Inventors Protest Patent Reform Bill

narramissic writes "A group of inventors and U.S. company execs, among them Dean Kamen, inventor of the Segway and the AutoSyringe, and Steve Perlman, inventor of WebTV and lead developer of Apple Inc.'s QuickTime, paid a visit to Washington to encourage Congress to defeat the Patent Reform Act. The inventors say the Act will weaken the patent system, devalue patents, and encourage infringement. A version of the act, which passed the House of Representatives earlier this month, is supported by several large tech vendors including Microsoft, IBM, and Cisco. The big companies hope it will make it harder for patent holders to sue and collect huge damage awards when only a small piece of a tech product is found to infringe."

Comments

"Incumbent Patent Holders", not "Inventors"

[Doc Ruby]

Those people protesting the patent reform aren't notably "inventors" so much as they're notably "incumbent patent holders". They are a group defined by holding patents themselves, under the existing broken system, and getting rich off it.

I really don't understand what effects this proposed tweak to the patent system will have. I expect no one really does: the system is so unjust and complicated that it needs to be ripped out by the roots and replaced by something simple that merely "promotes science and the useful arts", without infringing our rights to free expression (including copying) more than is absolutely necessary to protect essential commerce. But if these rich guys are protesting the tweak, which would reduce their own protection (and evidently increase the rights of the rest of us to invent freely, using other inventions), then it starts to look like the reform is at least worth trying. Because they're making their money off their monopolies under the current law, and didn't seem to be so motivated by its existing injustice as to protest the old way, or to propose a workable new regime that protects the rest of us as well as it's protected them.

Re:"Incumbent Patent Holders", not "Inventors"

[marcello_dl]

> I really don't understand what effects this proposed tweak to the patent system will have.

Favoring the big corps against small companies. Never mind if the small company is a patent troll or not.

Let's say a guy finds a killer algorithm to speed up data mining. Big corp selling data mining software can gobble it up. Guy can't sell any data mining competing software because I'm infringing 800 silly patents (double linked lists and stuff).

Only cure for the patent system: no silly patents. Difficult to find a metric for silliness but we are not remotely trying. What about "whatever patent a team of students can find a similar solution for in 3 months (summer-of-code style) can't be used to prevent deployment and improvement of the newfound alternative solution"?. If the solution is identical to the patent, patent is revoked, if not they can use copyright to defend the patent especially if it performs better, yet they don't prevent other people to do their silly things.

Yeah, that's the idea.

[kebes]

From TFA:

The legislation "will weaken the patent system," said Dean Kamen, inventor of the Segway and the AutoSyringe. "It will devalue patents..."

Umm... yeah. That's the idea: to weaken a system that is currently very strict and uncompromising. The end of the quote is:

"It will be a disincentive for people to invest in the future."

Well I guess that's what is being debated. On the one hand there you can argue that without strong patent protection there is a disincentive to invest in future ideas, because you can't protect your expected profits. On the other hand you can argue that with strong patent protection, there is a disincentive to invest in future ideas, because you can't be sure you won't infringe on other's patents, and have your profits sucked away.

It's not at all obvious that the current patent balance (or one involving even greater patent protection) is the optimal one. It is obvious that no matter how you set the patent system, some people will not like it, and will experience a "disincentive to create." But that's hardly relevant: the proper balance is one which encourages the greatest innovation and progress overall. And, when analyzing the overall benefit to society, it should be noted that there are distinct advantages to allowing an idea to be used widely (perhaps even gratis), and to offer companies some assurance that their product will not be destroyed simply because of an obscure patent of questionable validity.

WebTV needed inventing?

[tehwebguy]

I must be missing something.. isn't WebTV just Web + TV?

Aren't these exactly the types of patents we DON'T want being granted?

Reminds me of the hamburger earmuffs, and the electric blanket mobile.

Re:What part is most dangerous?

[Vellmont]

So if an an inventor discovers his $.30 invention is being used in someone's $30,000 machine, shouldn't the remunerative part of the award be based on fees due him from licensing the $.30 part?

Only if the $.30 part isn't the linch-pin that makes the whole $30,000 machine possible. The monetary value of the part is really irrelevant, it's the role the part plays in what the invention does. If I invented a magical $3 device that allows a car to run on gasoline, I'd expect an automaker to pay me a HELL of a lot if they infringed on that patent. Such a device is pretty useless in isolation. On the other hand, if I invented an adjustable cup holder, and an automaker infringed on it, I'd say damages awarded against anyone infringing on that should be based on the little amount of value generated by the better cup-holder, not the whole value of the car.

What the law actually says I don't know.. summaries of law are notoriously terrible.

From the man who brought us the segway....

[MLCT]

inventor of the Segway Oh well - with all the sense to invent (and mercilessly promote) - a machine that ensures people don't even have to walk any more - all in a country with one of the worst obesity problems in the world. If a change in the patent system will stop crap like the segway being invented then it will be a change for the good.

The bar for getting a patent should be very high

[kcbrown]

These days, the USPTO hands out patents like candy. That obviously must stop.

The only meaningful patent reform bill is one which makes it much harder to get a patent. A patent is a monopoly on an invention. Today, the term "invention" is used so loosely that it's almost devoid of meaning -- you can get a patent on pretty much anything these days.

But the nature of a patent is such that it should be hard to get. So what should be required to accomplish that?

I think the most important requirement should be that the patent itself be publicly peer-reviewed. Some will argue that the downside is that if the patent isn't granted, then suddenly the invention will be made known to the world -- the inventor won't have the opportunity to keep it secret. To that, I say good! If you want the monopoly that getting a patent gives you, you should be forced to risk the possibility of losing control over your invention. This alone would eliminate most of the patent applications, and rightly so.

Additionally, the patent itself must be a technical document, not a legal document as it is now. It must provide the average practitioner in the field in question with all the information he needs to implement the invention. The patent can be rejected by the peer reviewers on this basis alone.

Right now, neither of those is required, and the results are predictable: nonsensical and/or trivial "inventions" are routinely granted patent status, and we're all worse off for it.