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Could You Really Do Better than the USPTO?
lllama asks; "Is there such a thing as an obvious patent? Some ideas are so obvious that they needed to be stated before it's clear how obvious they are. Some are so blindingly simple that maybe a few dead monkeys might not have thought of them first. How would one go about deciding which ideas deserve a patent? Could/Should the patent office open itself up for public voting or moderation? Could a voting system affect how long a patent is grated for? Should the system be allowed to be swayed by public opinion? Should there be another tier of patents that protect IP but cannot be licensed out for money (BSD style patents?)? Given that simply hearing an idea affects how obvious it appears, could a system be devised that would allow an unbiased measure? An Obvious Quotient as such. Is there an obvious other word for 'obvious' that I could be using?"
Mod all SCO patents (-1, Redundant)
Every cloud has a silver lining (except for the mushroom shaped ones, which have a lining of Iridium & Strontium 90)
Isn't this is the point that most people who are against all 'IP' style rights make. Why protect some things and not all things? Where do we draw the line?
I guess the Reasonable Man will tell you what is Obvious...
/* affect != effect */ void affect(int *thing,int effect) { *thing += effect; }
Is it implemented in software?
If so, no patent.
If it implemented in software and hardware?
If so, no patent on the software portion.
Is it implemented entirely in hardware?
Build a working model of it, and submit it. You might get a patent.
Karma: Food Fight (Mostly affected by Date Plate).
You don't patent an idea...or at least you aren't supported to: you patent the execution of an idea - the 'how'.
Yes, the system should be allowed to be swayed by public opinion, or at least expert opinion: we make requests for comment to academia, for instance, all the time in plenty of areas of government, why not the patent system?
The Patent system was designed to reward innovation and further the public good. It's our way of conferring the 'king's monopoly' to those who do something useful. It's supposed to avoid uncreative people making cheap knock-offs of a good implementation and profiting that way, but, it's supposed to be only for a limited period of time, to encourage additional innovation. Given the speed of our economy, a 3-year patent cycle might be just the thing we need to boost it in the 'right way'.
Other words for obvious might be: trivial, uninteresting, derivative.
Final note: there's no reason why Patents have to be awarded so statically, or that the government couldn't charge a variable fee.
For instance, any product that is protected by patents could be required to pay a 5% patent-surcharge (minimum $1k/yr to keep the patent), instead of a static fee of a few hundred dollars.
The problem with all of those ideas are the same as the ones we have with slashdot...
Voting won't work because large compnaies can get people to vote for them through PR and links on the site and all sorts of manipulations.
Moderation by outsiders is subject to all kinds of abuse. Even without trolls and people just putting an automatic no on everything.
Most importantly, by putting it up for review to the public, every company's competitors would work their butts off to ensure that patent wasn't granted so they could use the idea themselves.
An acedemic review of sorts could work with a public request for prior art previous to ussuance but how long should the USPTO wait?
The system in place is broken but you would have to re-look at the whole idea of intellectual property in order to create a working system.
USPTO begins using Slashcode.
Some of the first patents issued under the new system:
Hire some qualified practicioners in each field (under strict NDAs). Give them a statement of the problem being solved. If they come up with the same solution within a few days, it's so blatantly obvious that the "inventor" is really trying to patent the problem instead of a solution. While you're at it, start enforcing this:
instead of the mountain of gibberish they've accepted to date, and drop the USD 2500.00 "request for ex parte reexamination" fee they demand for pointing out their own mistakes.
Remember, a patent only promotes progress if the cost of licensing it (plus their share of the USPTO overhead) is less than the cost of every licensee having to independently discover it. Granting monopolies on "inventions" that anyone competent would immediately produce in the ordinary course of their work doesn't benefit anyone productive.
The problem is, the USTPO doesn't want to better the people, it sees itself as revenue generating arm of the federal government. It wants to help create as many patents as possible so it can charge individuals and corporations to have their own patents. It believes that by helping people create patents, it is helping businesses protect and build themselves.
Until that mindset is changed, we will continue seeing patents for the incredulous, the obvious, the impossible, and the idiotic. Problem is, this is a government authority with very little oversite, and a mission that seems to change for a more broad interpretation every time the supreme court seems to say anything positive about patents and what is patentable. Unfortunately it doesn't seem as if the pendulum is slowing down...it may be this way for a long, long time.
I haven't lost my mind!
It is backed up on disk...somewhere...
Is there an obvious other word for 'obvious' that I could be using?
Obviously there is another word for obvious! It's obvious though that you obviously don't know the obvious alternative to the word obvious.
Y'know...the more you say and type the word obvious, the more obviously awkward the word obvious seems. Obvious. Obvious. ObViOuS.
200 tambourine playing monkeys with a big rubber 'approved' stamp would work about as well and cost taxpayers a lot less money and expose the patent system for what it really is lately -- a big friggen joke.
If we give the monkeys actual ink to stamp with or let them use their fecal matter is of little concern to me. I think the fecal matter would just drive the point home a bit better though.
Eliminate patents. They are an artificial granting of monopoly by the government, and discourage competition.
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
One glaring problem with the patent office today is that it allows you to patent ideas that you "had in the shower," so to speak.
Patents exist in order to encourage inventors and labs to expend the resources to come up with inventions. They are encouraged by having exclusivity over their idea for a limited time. This incentive provides the "activation energy" for inventions that would probably otherwise not come to be, and it is pretty hard to argue against. Pharmaceutical companies, chemical engineering companies, biotech firms, etc. all operate under this model.
But when you just "have an idea," it's similarly hard to argue that the patent system encouraged you to have that idea. It might encourage you to develop it, because of the exclusivity you have, but patent law wasn't made to encourage the development of ideas, only their inception. (Note that it is perfectly legal, though shameless, to develop and patent an idea merely in order to license it to others -- an act that diminishes, if anything, its development.) In fact, these are the worst kind of patents, because usually one of two things happens:
- the inventor is too underfunded or inept and the idea never gets developed (at least until it is out of patent, and possibly irrelevant by that time)
- someone else also just happens to "have the idea," but he's locked out of using it
In addition to cleaning up their prior art and "obviousness" certification, I think that the patent office should also reject applications unless there is a significant and auditable resource expenditure in developing the idea. (That could be a basement inventor's hours working away, or 3M's labs and employees.)
Working scale models were good fot the old days when mostly mechanical devices were patented. But now the majority of NON-TRIVIAL patentable ideas require large (if not huge) capital investment to make even a proof-of-concept breadboard thing. And VCs who invest money like to see granted patent(s) before they invest...
;-)
If anything, this requirement would shift balance towards obvious stuff. Think how hard would it be for anyone to code a mock-up of a "one-click" patent!
Paul B.
The patent office is self funded by application fees and other fees it collects. It very much dislikes the federal goverment taking part of its budget to fund other projects, as congress has been doing lately.
Since they make money on patents that don't make it though as well as those that do, I doubt they care that much what happens either way.
More significantly, examiners don't get any credit towards their quotas for rejections after the first, so if the applicant tries again there's a lot of pressure to accept it.
The problem with the public is they have interests in whether or not certain patents will be granted. For example, if you have stock in intel, you will end up voting "yes" on all of intel's patents and "no" on all of AMD's patents. A requirement for being a patent examiner is that you can't have a personal interest in whether or not a certain patent goes through.
The main problem with the patent office related to software and business method patents is the Federal courts. Prior to (i think) 1998, software and business method patents were rejected by the patent office before examination, but it went to an appeal trial and the courts said that they should be examined and allowed if they met all of the rules. Since there wasn't any real (public) record of how things were implemented in software prior to that time, alot of software patents went through that probably shouldn't have.
When faced with a patent that does a certain thing in software, it is not enough to simply find a piece of software that does the same thing. It has to do the same thing in the same way. (For an example, take a look at a piston engine versus a rotary (wankel) engine. Both combust a mixture of gas and air to produce power, but they do things it in different ways).
Things with software patents will get better in time as more implementations are publicly documented. Until then, you should be yelling at the courts to change the current system, because they are the ones that caused the current mess.
What if, as in certain country around the world, you simply had no patents? It works this way already a lot of time. Let me explain. If someone invents and patents something in America and then someone in China want to make the same item or use same process, then the company in America can do nothing!!
Since the world is becoming one big economy and unit having separate patent in multiple country is like having no patent at all! So perhaps we could live without patents at all, and who ever can market the best and produce the best product will win?
This is a good 'free market' idea.. after all, you just let the free market decide whose interpretation of an idea is better.
-- Dr. Fu Ling-Yu, Internal Technology Consult; Tongji University, People Republic of China.
There are problems with stupid patents being granted, the way to fix that is to allow legal action to be taken against the patent office when they fail to do their job.
The US patent office is clearly negligent, they award obvious patents which they arent supposed to do, if the US government (their boss) lets them keep doing the wrong thing then why will they ever change ?
The biggest objection i have to Patents is the amount of time that "inventors" get granted monoply use of "their" idea.
A better system would be one where the amount of time granted for exclusive ownership of the idea is based on how much developement goes on in that area.
e.g. If someone builds a better moustrap then its probably a very innovative idea, people have been trying to build a better moustrap for centuries. Mouse trap design is very mature.
If someone comes up with a better way to sequence DNA (or some such) then its less likely to be innovative as the area of expertese is very young and the area of work is only accessable to limited numbers of people.
The patent process blindingly grants the same amount of monoply rights in both cases, as if both ideas are equally inovative. That is just wrong.
If someone thinks of an original innovative idea that is just bloody usless (like the patent on swinging on a swing sideways) then give them their patent, but grant it only for an hour two.
Also if a patent isnt being used it should be taken away.
I recommend you read some of the articles from Mises.org. US Patent laws are unbelievably biased in favor of patent-owners, and give them a monopoly to charge above what the market would otherwise afford. This is *proven* by the fact that they are willing to sell much much cheaper in foreign countries (and are now trying to ban re-imports).
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
I think just buying them a computer and maybe one of those free AOL discs would quite suffice. And maybe some training in using Google (and thereby also enforcing the belief that a search engine has already been invented.)
Marxist evolution is just N generations away!
There are also fees for publishing the application at 18 mos, extensions if any arise in the process, etc. Plus most patents will be abandoned before their expiration date meaning that all of the maintenance fees won't be paid.
Examiners recieve credit for the first rejection, but not the 2nd (final rejection). If the applicant fixed all of the problems with the application as stated in the first (including all initial claim rejections), then the application is allowed. If not, the examiner takes the necessary sections from the first rejection that haven't been fixed and issues a 2nd, 99% of the work is already done in that case anyways.
One thing that must be kept in mind is that patent applications are initially kept confidential. That way if the pto denies the patent application, the inventor is not required to publish their ideas with no form of compensation.
Come test your mettle in the world of Alter Aeon!
I've been awarded a few patents; based on my experiences, here's my take:
Seems to me that the biggest problems are:
1. Examiners generally look only at prior art that has moved through the patent office, and do not have general knowledge of a field. So if prior art exists that is unpatented, even in very common use, the examiner may not know it.
2. Once a patent is granted, even one for which there is ample identical prior art that the examiner missed, "infringing" on the patent and having the courts decide is a horror show.
My suggestion is that a patent first be granted and published with some period for the public to comment to the examiner, say, 90 days. This would give people knowledgable in the field of the patent time to point out prior art that the examiner missed. After the comment period, the examiner has another 90 days or so to finalize (or reject) the patent, giving it all the same protection that patents currently have.
This system would probably prevent a ton of bad patents.
Make the prior-art search open-sauce:
Once an item is under consideration, put the application up on the 'net, and ANYONE who knows of prior-art can prove such exists BEFORE any granting-of-patent, thereby unscrambling the mix, as it were.
And if that doesn't make the patent-granting-judgement tastier to us all, then nothing will.
This idea itself can't be patented by anyone now, because of prior art, So There, Nyaa Nyaa Nyaa.
: P
PS - this is actually the same idea as opensourcing even the spiciest space-exploration project, so that idiocy like the IsThisPunchingThroughTheAtmosphereYet sensors being hid behind a truss so they wouldn't know if they were or not, while Mars is coming-up and hitting them... wouldn't be so likely to happen, but ...
... permitting open-source and open-accountability, while it does reduce VERY COSTLY bugs, is offensive to Institutional Mentality, so I'm not expecting to see it happen in the west, unless integrity gets valued enough...
Yes it is cheaper to the national economy to fix patent-bugs before implementing them, than it is to implement them and then fix them, same as with any system.
As for 'aren't supposed to patent the idea, you patent the execution'... ... the execution is either an idea, or it is an instantiation of an idea, and TTBOMK, the patent-office doesn't have tonnes of space for instantiations there, so it's a 'grey' area, worked upon by grey-suited masses, mumbling away...
Messages to/for me ( in me journal )
In a word, yes.
Personally, I think the USPTO should:
Those would help a lot. Public comment would most likely be heavily abused pre-patent, but I think letting people call patents into question and produce prior art in order to contest and invalidate an existing patent should be free - I'd say spend the money on the people to take those requests and investigate them.
I write code.
while trying to educate myself ( to some deg ) and find resources for developing a plan and filing for a business method patent, low and behold the topic. im not quite sure what it is i should now ( good natured sarcasm ) , through it all in the trash, or just post it on the web so all those more qualified can pursue it as i sit back and watch...... decisions.
the fact that i have expended a large amount of my own time and resources in this endeavor leaves me little choice.
cake anyone
One of the way big company keep locking people out is by adding simple derivative modification to an orginal patent. Thus adding another full 25 years.
Fine, let them, except if a patent builds on another patent, then it is less original, therefore should be kept under monopoly for a smaller number of time.
Say 12 years. Add another modification, you get to keep the patent 6 years, then 3 years. After that, one would hope that the USPO would realise that it is just derivative work. Society isn't gaining anything by keeping the original idea under lock just because they added some small modifications. Competition should be let loose at that point (well a lot faster in my opinion, but we are talking about the USPO after all).
There is also the obvious problem of patenting a process or an algorithm. Copyright in those cases should be good enough.
Finally, the patent office should take into consideration the person or company applying for the patent. If the person or the company actually develop/uses the patent, then 25 years might make sense. Otherwise, 5 years is good enough. It should give time to the person to find a buyer which can develop it to turn it into a 25 years patent.
Final Finally, patents shoudl be transferable nly once. I would love to see someone explain to me how transfering a patent more than once can help the innovation and creation of ideas... go ahead... I dare ya !
How about having some sort of elected body of people who look at the patents and decide based on their knowledge of the applicable field(s) whether it should be granted and for how long. Almost like the court system. These people would be knowledgeable in their fields and elected.
Unfortunately you'd probably end up with a group of people put in place by the microsofts of the world...
-- Senior Software Engineer, Attorney appearance services, locallawyerapp.com.
The problems with requiring the expenditure of resources to get a patent are:
(a) define the level of expenditure which merit a patent? Would it be the same for all patent classes? Would it change over time? If so, how would you do this?
(b) by setting a level you encourage inefficiency or at least purported inefficiency. That is, instead of thinking up something in the shower, the inventor goes to great lengths to 'prove' all the effort they went to to develop the invention. Sure, audits mitigate this but will not eliminate this shortcoming.
Further, some of the great inventions which revolutionise industry follow years of effort (by X) to no avail, then someone (Y) somehow just happens to look at it from a different perspective and in a flash the invention is made. Would you then deny Y the right to a patent? Hardly seems fair that we would encourage the inefficient dumb thinking X's of the world and not encourage the insightful, questioning Y's.
Don't evaluate patents at all. Just pay a fixed fee for stamping any piece of junk you want as "accepted at YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS". Your junk becomes immediately available for the public, for free. Allow submission in electronic form through the web, using digital signatures. In short - bye bye USPTO, hellow stupid PHP web server.
:-(
Then, if/when someone want to sue another for infringement, let the court sort it out. The big point is that the court will NOT assume that just because the USPTO has stamped some document, it means the claims are truly innovative. The burden of proof will no long rest on the defendent. This makes a BIG difference.
Also, if someone tries to enforce a junk patent, well... the immediate course of action is to whip up another junk patent of your own and counter-sue. "See, judge, if that piece of junk is innovative, by the same standard so is ours". It would only take a few cases where a busy judge would force a big company to pay legal fees and harassment damages for trying to enforce an obviously junk patent to cool off the industry's lust for such things. And they can still register them for their heart's content and for the glory of their balance sheet - our product is covered by 10^6 patents! - so everybody wins.
Of course the USPTO will scream bloody murder about the loss of jobs - sorry, about how important a function they are providing. Well, if their function is that important and they are any good at it, they can all hire out as expert witnesses for patent infringement cases. Probably make more money, too.
Yeah, I know, the chances of this happening are the same as the pay-a-penny for copyright extension after 15 years scheme (solving Disney's Micky problem without shafting the rest of the world), the chances that the courts will actually do anything about Microsoft, and the chances that the fact that the total food production in the world is enough to make everyone overweight will solve the hunger problem in Africa
Also, I think that granted patents should have a 1-year "probation"; if someone discovers prior-art, the patent gets disqualified quickly and effectively - none of that going to courts crap.
Failing that "probation period", I think that the actual examiners should be held directly accountable if an "obvious" patent is issued, especially if it causes someone damages to defend themselves against it; that ought to make the examiners actually do the work they're supposed to.
AC comments get piped to
Why don't i ever have any moderation points when a posting like this comes up!!!
This is exactly the point that nearly everyone misses. No company would spend a billion dollars researching an idea if they had no way of protecting that idea until they had had time to recoup their research money (and make some profit from it). It just wouldn't happen. The patent system allows this research to be worthwhile in the eyes of shareholders.
The patent system needs to be policed better, but without it private sector development would pretty much stop. I've previously come to the same conclusion as you, demand some sort of proof of expenditure in developing the idea before granding a patent. It would at least filter out some of the 'had an idea in the shower' patents, and free up resources to take a better look at the rest.
I don't think we as a society are ready to do away with patents. Copyrights yes, I think we are more than ready to get rid of Major Collective Entities claiming ownership of intangable collections of ideas that weren't even created by them. The whole Corporation + Copyright was a really bad idea to begin with IMHO. Giving company's the rights to own someone else's life work just so they could sell it is rediculus.
Patents will have to go when people invent something that allows things to be invented on a mass scale: i.e. a very simple, customizable microchip that can be printed/etched at home with something as simple as a laser printer. When the patent office gets flooded with thousands upon thousands of requests to patent a certain set of logic, then we'll see that dissolve too. But no matter how many walls our society tears down, someone will always build a new one (i.e. copyrighting GENETIC SEQUENCES?!??!??!!!)
my 2 cents (canadian of course)
"Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is." G.W.Bush
The problems with patent-law (and copyright law as well) all arise from the fact that these limitations on information and how we can use it are completely artificial and exactly the opposite of how we expect information to work. The patent and copyright concept may provide temporary benefit to certain groups, but in the long run information really wants to be free. I quote: "simply hearing an idea affects how obvious it appears". This is the nature of information.
Should there be another tier of patents that protect IP but cannot be licensed out for money (BSD style patents?)?
Simply disclose the patent in some way. Either to the public, or to your patent attorney. Or file a "preliminary" patent (forget the exact term) and then let it lapse.
You've just established prior art, and no one else can patent it.
The problem is that others will take your general idea and patent a specific application. So try to include as many specific applications as you can in your disclosure.
p.s. At my company we had been using a system configuration tool for seven years, and shipping it with the product for six.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
It believes that by helping people create patents, it is helping businesses protect and build themselves.
Actually, that's true. But only for genuine patentable ideas. It needs to be novel, non-obvious to the practitioner in the field, have a prototype, etc. And shorten the patent terms.
Patents were supposed to help the little guy. Let him get his unique product out on the market before megacorp steals his idea and grinds him into the dust with economy-of-scale. But with the rubber stamp mentality of the USPTO, patents have devolved into commodity properties used as barter between megacorps.
The idea of patents is a good one, but the current USPTO behaviors and policies suck.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
From a public-policy perspective, patents have several advantages over trade secrets and broadly interpreted copyrights. First, it's much harder to get a patent than to claim a copyright or a trade secret. Second, there's disclosure. If it's patented, it's not secret.
Third, patents are only for 20 years. Each new technology goes through a period when patents are important. Electric power, telegraphy, telephony, and radio all went through periods like that.
Now all that technology is in the public domain. Computing is now an old enough field that most of the early patents have now expired. The RSA patent, the GIF patent, and the set-UID patent, all of which were once objects of controversy, have expired.
...and add:
All pre-existing hardware and software patents are revoked in 12 months. Anyone holding these patents is free to reapply (i.e. the existing model is screwed and bad patents have been awarded. Need to weed this out)
If it's an IT-related patent, maximum patent length is 3 years.
If patent enforcement creates a court-ruled monopoly situation, patent is revoked.
Patent queries relating to prior art are investigated as a priority. If existence of prior art is established, costs of investigation are borne by Patent Office. If not established, costs of investigation up to a certain level are borne by the person/corporation requesting the investigation.
Ideas are not patentable, they never were, until the USPTO decided to accept ideas and business methods as patents.
USPTO should return to accepting patent according to the law - no need for voting or public hearing.
It seems that most of the genuine objections I've seen to USPTO-granted patents fall into fairly precise categories:
In each of these cases, the problem is the same: granting the patent is a one-sided benefit, good for the claiming party but never offering anything in return to the rest of the field.
Now, there is always going to be the risk, with any patent, of hard-to-find but genuine prior art coming to light after the patent has been granted. No-one knows everything in their field, even an expert, so you can never make this problem disappear completely. Logically, therefore, it must be incumbent on the party claiming the patent to do their homework, and accept that the patent will be struck down at some later stage if they don't do it well enough. It must also be practical for anyone with a legitimate claim to overturn a granted patent on this basis: not just big corps against smaller outfits, but also the other way around.
However, unavoidable problems aside, at least getting in specialist help in the manner suggested before granting a new patent would ensure that the gross errors that occur frequently at present would be prevented, which is a big step forward relative to status quo, IMHO.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
I question, quite sincerely, how many of those countries develop significant numbers of new inventions compared to countries that have parents. My (limited) experience is that most of the new tools, technologies and similar developments in such countries are copied from essentially the same things in other patent-offering countries, where the original research to develop them was done.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
I realise that what you say is currently the case, but I'm not sure it's a good idea to limit investigations as a result. After all, if you apply for a patent and it's turned down, chances are the confidentiality wasn't protecting much anyway.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
I can do a better job all by myself. In fact, I'd like to announce the Anonymous Coward Patent Office (contact info to be provided later).
My plan is to buy a rubber stamp. Send me your patent application and fee, and I'll stamp your patent. I'll be providing service identical to the USPTO, I'll only charge half as much, and quality will even be slightly better since I promise to return your fee if you send me an application for something like Swinging Sideways, Peanut Butter Sandwich, or Exercising Your Cat With A Laser Pointer.
Of course, my patent grants will have no legal standing, but that won't stop you from filing frivolous lawsuits and forcing your opponents to spend money on lawyers, just like you can do with a patent from the USPTO.
Has any considered making patent information available shortly before it is patented?
Offer a 'temporary' patent about a month, during which time people could view the patient but not act on any of the information. People could submit problems or conflicts during this time. At the end of the period, the USPTO reviews the information prior to granting the patent.
Yes, I know this is all supposed to be taken care of before hand, but judging by the number of reviews of granted patents, it obviously isn't happening.
The problem with that scheme is proving, obviousness and prior art after the event.
My suggestion:
The only thing most individuals/corporations truly understand is money. So, Make it simple,
have anyone who is issued a patent that is overturned or has prior art pay back twice the royalties they earned. Also make it free to challenge a patent or a very small reasonable fee like $50.
This should grossly reduce the stupid profit only patents.
"Secrecy is the keystone of all tyranny. Not force, but secrecy
i think if the era still warrants patents then there should be a stricter objective of what they are meant to achieve: and in the goal of financially motivated innovation, a time limit on the patent would seem to be more relevant than black letter entitlements.
this does not have to be a explicit duration, it could be made to expire when the r&d costs are recouped by the product's sales. this involves auditing but a decision to invoke patents should share this responsibility of supervision.
i think this should be sufficient security for companies engage in research and experiments and at the same time focuses on what a products cost to society should involve
It's true that it's hard to audit the expenditure, but it shouldn't be *that* hard. If someone really wants to waste a lot of money in order to get a patent, then that patent is hopefully worth his time and money. I want to mainly get rid of the ridiculous patents, and having to expend a lot to get the patent will make it hard for one guy to patent a lot of dumb stuff.
> Hardly seems fair that we would encourage the inefficient dumb thinking X's of the world and not encourage the insightful,
> questioning Y's.
Well, we currently encourage X but also reward Y (I don't think we really "encourage" him). I don't have any problem with not rewarding Y, since he hardly put any work into coming up with the idea. Remember that the main purpose of patents is to advance society by promoting invention, not to "pay back" those who come up with the inventions.
Incidentally, I have six patents of my own, and will probably be applying for a number of new ones soon -- yet still on net analysis I beleive I would be better off in a world without patents.
I always hear the argument, but "shouldn't people be paid for their inventions", which underlys a basic misunderstanding about patents. Patents can be granted, and are granted, for everything, and no, the 'inventor' isn't entitled to a living or even acknowledgement. Once something leaves the confines of your brain it belongs to all of us.