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PTO Eliminates "Technological Arts" Requirement
MdntToker writes to tell us that the Patent Board has issued an opinion which removes the existing procedure of rejecting patents under 35 U.S.C. 101 as outside of the "technological arts". From the article: "Our determination is that there is currently no judicially recognized separate "technological arts" test to determine patent eligible subject matter under 101. We decline to create one. Therefore, it is apparent that the examiner's rejection can not be sustained."
Who's going to jump on the patent that eliminates the process for processing the elimination of patent requirements?
Time to go patent all my fiction writings, before someone else does it.
This is the dumbest thing I've ever even imagined. Just when you think it cannot possibly get any worse.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
I really have no idea what this means. And since I can't install linux on it, I'm gonna go back to surfing pr0n.
I think I'll patent the making of the "I have a patent on stupid patents" jokes that appear below.
If you don't know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else.
...how it was that wrestlers could have "patented moves."
:\
I guess now they actually can.
You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
This is an idea I wish I had patented. Imagine patenting the concept of patents before there was such thing as patents. The royalties from the patent office alone would be enough to retire on.
...In the direction of making patents completely and utterly useless.
Now all they have to do is remove the prior art clauses and were in patent utopia.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
I do not know how big a deal this really is. I am sure in software or business method arts there might be more of an issue at hand, but I do not think 35 USC 101 is a highly used rejection method within the office. I would also be surprised if this stood up outside the Board of Patent Appeals and Interference (BPAI). I believe this should be tasked to the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) since it almost sounds like the BPAI is trying to limit the USC.
I do not have numbers, but I am willing to take a guess the number of Business Method patents allowed to date is quite low. It is something that I believe should be more contested by the general public then the idea of software patents. I mean at least I'll see the end of a Patent term in my lifetime, but that same code that gets copyrighted won't be touchable until after a great many of us are long gone.
"Some days you just can't get rid of a bomb."
Reading the article, I'm made aware of two things: 1) I lack the training to be able to argue about this properly 2) I would like to know why exactly "a 'method of compensating a manager' that involved several steps of calculating a proper compensation based on performance criteria and then transferring payment to the manager" is not an abstract idea? What exactly does constitute an abstract idea? This sounds like a particular application of mathematical and economic principles, which I wouldn't have thought patentable at all. Anybody have a link to some reference materials that might help with these questions, without requiriring several years obtaining a law degree?
"I object to doing things that computers can do." -- Olin Shivers, lispers.org
Patents exist since at least 1594 (earliest patents I know of), probably earlier. Your patent would be pretty much expired by now.
Patents were invented to make people publish their inventions, protecting them for a short period of time, after that time everybody is free to use it. That probably worked in a slower paced world.
My wife's sketchblog Blob[p]: Gastrono-me
So now they aren't even going to be limiting patents to software and "business methods"? In another 5 years we're all going to have to pay license fees to take a crap without being sued for violating a patent for "method of voiding bowels into a porcelain fixture while seated."
But that won't be the end of it: microphones in the toilet will be listening to make sure it doesn't sound like the tune to some Britney Spears song, while cameras examine the shape of the turds to see if they resemble a corporate logo. I can't wait to see which company owns the rights to each particular method for wiping your ass.
Seriously, I didnt know they had any requirements left to get rid of in the first place.
I would just turn my back on tech in general and get work doing, I don't know, digging ditches or something but I'm certain some jackass has patented that already too. This is just fucking perfect. Thanks America.
...space time.
You ALL owe me bigtime.
Come on, they had to do this at some point. All intellectual works are basically discovery of some *previously existing* but useful aspect of reality. If you invent a new mousetrap, you're discovering the previously-existing aspect of reality that some organization of different materials is better at catching mice. If you write a book, you're discovering the previously-existing aspect of reality that people like a certain combination of words. Trying to classify one kind as "technological" and the other as not gets really tricky.
Next on the list: the patent office stops rejecting discoveries as being "too theoretical". Imagine working around those patents!
Rank my idea: http://www.sinceslicedbread.com/node/531
I've had an idea rolling around my head for a couple of years now that can losslessly compress audio files far smaller than current methods. The only two things stopping the world from getting this technology is
1. I'm too damned lazy to write the program
2. I probably can't afford a patent
This at least takes care of #1; now to find a lawyer that is good enough I'll get the thing and not lose it, and still be able to pay him.
Does anybody know what it costs to file a patent? If I were a rich man I'd just give the idea away (and have contemplated doing just that)
Her definition of invent was out there already. I can see her joining a patent holidng company and patenting countless common and inane ideas.
The goverment's sole legimate role is to protect the individual's right to the accumlation of capital and the freedom to allocate it as he sees fit. Protectiong innovation is an important role for goverment and the USPTO decision to clarify the law is a beneficial "strict contructionist" interpretation which helps American entrepenuers. Collective property as advocated by some vague social theorists is counter to human nature and , ultimately, the efficient, market oriented allocation of resources. Only by privatizing processes and enforcing the laws on property protection can we best serve our republic.
...that will break the US Patent Office's back. We're due for patent reform. It has become such a joke that just about any new technology or idea is already patented in some respect. And if it isn't already patented, someone out there can make a case showing their patent covers the new technology and they are due money in return for fair use. There has to be a limit. Enough is enough.
It's discussed in a bit more detail here. It looks like any business process can be patented, from plotting a basic graph on a whiteboard, to having TPS reports notched according to the future employment status of the employee.
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
I. Method of Selling items: The business shall offer a customer an item/good/idea/etc for an amount of currency (Dollars/Euro/Yen/etc). Upon receipt of currency, or promisory currency note, the aforementioned item/good/idea/etc's ownership will be transferred to the customer.
It's not like the PTO even looks for prior art.
-- Dan
A vibrant economy requires resources to be used efficiently. In theory, patents are supposed to help this process by increasing the incentive to invest in capital. Indeed, such investment can benefit both the inventor and the end user. As such, patents encourage the production of new capital, and the new capital is often more efficient at using resources than the previous capital. Thus the economy grows.
However, it appears as though America is reaching a point where patents interfere with the process so much that productivity is diminished. When an inventor has to search for patents when designing every portion of a capital work, less time is spent on developing the capital itself. Thus the creation of new capital diminishes, and resources are not used as efficiently. That can eventually cause the economy to basically rot.
This is not what the American economy needs, considering its various other problems (massive debt, inflated stock markets, a housing bubble, and so forth).
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
If anyone was thinking about actually going to some of these headquarters and just punching the shit out of some of these people, I am here to highly encourage you!
It seems there are actually examiners at the USPTO that are willing to call bullshit on a bogus patent. That offers a bit of encouragement.
Please stand clear of the doors, por favor mantenganse alejado de las puertas
This is all because the people who make money from patents are patent lawyers. The more stuff out there that can be patented then litigated for patent infringment the better. I agree the patent office sucks ass, Ive been trying to patent something without the help of a lawyer which is next to imposibble and it's all because they have complicated things beyond comprehension. To what extent I have no idea.
Open source software, and business in general, will still succeed. It just won't be in the United States. Countries like France, Germany, Great Britain, Ireland, Italy, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, and even China will become the main hubs for open source development. The users there will benefit, while Americans become entangled in their web of patents.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
I think I'll patent:
* The Quadratic Formula (and an algorithm to do it)
* Newton's Method for Square Roots
* 1+1 = 2
Who cares about prior art? The USPTO doesn't, so this should sail through, lots of people will give me money for licenses, before I lose the court challenge.
link within linked artical is the goatse guy
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
How often are the 'Patents Board' democratically elected, and for how long have they had the power to change the laws of the USA?
A pizza of radius z and thickness a has a volume of pi z z a
I worked on a job in the late 2000 where I was going to dummy technology that was already patented. They weren't even started on their project to .... which was going to be written in -insert buzzword (at the time Java Sandbox)- and I was coming on board to basically do a sketch of the whole thing in Flash 5 - but they had their patent.
These days with much of the Genome patented procreation is a patent violation. So if I knock her up, there's a big-pharm lawyer that might sue.
[-oblig Bush 41 bash] This mess stems (partially) from defunding the patent office in 1991(?) and making them hustle patents to make their budget. (mod troll for political ref)
I'm working on a patent for 'an arrangement of Oxygen and Hydrogen with a ratio of 2 to 1'. Drink up.
Physics is like sex: sure, it may give some practical results, but that's not why we do it.
Who's going to jump on the patent that eliminates the process for processing the elimination of patent requirements?
What this means is anything can be patented now. Which means I'm going to get a patent on silly slashdot posting and you are gonna have to paypal me royalties.
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
Am I the only one who thinks this could go well for IP in the long run?
If the patent office makes a blatantly terrible move like this one seems to be, its possible it could trigger a backlash that will get patent law fixed up properly. People talk about this with the Supreme Court as well - it might be better to overturn Roe v. Wade because it would so energize the choice crowd and maybe even motivate congressional action.
Just something to consider.
for having the idiocy to provide one more good reason for a new American revolution. Or did you grant a patent on that, too? At the very least, it's time to just shut down the PTO and void all current patents. I mean, the current regime is against government interference in private business, right?
Anyone have a spare Senator they're not using?
Schwab
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
USPTO has no authority outside the realm of "Science and useful Arts" and patents granted outside the scope of that allowed by the Constitution are illegal. Nor does it matter what Congress has to say about it; granting patents on things not meeting the prior test is not a power granted to the Federal Government.
They "declined" to create a definition. Translation: we "chose" to ignore the law. Perhaps I'll "decline" to pay my taxes and see how that flies. Arrogant bastards; they need to be put against the wall.
Taking this doctrine to its logical extreme may, unfortunately, be the only way to force people to recognise how flawed it is. In that regard, this may be a useful decision.
Well, in that case, I'm patenting "making online forum posts to avoid working". Just so you know, I take my royalties in cash, check, and hot girls roughly my age (18).
Hrmm, Though honestly I don't see removing a restriction the department isn't able to define or legally defend as a big deal, recent trends are worrysome. I can see a future where companies pay regular fees to some cartel for protection from patent related lawsuits. At first there will be numerous small cartels kicking around, fighting each other for business, suing each others 'clients', over time the biggest bankroll will prevail and a patent protection fee will become a regular part of doing business.
paul reinheimer
You saved a poor troll from starvation. Thank you, I haven't had eaten anything since this mail was sent last Wednesday!
Essentially the ruling states that ANY process regardless of whether or not it's performed using a device or results IN a device.
IE, I can now patent my process for making hamburgers into meat balls.
Or to dial a phone.
Or the methodology behind replying to a slashdot post. (NOT the code for doing so, the *idea* behind a posting forum.)
Its provable and it also shows there is fraud going on in high places.
As such abstract ideas have long been internationally accepted as not being patentable.
In Soviet Russia patent technological arts requirement rejects YOU!
Please sign petition to restore sanity to our banking system!!!
http://financialpetition.org/
Imagine you have a plot twist of a television program themes, now that they can be patented, you can expect those TV guys to apply for patents. Previously that wouldn't get past the door and so didn't try, now the court is saying they can apply.
Same with photo compositions, painting themes, unusual musical chord twists, drawing styles, colour compositions...
Note the limit on what is accepted as prior art, mean it will be next to impossible to refuse any patent request in any area now.
"I do not have numbers, but I am willing to take a guess the number of Business Method patents allowed to date is quite low."
Most of the software patents seem like business methods to me, 1 click ordering for example. There's little difference.
Now class, please turn your books to the section on "Integral Calculus". This class has been liscensed and authorized by Megacorp - holders of patents on the power rule. Please note that any integrals referencing the trigonometric functions must also credit the proper patent holder. sin = George Smith, cos = Megacorp, tan = Umbrella Corp. For a list of all current patent holders on Mathematics please reference "How Freaking Retarded Can We Be (2010 Edition)". Always pay your liscense fees! No calculation without compensation. Or was that "No taxation without representation"?
This seems so ridiculous, that I wonder whether this is was purposefully done to force people to reform patent laws. Sometimes you need to utterly break something before people will notice that it was broken to start with. This is the most benign interpretation I can see as otherwise, it seems to be lacking in sense.
"What can a thoughtful man hope for mankind on Earth, given the experience of the past million years? Nothing." -Bokonon
From "Get The Big Money Shovel": Appendix Z
If the wayward attorney (insert your name here) is running low on billable hours, take full legal advantage of this further confused process to:
A) Offer the service of filling out confusing paperwork and then..
B) Committ legal extortion by threatening to sue for something with an overt willingness to settle out of court for a fraction of the costs and..
C) Offer to assist your wayward counterpart (insert attorney of company being sued) in writing settlement agreement stating the equivalent of "..company X agrees to pay company Y (insert long integer here) if Company Y agrees not to discuss amounts in public and Company X is permitted to state no allegations were proven..."
Cogito Ergo Sum
Funny. As the Patent Board itself, I'd have thought that was part of their job. Maybe not.
I dream of a better world... one in which chickens can cross roads without their motives being questioned.
It's become clear that since the patent office is willing to let anyone patent anything with very minimal checking on validity that patents will effectively end productivity and innovation in the US (and everywhere that has an enforcement treaty with the US). So either we cripple our economy and technological advancement or we modify patents so they don't strangle innovation. So ditch them or limit the duration to a more reasonable timeframe (given the current rate of advancement).
I put files in my filing cabinet in the order that the first letter of the file appears in the American English alphabet. Can I patent that business process?
I could have sworn that every angle gets exploi... er... explored.
Generally, the submitter knows the issue being patented within an application and it is up to the examiner to decifer it. If the examiner catches on and rejects the application, just rehash the text and resubmit.
Patent lawyers wouldn't waste their time.
No such thing as wasting one's time here. It's all about wasting other people's time.
Lehk228, are you trolling, drunk, smoking crack or some combination thereof? The link in the email linked to in the gp post is an article in the Jakarta Post about Indonesian mullahs issuing a fatwa claiming that use of Intellectual Property without the right to do so is a sin.
I'm posting anonymously because I have mod points and I am using one of them to try to undo moderation of the idiotic mods you have encouraged to pointlessly mod down an AC. In fact, I have three mod points left, and because you are such a prick, I am going over your history and modding down your last three comments. Enjoy!
I submit the parent for the Worlds greatest answer prize. Not only is the parent dead on, but their answer reflects the kind of half-ass journalism that we've become accustomed to. A journalism in which the reader isn't expected to actually read the article. A journalism in which no question will be answered and where diagrams are appropriate, none will be provided. And... ahh screw it, nobody is really going to read this any way!
This makes me chuckle mostly because I saw Harvey Birdman last night. I don't know if it was a repeat or not, but the episode was basically one of those "Welcome to Company X" promotional training videos. "How to do your job" "Why we're here" "Company History" all that.
Every time they showed Sebben he had an ever larger pile of money until at the very end of it he was neck deep in cash with swimsuited women on pool floats.
And for those of you that think Geeks and Animation can not possibly be interrelated and have never seen Harvey Birdman, the joke behind the series is he's a lawyer willing to take on the case of the "little" `Toon.
"Genius may shine aloof and alone, like a star, but goodness is social, and it takes two men and God to make a Brother."
Fortunately, your two Offtopic moderation to the 2 Lehk228 comments posted to the Royal Society Issues IP Charter story still stand.
You don't have what it takes, bot boy.
Is that good or bad?
"You'll get nothing, and you'll like it!"
This decision is quite funny. A couple of months ago, Slashdot was running a story about a piece by Richard Stallman where he made the analogy with the works of Victor Hugo being covered by patents on literary plots. Then there were some posters who thought Dr. Stallman was making an absurd comparison, and that patents on literature would never happen.
Well, well...
Meanwhile, in Europe, we have chosen another road. After the victory on July 6, when the European Parliament rejected the software directive, we now have a chance to get one of our activists to win the title "European of the Year" in an open Internet poll organized by a big business magazine.
Please feel free to go to NoSoftwarePatents.com for instructions on how to vote, while you contemplate this latest madness by the US patent establishment.
Christian Engström, Former Member of the European Parliament 2009-2014 for The Pirate Party, Sweden
that the Technological Arts require the elimination of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Funniest damn thing I've heard all day!
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Neither am I.
Neither are most people in America; median employees are paid twice what federal law requires. Is that done out of the goodness of employers' hearts? No, employers are just paying what they have to pay to get workers - just like they offer whatever hours they have to and whatever working conditions they have to. It's ridiculous to think that the same employees who currently laugh off $5.15 an hour jobs wouldn't laugh twice as hard at 70-hour-a-week deathtrap job offers. Making the latter as legal as the former wouldn't change that a bit.
Don't get me wrong - having a President who cares about workers rights' isn't such a bad thing, but FDR isn't responsible for my working conditions, supply and demand are. Increase the supply of jobs (as when the accumulation of wealth allowed the US to industrialize) and job offers get better. Increase the demand for jobs (as when global trade allows citizens of poorer nations to compete in previously American markets) and job offers get worse. Increase the supply of jobs again (as those poorer nations themselves industrialize) and job offers get better again. Decrease the supply again (as more jobs which required labor and capital can be automated to require just capital) and job offers will get worse again.
It's possible for governments to royally screw this process up (check out the monetary policy and trade policy that turned a recession into the Great Depression for one example), but it's not easy for them to make it better. That's one of the major benefits of federalism: (what - I'm back on topic?) we recognize that sooner or later any government will screw things up, and when that happens it's easier to move to a different state than to move to a different country.
How about creating a patent for the US Government, then you can take them to court over patent infringements
And since we can now patent thing like that, I'm going to patent 'fucking', and become the richest person on the planet. Or, perhaps I'll refuse to issue licenses, and I'll be the only person on th planet that all the fine ladies can get down with....
(Queue the bad porno music here)
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
As a liberal, I would have to say that protection of human rights is governments' sole legitimate role. Property is a social concept, without society there would be no need for the concept of property. By owning property, you are stealing the opportunity to use that property from everyone else, most of whom would never grant you that right without some recompense. For the privelege of private ownership of anything, you owe a debt to everyone. Private property is not a right, it is a privelege granted to the individual by society.
All "intellectual property" is based on ideas freely granted to the individual by society. The individual owes society for the ideas that sparked the innovation. Processes and other abstract things should never be patentable because doing so does not benefit society. It does not protect innovation at all.
Collective property is at least as valid as private property, and given the right control structure it is as feasible to maintain collectively as it is privately. In fact, one could argue the opposite of the tragedy of the commons, saying that an individual owner would always find it easier to profit from a resource in a destructive fashion and then move on than a collective owner of the same resource. Collective ownership is far more natural to the human mind than private ownership. Witness the fact that most "primitive" (as we in the west see them) societies have little conception of private ownership.
I postulate that you and people like you benefit from private ownership in an unfair fashion and that you cling to the myth of the benefits of private ownership in order to justify your ego-based worldview and your position of power and privilege rather than from an real and logically arrived at conclusion that it truely benefits the collection of individuals known as society the most.
Yes, this post is slightly trollish but hey, wouldn't you conservatives and libertarians out there rather point out how foolish and knee-jerk my post is rather than mod me down? After all, if my arguments are so knee-jerk, they should be pretty easy to refute, right?
However, if you want to mod me down for using a sixty seven word, paragraph-long run on sentence, be my guest.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Patent the photography and filming of nude women born after 1990. There is no (legal) prior art, and once the patent is awarded, you'll own the adult industry.
Woohoo!
I'm gonna patent me a TPS report so I never have to fill out another one ever again! I'll just make the licensing fees too high for my employer to afford.
someone should patent the most widely used method of taking a dump.
then all toilet makers would be forced to put meters on for the royalties.
after about 5 years some politician somewhere would wonder what the heck happened to free dumps, rise up an flush this idiot patent system.
this stuff really pisses me off.
Ooh ooh... I'm going to patent methods of making cloaks of invisibility, x-ray vision goggles, love potions, and an arcane spell to eliminate the national debt!! Seeing how as science doesn't inform public policy around here anymore, patents on magic could become very valuable!
and it's all over.
If you want your life to be different, live it differently.
1. Patent blatantly obvious anything.
2. ??
3. Profit!
As a non-technological business process.
And if I get a favorable examiner, maybe I can patent 2+2=4.
"You reproach us with planning to do away with your property. Precisely; that is just what we propose."
:):):)
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels
So how is the revolution going comrade?
I've patented the "can you install linux on it" post, and yours is clearly a derivative, therefore you owe me $29203297426498732649287364983298326483264873264 and 39 cents.
Clearly, none of you guys know what this is all about. The PTO basically made up this requirement and was rejecting applications based on it -- it somehow snuck in from EU law.
This decision simply says that when the law and the case law of the Federal Circuit don't contain such a requirement, the PTO can't just make up something like that and apply it to reject applications.
This is also a great decision because the test is completely impossible to apply in practice. It's not a practical way to approach differentiating statutory and non-statutory subject matter.
Didn't the USA do away with that little rag?
This is simply another USPTO job preservation scheme. They are trying to ensure that they will have enough work, so no-one gets made redundant for sitting around and drinking coffee.
Oh well, what the hell...
Also, perhaps as individuals, copyright doesn't matter, but for businesses it does matter very much, and basically when you are a smaller company, you simply can't afford to risk getting sued, even if you are technically "in the right", because the endless legal processes are very expensive and disruptive (they can ask for all kinds of documents, no matter how unreasonabe). This leads to a situation where the big companies have huge portfolios of patents and other IP that they can use do deals with other big companies, but small companies get screwed.
As a private individual, this may not affect you directly, however when smaller upstart companies cannot effectively compete with the giants, as a consumer, you lose out because of decreased competition, and are left with higher prices, shoddier quality, and/or decreased innovation.
Unfortunately, I think the situation will just continue to worsen, and more and more IP will be privatized much as land has been, more control will be taken away from consumers, and all we can really do is try and slow it as much as possible. I mean, really, when the only counterpoint to folks like the MPAA et al is China, that's hardly a "beacon of light on the hill"...
For the record, I personally feel that the copyright system mostly works as intended, and it's really software patents where the harmful side-effects far outweigh any benefit to society.
The writers of the Constitution were very careful with their words.
... 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.
... secure for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries."
There is already plenty of documentary evidence attesting to what they
may have considered while writing it. They didn't put fluff in the
written text for no reason, there are tomes of fluff and prolix argumentation.
The conclusion is assuming a section of the Constitution has no active meaning
or import, nor never had any useful meaning, is mistaken. If it was intended to have
no importance, restriction or direction, then it would not have been included.
Law is not like a Lisp program.
It is quite clear by any intent and historical documentation and use of half a brain,
that the clauses are intended as direction to the legislature to make
more specific law along those lines.
In fact, if you read the whole section, Article 2 section 8, the whole description makes it clear that the principal purpose is "to promote the progress of science and useful arts"
"Congress shall have the power to
If they wanted to say:
"Congress shall have the power to
they would have, just as the Constitution elsewhere in that very section quite clearly says "Congress has the power to [verb]".
But they didn't.
The only one with his feet on the ground, so to speak. At last somebody with the commonsense to see that a patentable process should require "the transformation of physical matter". All else is intangible...
Your patent is supposed to not duplicate prior art and it is supposed to be non-obvious.
Both of these criteria are criteria honoured in the work to register a patent in good faith (a search for prior art) and after the fact, by the fact your patent can be challenged.
A lot of the most obvious patents will not be upheld if challenged and either meaningful prior art exists or if the patent actually *is* obvious. In the Litigious States of America, this mechanism for defeating patents should not be surprising.
It is, however, expensive to register patents. It is also expensive to challenge them. This gives the leverage to the financially wealthy. It gives even more leverage to larger companies that don't do anything but patent registration and litigation - they don't spend any money inovating, just patenting other people's ideas and chasing down infringers. Usually this results in out of court settlements rather than challenges, since it could cost you $100K to challenge a patent, and $20K to license it from the current patent holder.
We've created a system that has within it a built in niche for a group of butt-sucking parasites who do no actual work. I'm not talking about lawyers, but of patent attack/defense companies that don't *make* anything. They are just storehouses for intellectual property, not with the idea of protecting of the inventors or even their investors, but simply for profit. They act as leghold traps on innovation, rather than incentives.
This is the surest sign that the system is broken. The patent system itself now has so many companies co-opted into the machine that they can't imagine life without it. And their fear keeps the system going strong and growing. And of course, as it grows, it stifles invention and innovation, instead of protecting it as it probably did way back when the patents were first envisioned.
At one time, it did bring together investors and inventors because it helped ensure RoI for the investors, because anyone who knocked off their process or product could be litigated against and punished. Thus it fostered innovation.
That day is long past. What we have left is the rotting carcass of a system that protected innovation, and the only creatures that enjoy hanging around rotting carcasses are maggots, flies, and carrion eaters. And that's what the Patent system has develoved to.
Get rid of it, because it no longer serves the purpose it was meant for.
-- Mal: "Well they tell you: never hit a man with a closed fist. But it is, on occasion, hilarious."
As a liberal, you obviously believe that all rights are assigned to individuals by either collectives or institutions. I just hope that sort of worldview does not become any more dominant than it already is, because in it lies the seeds of damnation (IMO).
I only have true experience of one thing - myself. I can claim to experience your life, but I can't ever really do so. It is always somewhat ineffable and inaccessible. Therefore, the only thing I think I can really speak to is my individual situation. I would appreciate it if all the well-intentioned liberals out there (yoruself included) would quit trying to speak to my situation and my existence, about which you have only a passing conception. It is arrogant and intrusive, at best.
Private property as something enshrined by some institution or some collective would in fact be something granted. Private property, the defacto acknowledgement of posession, a physically demonstrable fact and a personal experiential one, is a little bit different. And for you to write it off as something assigned to me by the generous benevolence of society is also rather presumptous of you, IMO.
Under the doctrine of "I'll mind my own business, you mind yours" or "live and let live" or "mind your own business", I'd ask you and others of your ilk to not try to speak to the situations of others by telling them what their rights should or should not be and by not trying to suggest or ascribe some power on behalf of either a collective or an institution to assign those rights. Quite literally, no one gave you the "right" to make any such determination, individually or collectively or institutionally.
Individuals know their own experiences. They can choose to join societies or not. They may benefit from being in those societies, but one can equally argue that the society benefits from their presence. Trying to figure out which benefits which the most is a bit like arguing about the old question 'How much is a duck?'. For the society or other individuals to blindly presume a right to dictate what is and is not the rights of the individual can never be a doctrine based in any sort of moral authority, at best it can be driven by some sort of resort to physical power. Yes, you can enforce some restrictions or framework upon me by virtue of physical power, but I hardly concede to you a moral or ethical right to establish this power.
Private property, as conceived of as an individual right, is sipmly an ackowledgement that an individual can have posession of a thing. Institutions and collectives have no conciousness. They cannot 'have' a thing in the same sense. Private property, therefore, as a notion of law and culture, is simply an acknowledgement of how things would be in the abscence of law and some nebulous patronizing collective.
As to primitive societies, your education must be a bit particular. There are plenty of primitive societies that have a concept of individual ownership, if not codified, at least in practice. And *certainly* there are numerous examples of those societies believing in both territorial and personal rights on a scale no larger than extended family or small tribe.
These smaller, more informal collectives banded together for pragmatic and biological reasons. And of a consequence, they chose to grant their society some of their posessions in order that they could share in the posessions of others in reciprocity. But the choice was theirs as individuals, not their societies, even if they would not conciously recognize it thus or explain it thus.
Tribalism is alive and doing well - kill your neighbour for threatening your possessions is certainly a way of the primitive world. And in the slightly more developed world, commerce appears pretty early on, and there are well developed ideas of personal property long before there are well developed ideas of some sort of benevolent big brother collective doling out rights!
Further, even if I was to acknowledge the benefits and trade offs of living in society and decide
-- Mal: "Well they tell you: never hit a man with a closed fist. But it is, on occasion, hilarious."
Then there were some posters who thought Dr. Stallman was making an absurd comparison, and that patents on literature would never happen.
Then there were some posters who thought that RMS should be called 'Dr.' despite being neither a medical doctor nor a holder of a PhD. And no, honorary degrees don't count.
It's worth noting that, for your vote to count, you have to click on the link they email to you. So don't do what I did and enter spam@spam.com
I have been kicking around the idea of having a fixed percentage fee on *any* device. How the percentage is divided up is up to the patent claimaints, not the manufacturer or user of ideas. It isn't perfect, but it may be better than what we have now. It frees up people to make stuff without surprises.
Table-ized A.I.
Check it out, just approved after this decision came through:
U.S. Patent #1024359876
Type: Business Model
Abstract: A generalized business model for extracting maximum profits in new and emerging industries.
1. Collect underpants.
2. ???
3. Profit!
Next IPO bubble that comes along, I'm going to be RICH!
Could someone please patent suing and license at a high commission and we'll get rid of the scourge once and for all.
Have you noticed that the object of the patent was to calculate the compensation of managers.
:-))
Maybe due to this patent managers will have to do something actually useful in order to be paid (without having to fork over part of their "compensation" to the patent holder ?)
(well one can dream
Somehow all this patent system looks like a privatization of taxation, which is interesting since we are all voting for the CEO's of large patent holding corporation (or maybe not ? hum I guess i'll have to check ??)
A key feature of fascism or any totalitarian regime is that the vote totals are always rigged to result in nearly 100% approval via the vote because opposition results in the death penalty.
By the way, I don't like a lot of things FDR did either. But the next time you post something with that much flamebait, at least make sure you are painting your target with an accurate tar brush.
...Open Source isn't the only answer -- but it's almost always a better value than the alternatives...
Since medical research costs on the order of half a billion dollars minimum to research and test a new drug to approval
More and more computer simulations and electronic tests are being developed to test drugs. In the next 10-30 years I expect that there will be a broad range of tests (including genetic tests) than can be done relatively quickly for a fraction of the cost of today's testing, that should hopefully result in better, faster clinical trials significantly reducing the cost of drug development. The question is will drug prices drop when this technology becomes available?
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
>>> "not only do patents slow the production of cheap drugs, they also cause the development of the drugs in the first place"
... yeah, I know.
... now that's what I call stimulating innovation!
Well here's me thinking that the prime cause of people developing drugs was to save lives, not to make a fast dollar. Just because patent wielding fat cats have turned healthcare into pure business doesn't mean we should bow down and kiss their butts.
More money is spent on marketing than on drug development. Too much money is spent on trying to corrupt doctors to prescribe a drug that isn't the best (in balance) for the patient.
I wouldn't eliminate drug patents. But there's no use keeping the baby in the bath water if it's just done a big poo [that's English for poop, btw!]. Patent terms in the current climate don't need to be more than 5 years. In fact I'd put a cap on the licensing gains of 5*costs (or similar). Hard to administer
Costs for private co. will show on the balance sheet; individuals can be paid up to five times the average annual wage.
You could be well off as an inventor. But not filthy rich. So you'd still have to innovate
I suspect if you are wrong about this, you're wrong about more.