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Lawmakers Debate Patent Immunity For Banks
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "Now that a small Texas company has a patent on scanning and archiving checks — something every bank does — that has survived a USPTO challenge, lawmakers feel they have to do something about it. Rather than reform patent law, they seem to think it wiser to protect the banks from having to pay billions in royalties by using eminent domain to buy the patent for an estimated $1 billion in taxpayer money, immunizing the banks. The bill is sponsored by Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL)."
Can't really say more than that, unfortunately.
Problem is, in this case it might be required as such a distinction in law might not exist.
They can cashier the USPTO Commissioner, appoint a new one, and order a comprehensive review.
A billion dollars. Talk about misuse of taxpayer funds.
WTF?
Patents are supposed to benefit the common good. That's their only purpose. Now that they recognize one case (in many) where patents are crippling productivity, harming the economy, and working against the common good, they do nothing to address the problem of people abusing the patent system. Instead, they take more money from the people, harming the common good further, in order to bail out banks.
That is completely absurd.
You're close. It's not C, it's an unholy combination of COBOL (used for bit manipulation and other detailed machine-level stuff), FORTRAN (used for database access), and SQL (used for business logic). With plenty of assembler thrown in, and gotos galore.
(OK, there may be some C in there. Used for string manipulation, probably).
if we fix it the right way.
And what makes you think we would do better the second time around? Is there any actual evidence that anyone knows how to do better (as in, backed by at least a modicum of data, not just a few papers and manifestos)? Is there any evidence that if they do, the people actually rebuilding the economy would pay any attention?
What makes you think that drastic economic changes would actually succeed? Do you know of any significant examples of replacing a capitalist system with something drastically different and having it work?
So in effect, the banks are stealing technology, asking Congress to litigate their loses, and now this Senator is front-man for a huge expenditure of _our_ money to bail them out?
Something is amiss here, because I'm still paying for my checks. Let the banks and their huge reservoir of money pay for their technologies. With interest.
I don't care one bit if the banks invested so much of their capital into inflated mortgage loans. That's their problem for not making _sound_ investments. They freaking have _economists_ working in those high-rise offices.
If I understand correctly, Ballard claims to have developed these techniques and methods in the mid-90's, at a time when physical transfer of checks was required - federal law would not have allowed those methods at that time.
Then, the world turned upside-down - and his invention became a necessity.
DataTreasury has negotiated licencing with some financial institutions, but there are others that seem to feel that they shouldn't have to pay and aren't afraid to try to make the US taxpayer pay instead.
While it may be possible to characterise DataTreasury as a "patent troll" by some readings of the term, Ballard appears to be the first to have come up with and documented those methods and techniques and that's been upheld by the USPTO. DataTreasury claims to have attempted to sell the patent-protected system to the banks, who went ahead and ran with their own implementations. Isn't the patent system supposed to be about providing a limited-term monopoly for those who come up with ideas, whether it's an idea for a better mousetrap or a method of performing financial transfers? Isn't it possible that the banks are trying to use their sheer size and influence to avoid paying for something that they really ought to?
In this instance, if you have this great idea and can't get the money any other way, what's the use of the patent you have currently? All it's doing is stopping others from making the best thing since sliced bread while you'll never be able to do so. If you were to approach one of the corporations that would profit from your invention, work out a licensing deal with the company so that they can use the patent and nobody else can.
This is in your best interest since you'll get the money to develop the invention and you will, presumably, be getting large amounts of money for it. It's in the corporation's best interest since they have a monopoly for a while. It's in the economy's best interest because the person with enough talent to come up with the idea in the first place now has the money and the leisure to come up with more ideas while schoolteachers can show their students how all they need are brains and creativity to make it in this country.
There is nothing in that statement about congress purchasing someone's rights.
Consider another intellectual right. Congress has retroactively extended copyrights with every copyright extension in history. Certainly they should be able to retroactively shorten it. But if that day ever comes copyright holders are going to start screaming eminent domain.
I have to disagree. The problem here isn't the banks; it's the patent system.
Patents were designed to help people with new, nontrivial ideas (or new nontrivial ways of doing things that provided some great benefit) protect their investments. They were primarily used for mechanical processes. Unfortunately, when America went from being an industrial nation to a service-oriented one, the rules about patents were perverted into our current catastrophic state. They're more of a legal weapon now than they are a means to secure the fruits of labor.
There once was a time when the scientific masses used patents as a way to ensure their research would pay off. Modern parents are usually loopholes or technicalities discovered by legal teams; the businesses and the lawyers get rich; the companies that would benefit from the ability to use such technologies to help the economy progress and make the lives of the average Joe easier end up at the short end of the stick.
Really, patents are about greed and hindering technological progress. They discourage innovation by providing an instant monopoly on technology.
"You could almost look at defense of Microsoft as a form of the Stockholm syndrome." -neapolitan
Great. Whatever happened to the party of the free market?
When Democrats spend tax dollars propping up "unsuccessful" citizens its called welfare-state communism.
When Republicans spend tax dollars propping up "unsuccessful" corporations its called...what exactly?
The patent system may be knackered but the answer isn't this absurd gesture of government largesse.
You would have to be an idiot not to see this idea as the most obvious thing to anyone with even half a wit. This idea was inevitable and the idiot that got the patent didn't "invent" anything. It was simply an idea waiting for the cost of the technology and the legal system to catch up with it. That this patent was upheld pretty proves the USPTO is run by morons who would think tying your shoe with a double knot is original enough to be patentable. Digitally scanning documents and using the scans as legal instruments, yeah that took a genius to think up. The banks didn't steal this guy's idea they just took the obvious next step probably oblivious that anyone even talked to the shyster with the patent. I come up with 100's of more original ideas every month in my daily work.
Who is John Galt?
But patents are not property. The patent holders have no natural law right to their patents as they have to their land, their personal effects, their machines, etc. A patent is a limited monopoly granted by the state for the public good. In this sense, there literally is no such thing as intellectual property.
Let's see the data. Seriously. I've seen a lot of people attempt to see the Laffer curve in the data (my favorite being this train wreck of reasoning, but as far as I can tell, they're not doing much better than the people who are attempting to see Jesus in their toast.
I don't remember seeing a lot of vetoes of profligate spending under Republican presidencies when Democrats ran congress, and for the brief period when they ran both, I can't say that they were an example of fiscal restraint. Face it: Politicians have strong incentives to borrow and spend.
If inflation is greater than 10%, yes it did.
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
Invention: Apparatus for scanning a document.
Invention: Mechanism for archiving scanned data to a new medium I've invented and will describe herein.
Invention: I've discovered a new way to compress check images, using this very specific algorithm which is entirely new.
NOT invention: I can scan a check (technology for this is old) and use it for this specific purpose!
It's stupid and indefensible.