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Microsoft Pushes For Single Global Patent System
Xerolooper writes "What would the world be like if everyone could enjoy the same patent system we use in the USA? From the article: 'A senior lawyer at Microsoft is calling for the creation of a global patent system to make it easier and faster for corporations to enforce their intellectual property rights around the world.' They have already attracted opposition from the open-source community and the Pirate Party. According to the article, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) will be meeting in Geneva on the 17th and 18th of September."
The world would be like hell.
I can't understand how you can live with your patent system and please don't export that shit to us other!
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No more than 7 years on a patent. No extensions. No exceptions.
I'd love to see the economics research behind that number. Must have been a lot of work determining the optimal patent term. I suspect it'll be no trouble getting published. Or, as is more likely, was that arbitrary number pulled out of the air?
As for 'no extensions. no exceptions,' what about delays brought about by the patent office? Surely you wouldn't penalize the inventor for bureaucratic incompetence?
No patenting of algorithms
Algorithms are already unpatentable. An algorithm, alone, is not useful, and so it fails the requirement of utility. What is patentable is, according to the Federal Circuit, the use of an algorithm tied to a particular machine to accomplish a useful result. I suspect the Supreme Court will probably overrule the Federal Circuit and allow the patenting of the practical application of algorithms.
I can think about PageRank all day long and accomplish nothing. But if I apply PageRank to pages on the internet and use it to optimize searches, then it becomes a patentable invention.
Patents to be awarded to individuals only, not companies
This is already the case in the US. Patents can be assigned to companies, but only individuals can apply for and receive them.
I suppose you meant that companies should be prevented from owning patents at all, but that would be pointless. Employees would simply be required to license the invention to the company exclusively. It would only add transaction costs.
I thought that I read that i4i actually produces software, and hence is not a patent troll.
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
They were developed by companies that definitely wouldn't have done it if it weren't for the IP rewards.
And your proof for this is . . .? Actually you can have no proof because we have always lived under an increasingly suffocating patent/copyright/trade-mark blanket. Big Pharma is the most profitable industry in the world, surely some restriction on their ability to print money wouldn't harm innovation in the field, in fact maybe the exact opposite is true!
Actually, it's spelt "hypocrite".
== Jez ==
Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
except the EU, which has a single patent system
Actually, it doesn't. There is an European Patent Office, but whether those patents are recognized varies from country to country. There are some politicians in the EU that are pushing for so-called "community patents", which would be EU-wide patents, but those does not exist so far.
The only country I know of lacking a legally defined public domain is japan, and there is a de facto recognition of works being public domain after a certain time.
Actually, most of the really innovative periods in time came when people disrespected IP laws and stole everything they could. The U.S. stole all kinds of ideas during the industrial revolution, and that worked out rather swell for everyone involved.
-T
Again, and again, this crap comes up. It never was true in the first place and yet you pro-MS people keep spouting it. The reason they didn't go after OpenOffice is that OpenOffice doesn't infringe on their patent. The reason they "waited" is that they were actually working with Microsoft on getting their technology into Office. They sued when Microsoft dropped them like a bad habit and took the technology for themselves.
"Not to mention all the idiots who use words like boxen."
Anonymous Coward on Monday August 04, @06:49PM
The question is how much of that R&D is on real R&D and how much is on is spent on Viagra II, now lasting 4.5 hours instead of 4. Most it of it would be in the later category. They simply never break down those categories. (Also how much is in non-medicial R&D spending, packaging, etc). Also, how much of the spending is finding other uses for drugs that already exist? None of this is answered by a 10-K filing.
No major work ever comes out of Big Pharma R&D. All the important work is publicly funded.
The same report also indicates that they spend almost 3.3 billion dollars in just marketing in the same period.
Letting the E.U. in on software patents would simply result in more patent violation suits against Microsoft. You'd think Microsoft would have learned by now.
Celebrate failure, and then learn from it - Nolan Bushnell
I filed a huge patent in 2000 that the patent office felt was six different inventions, not just one. It was a lot cheaper for me to file it all at once, which is why I did it that way. By US patent law, each individual part can be filed one at a time, after the previous one has been reviewed and dealt with by the patent office. I still have two parts pending review.
I'm not sure I needed a submarine patent, but I sure got one!
Celebrate failure, and then learn from it - Nolan Bushnell