Broken Patent System? Google, Apple Disagree

Posted by kdawson on Thursday August 2, 2007 @03:10AM from the with-a-straight-face dept.

Whiney Mac Fanboy writes "The AlwaysOn Stanford Summit featured the panel discussion 'The Patent Crisis: Crossroads for the Business of Technology.' Speakers included patent lawyers from Google, IBM, and Apple. According to The Register, Google's and Apple's patent jocks had diametrically opposing views. Google's head of patents believes the system is in crisis: 'The Patent Office is overburdened,' she said. 'The volume of patents going in is huge. And the quality of patents coming out — it could be better.' But Apple's chief patent counsel said the US patent system was 'not broken' and 'not in crisis,' calling it 'the best in the world.'"

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Re:Google is right... by PatrickMMoore · 2007-08-02 05:31 · Score: 5, Informative

You're absolutely right. When I was fresh outta college and working as an examiner, I would use whatever f***ed up logic that made my boss happy with my production numbers. I'm not proud of that fact, but it did make my life considerably better.

I am agreeing with you that the system is pretty jacked up and no longer encourages innovation (which is what it was meant for in the first place. Thomas Jefferson would probably be working for Google if he were alive today.