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Amazon Asks Congress to Curb Patent Abusers
theodp writes "As Amazon urged Congress to change the law to protect the e-tailler from patent abusers, Rep. Lamar Smith had a question: 'Could not Amazon.com be accused of being a troll for patenting the one-click?' Smith asked, a wry smile on his face." While it's nice to see to see tech companies behind such legislation, it would seem there's some pots calling the kettle black, so to speak.
A beautiful and entertaining suggestion, although unfortunately it's easily worked around by generating spinoff companies and leasing the technology from them.
So Lamer Smith, the guy who pushed for DMCA2 in April this year, obviously knows there is a problem with this wry comment, but it takes a patent troll like Amazon to push the issue before Congress? The guy shouldn't have such a smug smile on his face.
Our courts are being tied up with silly lawsuits over patents all day long. Only large companies prosper, while end-users often get the shaft as would be competetors have their products ripped off the shelves.
Isn't it about time for some serious reform on patents and copyrights? How do we protect intellectual property without going absurd?
Thoughts?
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
Really, they need more than say 20-30 patents? I doubt it, sure products need some short protection, but after a few years the patent is effectively useless since your technology is outdated anyways. But yes big companies are slightly penalized in comparison to their smaller competitors, but then again it would be nice to reign in big companies a bit, as they have way too much wealth and power. I am liking my idea more and more now, it kills two birds with one stone.
Philosophy.
Perhaps what Amazon is really saying is that if companies weren't allowed to take out stupid patents, it wouldn't have to take out stupid patents to defend itself.
That combined with a "If you license to one, you have to license to everybody" law, might be a good thing.
> If you have a "loser pays" technique, then the larger companies are just going to drown the small man into debt.
Only if you implement it in the most retarded way possible: big company determines what loser pays. Why do Americans always assume that's the only way to implement it?
In the UK we have loser pays and the courts recognise drowning someone in debt is not the solution, so the judge determines what the loser pays based on the loser's means. This can mean the winner scores a legal victory but still loses out financially, which is an incentive for the big company to settle out of court, which is no bad thing.
Honestly, I think dismantling the entire software patent system, and rebuilding it from the ground up if it's really needed, is probably what is needed. Take out the ability to submarine patents. Software patent litigation should not automatically mean a injunction. Require precise wording to get rid of overly broad patents. Don't allow revisions after subition. Allow one year probation for public opinion and prior art to surface before the patent is granted. Require a working prototype and a reasonable schedule for R&D. I'm sure there are problems with my ideas, but hey, I gave it a crack!
Thinking up some process or special button, patenting it, let someone else spend the money to do the R&D and produce something workable, then sue them for it. That seems to be a lot of business models these days.
And the problem with forcing large corporations to think carefully about what they'd like patent protection for, rather than throwing one at every concept that has the remotest shot of being patentable, is...?
Parent's idea is a great one-it won't do a thing to impact the "small inventors" we always hear about the patent system benefitting (and it generally doesn't), while taking a significant step to curb both patent trolls and those corporations who simply overpatent. It would also be a significant step against business-method and software patents, which is also sorely needed, the companies who pull those often have patents by the hundreds.
To fight the war on terror, stop being afraid.
Once a patent is applied for, the applicant has a cooling off period in which to decide whether to go through the whole process or to talk to other people about licensing (this helps small inventors)
The holder of a patent MUST either manufacture themselves or license manufacturing rights to any second parties on the same terms. The penalties for patent infringement shall be limited to legal costs plus the average current licensing rate for the goods sold to date. (If there are NO goods currently employing the patent, the licensing rate will be zero.)
Mathematical algorithms, natural laws and anything which has been created by a natural process (e.g. DNA sequences) cannot be patentable.
It shall not be possible to patent any business process simply because it is carried on in a different medium (e.g. one click is basically walking into shop, handing over money, receiving goods in exchange, and should not be patentable simply because it is computer implemented.)
Basically, the European patent system before the US and Microsoft started lobbying and threatening in order to try and break it.
Pining for the fjords
There is a better, simpler cure:
1.) Forbid "method patents". This would include software and business methods.
2.) Forbid "naturally occurring" patents. This would include genome sequences.
3.) Require a WORKING prototype before issuance.
Just those 3 would go a long way to eliminating patent trolls.
B.
This is a sig. This is only a sig. Had this been an actual sig you would have been informed where to tune for more sigs.
~Rep. Lamar Smith had a question: 'Could not Amazon.com be accused of being a ~troll for patenting the one-click?'
I'm kind of confused as to how this negates the fact it should be fixed.
Also the extraneous comment about him smiling concerns me. He is overly pleased with himself for having the observational powers of a 10 year old child.
It's the government who gives out the patent in the first place. Of course it's their job to do that.
They have an obligation to ensure this system of monopolies that they are running is run for the benefit of the people.
This one can be bad.
You could have someone like Tesla, who conceived of the entire system of AC power generation and motors in his head, and who obviously could provide greatly detailed drawings and blueprints, and yet be unable to provide a "working prototype" because it would cost millions or billions to build. I think just banning software patents and business patents is good enough. And also fire judges who seem too stupid to throw out patents that are just goddamn obvious.
You are talking like there are people reading patents for gaining knowledge, instead of fearing lawsuits.
Try it sometime, I dare you..
Then we're back to the days when people hide their research to protect it
Research is rarely patented in the universities. Everybody gains from the shared knowledge, without patents. Patents stifles this process.
, and development progress grinds to a halt again where every company reinvents the wheel. Lots of unnecessarily wasted resources.
Everybody is reinventing the wheel already with closed source, and to avoid patent royalities. Now that is waste.
The cure is open standards, open science, open mathematics, open source, free software, etc.. etc.. Everybody benefits and gains value from open systems. Patents are not open systems, since it is based on fear, extortion and greed, rather than sharing a common good.
http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/
Insightful?
Congress = governement = no loss of Blackberries. They're exempt from anything inconvenient, didn't you know.
Now, if you'd claimed that their friends with crackberries might have had to go cold turkey...well, now you might have a point.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
There are two problems with this defense of Amazon:
1) They already have used the "one-click" patent aggressively against Barnes & Noble.
2) Any patent, no matter how ridiculous, will be sold off as "intellectual property" at some future date (when the corporation bankrupts if not sooner). At that time, it's almost guaranteed to be used aggressively, because the only people who will buy it will be the ones who expect it to be worth money. Amazon's work to build a patent portfolio of stupid patents foreseeably leads to future abuse, inevitably so in a publicly traded corporation.
is a term devised to deflect attention from the real problem: the scope of what can be patented.
My company encourages employees to patent seemingly anything useful they come up with not so that they can sue other companies who end up coming up with similar technologies, but for protection. They know that they have a much better chance at surviving a patent lawsuit if they already have a patent for the thing they are being sued for. Plus, they can be used as the business version of mutual assured destruction. If someone tries to sue us or sue a technology we support, we can return fire with our entire patent portfolio.
Mathematics is made of 50 percent formulas, 50 percent proofs, and 50 percent imagination.
Besides, I don't think the idea is socialist at all. The licensees are still quality, service and price competitors and simply have to pay to get in the game, just as they do now. This idea, simply locks down the terms of the license so that the inventor doesn't have the power to stop innovation by requiring unrealistic licensing terms. Furthermore, it levels the playing field by making sure that ALL competitors get the same licensing terms... no more sweetheart back-room deals. The idea also provides the incentive for the original inventor to continue to innovate and compete on cost, service and quality.
The biggest problem I see with this idea is cost accounting fraud. In industries like pharmaceuticals, it would be easy to inflate the apparent cost of development when it becomes clear that a drug is going to be very successful, thus making your competitors/partners pay an unfairly high share to get into the game.
Sounds good, but needs more work
Signatures are a waste of bandwi (buffering...)
You cannot sit back and watch someone build an empire from your patent without doing anything, bringing it to their attention, etc. and expect to cash in six or seven years down the road.
Except that, in fact, people (okay, more often corporations, which aren't people no matter what boneheaded decision the Supreme Court may have handed down 120 years ago) are still doing just that.
I swear, Slashdot should stick to technology and leave the legal commentary to people who know better.
Tell you what, the techies will stop bitching about the law when the lawyers stop trying to control the tech. Don't hold your breath.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
I must have missed something. One minute we're talking about limiting the government-granted monopolies of a technology to a certain number, the next we're talking about communism.
Government-granted monopolies are closer to communism than none...
It's been a long time.
Because it's not the government's job to do that?
Well, they seem to think so. Or tell them to legalize gay marriage, since it isn't up to the government to protect the religious idea of marriage. Tell them to abandon the war on drugs, since it isn't their job to protect us from ourselves. There is a huge list of things that the government does that aren't on the short list of their responsibilities. And for almost all of them, they claim that they are for the public good. At least for this one, they do have specific powers listed for patents and copyrights, so it isn't as bad as invading a country that wasn't a threat to us, spending almost half a trillion dollars so far based on lies - not to mention all the Americans Bush sent to their deaths, or the civilians he had killed or imprisoned indefinately.
You want to get into a list of what the goverment shouldn't do? That list is long. Adding this to the list wouldn't even be a blip.
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