Companies Asked to Donate Unused Patents

Radon360 writes "There are countless patents that are promising but sitting idle, stowed in the corporate file room. In fact, about 90 percent to 95 percent of all patents are idle. Countless patents sit unused when companies decide not to develop them into products. Now, not-for-profit groups and state governments are asking companies to donate dormant patents so they can be passed to local entrepreneurs who try to build businesses out of them. "

Comments

Why donate?

[Anonymous Coward]

The whole goal of filing tons of patents you won't develop is to wait for someone else to do the work for you. If you donate the patent someone else will complete the work but you won't get to capitalize on their success. (as was I'm sure the original goal)

Is this really a good idea?

[J.R. Random]

Take an old, dusty patent that isn't doing anyone any harm, and then give it to an entrepreneur who now has an incentive to sue anyone else whose product violates the patent.

The only reason it's possible to do business in the United States at all is because 90% of patents are left lying in a drawer rather than being rigorously enforced.

Re:Invalidate them

[Daniel Dvorkin]

Wouldn't it be a lot simpler to make patents only valid while the holder is actively exploiting them

Bingo!

Let's be clear about this, for the benefit of the libertarians: patents (and other forms of protected IP, i.e. trademarks and copyrights) are government interference in the market. They are a form of government-granted monopoly which interfere with the normal operations of a free-market economy. As a matter of principle as well as practicality, this should only happen when the benefits clearly and greatly outweigh the costs -- "to promote the progress of science and the useful arts," as the Constitution defines the purpose of IP law. Granting government protection to unused patents clearly does nothing toward this end.