo's Pizza]

I can't see why this problem can't be fixed. I mean, when I lose my job and I file for unemployment one of the requirements is that I need to look for a job. Sure it can be a token effort, but I have to keep a log and report that hey, at least I tried. If I don't get a job within a certain amount of time, the benefits run out.

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.

Legal consistency

[El]

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.

Talk about destroying inovation!!

[d3faultus3r]

Now you can't design something without worrying that another company will hear of its existence and patent it with no intention of developing it.

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.

Re:I don't have a problem with it

[the gnat]

What's wrong with that?

The way patents are meant to help the common man (Horatio Alger version): lone genius working out of an attic in Pittsburgh invents new UltraWidget. He gets a patent for it, then takes it around to the major widget manufacturers and offers to sell them his invention. WidgetWorks, Inc. realizes that this is the next stage in the evolution of the widget, and lone genius retires to Key West.

The way patents are abused: lone sleazo lawyer in Menlo Park looks through industry rags for future trends in widgets. He patents rough concepts for UltraWidgets, TurboWidgets, Widget64, and WidgetXP. WidgetWorks, Inc., which is busy actually fucking innovating and employs engineers rather than lawyers, is working on their own next-generation widget. As soon as it appears that WidgetWorks is going to corner the market, lawyer shoves his patents up their ass. WidgetWorks pays up, lawyer now has hot tub full of Benjamins.

This is not the way patents are supposed to work. Patents are supposed to "promote the progress of science and useful arts", and protect inventions. Technology will advance without these fuckwads filing preemptive patents, and the effect of their activities is actually to slow innovation down. Companies have to waste precious resources covering their ass lest some IP law firm take them from behind. Hell, the lawyers in the article even admit that they're using patents explicitly as a competitive tool, rather than to protect their own investment and hard work.

Blame for this pathetic state of affairs can partly be laid at the feet of IBM, since they pretty much pioneered the use of patents to pre-emptively squash a competitor.

Re:jury

[Anonymous Coward]

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).

Violates the Constitution...

[dpbsmith]

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.

Re:jury

[Rich0]

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.

Can be done just like building a house

[Pelakh]

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.

Re:Can be done just like building a house

[The_Rook]

the problem with this is that it reserves the right to patent to well funded product developers.

let's say someone invents something and files for the patent. if they have trouble getting funding to develop the patent into a working product then using your reasoning above, they would lose the right to their invention. the only way to preserve the rights of the small time inventor would be to create all kinds of messy patent regulations vis a vis intent - what was the purpose of the inventor and did the inventor make a good faith effort to develop the patent into a working invention?

a possible real world example would be a university researcher inventing a new drug, but who lacked the resources to synthesize and test the drug. if the pharmaceutical companies held off making a deal for a proscribed time, they could swoop in a make the drug without compensating the inventor anything. or they could simply ofer the inventor a crummy deal.

What's wrong with patents:

[panda]

"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.