Cutting Through the Patent Thicket

xzvf writes wrote to mention a BusinessWeek article positing that the overgrowth of patents is harmful to innovation. From the article: "The first problem with patents is that the entire process takes too long: three years on average, often as long as five, and getting longer all the time. So when a venture capitalist invests in a company, its IP 'dowry' remains, at best, provisional. How much would you pay for a company when its assets are hidden from view?"

Comments

And The Answer

[MrNonchalant]

How much would you pay for a company when its assets are hidden from view?

5 bucks and a bag of potato chips. Next question, please.

Re:And The Answer

[HunterZ]

> How much would you pay for a company when its assets are hidden from view?

5 bucks and a bag of potato chips. Next question, please.

Sold!

Re:And The Answer

[Anonymous Coward]

This would be a contraction, not an abbreviation. Go back to squeezing your balls if it upsets you so much.

You and the captain, make it happen.

[joemawlma]

..BusinessWeek article positing that the overgrowth of patents is harmful to innovation.

I didn't know Captain Obvious worked for Businessweek.

Greg Blonder is suspicious

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

As a teenager, I sat raptly in the U.S. Supreme Court gallery listening to attorneys argue University of Illinois Foundation v. Blonder Tongue Laboratories, a landmark patent-infringement case

you listened to rapty to attorneys in your teenage years? this guy's a sicko, I was doing plenty of strange new things as a teen, including things involving my left hand, then girls (in that order), and also things involving dried fauna and cigarette paper, but certainly not listening raptly to attorneys. Sheesh...

Re:The most significant bit of the article

[alfalfro]

From the article:

"We need to invent ourselves out of this mess."

I already did, but someone is sitting on the patent.