Slashdot Mirror
SCOTUS Set To Examine Combinatory Patents
eldavojohn writes "The Washington Post is reporting that businesses are split on the current situation with patents in the United States. From the article: 'The court is scheduled to hear arguments Tuesday on what's obvious when older inventions are combined to create something new. The law says an invention that's "obvious" isn't patentable, but the definition isn't clear despite decades of litigation. The ambiguity, critics say, has led to an explosion of patents as companies stake claims on everything in sight, from strategies for avoiding taxes to golf ball designs. The result has been extensive and costly legal wrangling as companies of all sizes fight over who's infringing what. In some cases, small companies acquire patents not to develop new products but to sue for a quick windfall.' This sounds like some common criticism of the patent system that often pops up on Slashdot. The last part of the article mentions that most legal experts are expecting some changes to come of this. Hopefully soon we'll see some changes to the patent system for a better concept of intellectual property."
For any device, meant to be controlled and travelled... inherently some way to navigate the device is in every way obvious. So, why are steering wheels patented?
It gets even worse, because somethings aren't "obvious" yet they remain inherent of the essence. Example: So a steering wheel for a car is obvious... but is a power steering device? Yes it is, for any person that has drivin a car without power steering, it certainly is.
Back a long time ago, there was much more sense and rationale. Another example, Henry Ford's claim to fame is not the car, but his development and application of an assembly line and in lesser known circles... a pioneer in the dawn of a viable credit system (Model-T, even from an assembly line was still too expensive for most people. Henry Ford was one of the first to develop and provide what we now know as "credit" so everyday people can have one).
I think most people have a hard time identifying what might be a legit claim on development. Sometimes, the claim would be far too broad. For example, not much of the details of space exploration is remarkable or what I might consider a legit patent. From the design of the shuttle, to the booster flaps... if you were a rocket scientist or astro-physicist all of it would make sense. However, what is remarkable is with all that together the ability itself to travel into space. You can't really pinpoint a cause or a crucial component for "space travel", and ONLY "space travel" in any and all the technology integrated to accomplish that task. Even to this day. Rockets were around for thousands of years before we took a human into space... so "rockets" obviously have alternative purposes and not soley for space travel.
But, here's the bottom line.
If someone found the cure to cancer, that knowledge and application is NOT their own property. Such property belongs to Man, as with any other detail or specific peace of knowledge. It's hard for people to understand what I'm getting at here, partly becuase they don't want to face the reality of it in fear that it would invalidate financial incentive, claims or some granted "Right" to legally extort money from someone else. Aspirin is aspirin, for example, but there is Bayer who will sue the crap out of you if you don't pay them for making and distributing it. Is that right? Such a basic biological compound, well known, and some twenty year old schmuck has the audacity to think it's HIS? Riiight. Noone owns their so-called "inventions", the moment you spawn an idea, in the end a thousand years from now, you're name won't be remembered but maybe the idea will be. That's becuase you never owned the idea, it's not yours, it belongs to everyone around you. Even now, while there are people that were alive before during and after landing on the moon, some history books broadly refer to it as "Man entered the space age". A thousand years from now, most "historians" won't even know "Neil Armstrong" to associate him to Space Flight, and if they did, it's probably they won't even pronounce it correctly. And they certainly wouldn't have a clue about much deeper detail than that; such as an Engineers name who came up with the one idea that made it all work. Today... how many names do you know that had anything to do with developing the technology for space flight? Zilch... don't bother looking it up, this is the reality of the situation, this is the point. But then again, go ahead and try to look it up. There were thousands of people that worked on it, you might find just a handful of names.
Point is, whether it's you, or some other guy... noone gives a shit as long as it comes to be. And, most things are destined to materialize from the efforst of Man... becuase THAT is WHY we are HERE!
As for the individual who finds the cure to cancer, he doesn't need to pull a patent on it. He would be very well taken care of, voluntarily by many people if for no other reason than to say "thanks", from across the world. So much, that there would be no roo
"Some sort of patent system is necessary to protect genuine innovators."
Some sort of incentive system may be necessary. A patent system isnt.
Just as patents were originally covert taxation, their nature hasnt really changed; it's still a covert taxation of the economy for specific purposes. Only it serves those purposes even worse than usual taxes, hinders competition, hinders production of some combinatory inventions, slows down the rate of technological adoption, the effective 'taxation rate' is decided by barely qualified civil servants (who have even been rated on how high they effectively jack the rate), it has no accountability and has no way to measure cost vs benefit ratios.
We'd be better off with an actual outright tax system with a general innovation VAT, where any inventors of specific parts of a product obtain their innovation incentive as monetary grants (related to use levels, or whatever) by a state agency responsible for that particular budget. If the patent office runs amok, well, then that budget runs out and nobody gets anything. And next year, we could politically dicker about wether we need to divert 1.5 or 1.6% of the budget to innovation, everyone could use any 'patented' matter without fear, and inventors could concentrate on innovation, not litigation.
The USPTO has shied away from a formal approach to investigating Inventive Step. The European Patent Office more or less requires the Problem-Solution approach, which takes away some (but not all) of the subjective nature. The USPTO will be hard pressed to adopt something from Europe. From Europe? Horror! The revision after grant procedure couldn't be named an opposition procedure. That is a European term. Horror! The USPTO also has problems with logic. Logic is Greek logic. That is from Europe. Horror!
A problem with obviousness is that because inventions rely on the laws of nature, in hindsight they are always logic. The reward should be for recognizing something that not the ordinary person skilled in the art would recognize. Now, try to make that objective! So, a gray area is bound to remain.
While the EPO is arguably the best patent office in the world, unfortunately they know it and too frequently behave arrogantly like a very beautiful girl turned bitch. It is not beyond them to ignore the law, like, for example, yes, illegally grant patents on software.
"Obviousness" can be decided in a trial if the jury is made up of peers of the inventor -- those skilled in the art by some reasonable criteria.
Seastead this.
And who gets to patent the other solutions? Anything solvable in a day by a small team is not deserving of a 20 year monopoly. The only use for these type of patents is to threaten, exclude or extort money from competitors, some way removed from promoting or encouraging innovation.
Many combinatory software patents would fail an obviousness test if the problem was set for a 12 year old. US programmers should organize an amicus brief, reminding the court that with software, the USPTO has failed to apply the obviousness test in any meaningful way.
Currently the burden of proof is on the USPTO to show that something is obvious, rather than being on the applicant to show that it is nonobvious. Shift the burden to the applicant, and that will go a long way to solving the patent mess.
When a patent is being applied for, the applicant is claiming that they invented something that others would be unlikely to figure out independently. Making such an assertion should require strong evidence and persuasive arguments to go with it.
Obviousness will always be a grey area, but for everything to be considered nonobvious by default is ridiculous.
I would go as far as saying that patents should be restricted to those things that are obviously nonobvious. If there is doubt as to its obviousness, don't grant the patent. It is better for 10 well-deserving patent applications to get rejected than for one undeserving one to get approved. Those with rejected patents can still produce whatever they developed without the patent; but when an undeserving patent is granted it prevents everybody else from producing the covered items, without requiring the grantee to produce it themselves.
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There is inferior bacteria on the interior of your posterior.
The patent system ties up many resources for US companies, and blocks progress in fields for years. China however can have companies come in and use patented designs without penalty. In fact the US will allow imports of such goods. I remember the idea behind patents, but now patents need to be more realistic with their time frames and perhaps a 'will to implement' or just go away completely.
I would go as far as saying that in no circumstances should it be permitted to have both a dual copyright and patent on anything. If you're going to allow software patents at all (not a good idea, but that's a different discussion) then a software patent should be required to contain implementation code, and that code should be uncopyrightable.