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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?"
In summary...
Patents were great when I was an inventor or researcher. But now that I'm a VC whose job is to takeover companies and screw the inventors out of all the money, patents are a pain. They take too long which is slowing down my screwing, please speed things up...
I think that cuts throught the BS and gets at what he means.
- Adam L. Beberg - The Cosm Project - http://www.mithral.com/
For over 200 years, the U.S. patent system has catalyzed economic growth
It did not, correct statement would be: for over 200 year innovation was able to overcome rotten patent law, but it finally approaches a dead end.
Consider this troll, but the only good that patent system does it makes investment, for those who have money, more appealing, than just sitting on the pile of cache (I would think there are better ways of achieving that
It does not protect the small guy, as it promises. Nowadays, small guy virtually has no chance of success, because of large corporations patenting everything left and right.
From the article:
I'm not sure how the patent office works now, but here's how I would envision a good patent office:
First, to receive a patent, you have to have a working model that can be shown on demand. Otherwise, we'll keep going on this new path of people patenting something without actually producing anything.
Second, all patents submitted will be checked over by a "Tier 1" employee. The "Tier 1" employees wouldn't have to have vast educational backgrounds; in fact, most would probably be college students working part time. These people would check over the forms and accounts, making sure that all paperwork is properly submitted, legible, and the required amount of money has been paid. If not, they send it back out to be redone.
After Tier 1 has approved a patent for review, it moves on to one of what would be many sections of "Tier 2". The sections would be divided according to industry (automotive, computer (hardware), computer (software), household, argiculture, etc.) and would be headed by those deeply educated in the field, and staffed by those not as educated, but who still have a firm understanding of the subject. An employee in this section would be given just the patent itself and a Potential Patent ID (PPID), and nothing else, to remove both any relationship they may have with the submitter and so they have less bullshit to worry about.
After examining the patent, they will do some quick searches to see if anything similar has been submitted. They won't check entire patent sheets, just the synopsi. If they appear to be the same, the patent would be marked as a potential copy, with the patent already on file that seems to match, and passed along to another section (Tier 2.5), who's only job is to compare the patents and find duplicates. That section would employ those with general educations (jack of all trades, king of none) who would inquire to the original section if they have any questions.
If the patent has no apparent relation to anything else, the regular Tier 2 staff can either accept or require a demonstration, if they thought it was total bubkiss. The patent seeker would have to come in with (or alternatively help arrange to have one of the employees come out to) the device and show that it works, after which it would be accepted.
If it's decided that patent isn't a reproduction, or Tier 2 accepted the patent, the patent would go through final processing (Tier 3), which would double check that everything has been filed and verified, and then grant the patent.
Tier 3 would also handle disputes. They would read over claims, do some basic research, and pass the claims on to Tier 2 for extended review. Tier 3 could also have the option to "contract" educated individuals in the related field to review the patent (used mainly when the section for that industry has a large influx of patents to review.)
Actually, hold off on that first part so I can do a vague patent for anti-gravity or warp drive or something.
Just like we saw when SCO started challenging Linux, many potential or current customers changed their plans to a different OS under possible threat of the court ruling in favor of SCO. Many geeks knew better and it seemed obvious from the start that SCO didn't have a leg to stand on, but that doesn't mean that the outcome was assured. New businesses, especially venture-funded startups, are delicate, and are basically long term bets made by investors. When patent litigation comes into the picture, it is a threat to that long-term bet that has to be balanced against all other parts of the system. Some customers and investors will have faith in their choice and stick with it, the more risk-averse will move their dollars elsewhere. Unless a legal challenge is so (excuse the pun) patently baseless, you're always going to lose some business when this new legal obstacle is introduced. And as the author points out, it is costly, and many times directly or indirectly such costs are passed on to the customers and/or investors. So while defending the patent is a good thing and should garner faith in the company for sticking to its guns, there is always the chance they will lose, which will drive off the more timid customers/investors.
-- I'm not a pessimist, I'm a realist. It's not my fault that life sucks so much. --
After reading the article, I have to say the author has a poor grasp of patents. Yes, he has 70, but by his own admission they were trivial. He's also using terminology loosely. Do numerous patents get granted for trivial stuff? Yes. But the patent office has never been given a narrow definition of novel and non-obvious. Not their fault, talk to congress and the SCOTUS about that.
As far as only granting broad patents, those can be just as trivial as narrow. A broad patent may not have enough details worked out to be useful. I think he was trying to say that only economically important or scientific breakthroughs should be granted patents, everthing else being narrow. Nice idea, but it only works with 20/20 hind sight. Some times it's the guy, 30 years after the first broad patent is filed, that figures out the critical specification to make the whole thing work.
As far as his comments about venture capitalists, so what? If they aren't bright enough to figure out good technology from bad, good patents from bad, that's their own fault. Making it easier for the dumbs ones to become rich isn't very motivating.
So all the article ends up being is the random musings from someone ill informed. Fix the system if you must, but don't listen to this guy.
The world is made by those who show up for the job.
"Without them it would be nearly impossible for an independent inventor to get a product to market: either everything about your product would have to be secret (giving you a credibility problem), or you would risk that your product ideas would be stolen whenever you gave a sales pitch."
One word: NDA. Give your sales pitch under an NDA. Better still, if its software you can just show the effects of the software without revealing the secret magic inside.
Example, I'm writing a page ranking algo now. I think I have a better way to rank pages. I will explain on my blog the values it would assign to pages compared to Google PR. But I won't explain the algo because I want to use it. Either I'm a genius or an idiot, but you can tell that from the numbers the algo generates, without the need to explain how I do it.