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How to Fix U.S. Patents
Frisky070802 writes "IEEE Spectrum has an interesting article on how to fix the U.S. patent system. It starts with an example of how broken the system is, with Smuckers suing a small company for crustless PB&J. It has a great overview of how the system has evolved and how much it favors the big patent holders, and suggests 3 specific fixes: 'create incentives and opportunities for parties to challenge the novelty and nonobviousness of an invention before the PTO grants a patent,' examine the important patents meticulously; don't waste effort on the unimportant ones that can be ousted early, and for examining prior art, use judges and special masters rather than uninformed juries."
From a national economic standpoint, even the US has an incentive to pump out as many patents as possible, no matter how frivolous, in order to extract money from corporations in other countries, since the US is using the WTO to push its "intellectual property" regime onto as many countries as it can
This only works for a short time, once a country sees it is getting screwed by the process, it just ignores patent law. It's in everybody's interest to have a system that is ligitimate and encourages inovation, and not blocking patents.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
Originally patents were invented to aid competition by allowing a small business with an orignal idea to avaoid being sunk by a flood of copy-cat products from an established business. The obvious problems however quickly emerged: large businesses can get patents despite the fact that they don't need them, and the ability to patent an idea instead of an actual product. These two problems have completely overshadowed any benefits of the patent system.
Philosophy.
Patent reform will NEVER occur before Political reform. Political reform will NEVER occur without Citizens strongly voicing protests... and frankly, I don't feel like getting up from my computer.
Seems to me like these "reforms" will only serve to lock out the small guy even more. Extra hurdles and extra expense will mean that only those who can afford the best patent attorney can get patents.
The system DOES need to change, but let's make sure that we change to a better system, not just a different one.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
To prevail in an infringement case, an accused infringer has to present clear and convincing evidence that the patent is invalid.
Simply reversing this standard might be good: someone who wants to obtain a 20-year monopoly should have to present clear and convincing evidence that the idea he is seeking protection for is novel, useful, and can be reproducibly implemented based on the patent application. If he can't make a clear and convincing argument, then the patent should be found invalid by default.
Furthermore, patents should be found valid and invalid not claim-by-claim, but all-or-nothing. That way, applicants for patents have themselves a strong incentive only to claim what is actually novel and useful. Right now, almost every patent has claims in it that are ridiculously broad, that create unwarranted uncertainty and risk for competitors, and that courts need to spend enormous amounts of resources whittling down.
I think those two changes alone would do wonders for the patent system. But the IEEE suggestions are also welcome.
I think you've described the problem exactly. People have gotten used to being too lazy.
People love to whine, but don't want to do anything about problems. I think that's one of the reasons corporations can get away with being so irresponsible - nobody will bother to change their habits no matter what they do, so they don't even need to consider changing their business practices until they're sued. And maybe not even then, because lazy "consumers" will continue to shovel money at them rather than go through the mental effort of taking their business elsewhere.
The issue of the infamous "McDonald's(tm) Hot Coffee" lawsuit came up peripherally on a Groklaw post recently, and the ensuing discussion of the real facts of the case pointed out a few facts that aren't commonly mentioned, like the fact that apparently this McDonald's(tm) had been getting complaints about the coffee being too hot for some time.
If they'd been getting all of those complaints, why didn't McDonald's(tm) quit serving the coffee too hot? Because listening to complaints doesn't cost anything, and evidently people kept coming and paying them for the overheated coffee ANYWAY. If people were willing to continue buying the coffee even after complaining about it, it must not be all that important, right?...(I would have sworn I'd read elsewhere that the plaintiff in that case got coffee from this place "every morning".)
Of course, since the laziness of "consumers" means most corporations have what amounts to a virtual "willingly captive" audience, there's not much point in trying to compete with them, and that means the "not-dangerously-hot coffee and fast food" place down the street will end up going out of business, and those few of us who would actually bother to take our business elsewhere end up not having anywhere else to take it TO. Yes, people's laziness doesn't just hurt themselves...
Even the WORD "consumer" implies this - the "consumer" is nothing more than a metaphorical digestive tract. Corporations offer "goods" and the "consumer" just gobbles them down, whatever they are, and produces economic fertilizer as a result, and that's all that's important about them. Yes, I consider the word to be an insult.
Yeah, I know, I'm ranting. I'll stop now.
Hacker Public Radio is our Friend
Amen. I am amazed that more people don't see what a problem this is. The problem is at least partly that we think prisons are for people who break the law. The word criminal is too broad. Prison should be for people who are dangerous.
Some may argue about non-violent drug users being dangerous on some level. But honestly: which do you think is more dangerous: a pot smoking hippie or anyone who just came out of maximum security prison? In general, being gang raped and subject to chronic violence tends to make a man more dangerous. Why would we want to apply a "solution" like that to someone who isn't violent in the first place?
I am strongly for the legalization of marijuana. I donate to NORML regularly. I've never smoked pot in my life.
Cheers.
PS - Another point nobody seems to like is that our prisons have become torture chambers. Sure, it's not our guards doing the torturing (usually) but they turn a blind eye. I don't have much sympathy for violent criminals, but again, we're processing these people to likely become more violent. This is stupid.
Oh well you should visit Europe, Amsterdam in particular. You see, there's this little protestant, burgeois, probably a tad cinical country called Netherlands where pot & mushrooms is legal; the dealers are just weird shopkeepers... and the stuff you get is premium quality... and it's all properly taxed. The bad chem stuff you find in raves & discos is illegal but these people are sensible enough to understand that fear of arrest and SWAT assault dissuades people from looking for treatment rather than from getting fsck'd into the substance abuse. So, since there's no SWAT lusting to rape your butt if you get a bad trip, once you're back from the dead a thoughtful shrink helps you out of your problems and keeps an eye on you in case you're still too rabid to come to terms with your shit. You know, one thing that really helps is having that warm feeling that if you stumble and fail you have a community that doesn't want to trample you; actually they want you out of trouble, if not out of goodwill, at least to avoid having a looney shooter on the run. It helps a lot, lot more that a gun in your pocket and paramilitary officers on patrol. Think about it... it's the essential diff between Old Europe and you guys
without offence,
e
Mi domando chi à il mandante di tutte le cazzate che faccio - Altan
Simple - abandon software patents, and cut down the times for the other patents back to what they were to start with.
The reason to have a patent system is to encourage the inventors to promote and freely disclose their inventions, rather than keeping them to themselves. Not to protect inventors rights, or anything like that.