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Half of US Patents Issued Out of US For Second Year
netbuzz writes "According to a new report from IFI Patent Intelligence, 51% of patents issued by the United States in 2009 went to companies located overseas. While this marks the second consecutive year that a majority of US patents have landed abroad, an author of the report says: 'It's foolhardy to use this statistic to infer that American firms are losing ground to foreign competitors because with patents, it's important to consider quality, as well as quantity.' IBM was once again granted the most patents of any company, 4,914, followed by Samsung and Microsoft."
If only I could patent foreign countries obtaining a patent in the US...
Kind of goes along with the huge valuation given to IP assets for US companies compared to their real assets.
and turning to the US for help works out well for countries that need it huh? well I guess it does if you have oil supplies, Sadly Rwanda didn't have any.
Hard to beat out IBM when it's submitting applications for LOL, regex for SSN verification, changing the color of email text, and 40 minute meetings.
"I'd just like to emphasise that taking a million years isn't a metaphor here..." -Rich Bradshaw
It's not a zero sum game. The more produced, the wealthier the world becomes as a whole. Of course this only goes to an extent due to limited natural resources.
In fact this is a good thing, I mean honestly do you expect 6% of the population to produce 50+% of the worlds intellectual property?
Isn't there more overseas companies than US companies? And if so, why should this be surprising in the slightest?
That means that of all the patentable things (invention, processes, even software) done in the world that ever want to be able to be comercialized in US, only half were done in the rest of the world?
Think in Nexus One with multitouch only in the european models, or al the diplomacy behind US trying to push their patents in all the world (having or not something similar being patented there previously). That facing that all the world want to patent in US too is just reasonable, what is not is that only count as much as what only US patents.
Anyway, counting the culture of "defensive" patent filings of IBM, Microsoft and others is not surprising thet distribution.
to register a patent in the USA is $1347, IBM has 4914 Patents, which equals $6,619,158 spent on patents. ...
now thats just the USA, to get an international patent is about $10k+ (only including the most popular countries) so that would be $49,140,000 in international patent fees for about 10 years
now my question is, is it worth is spending so much on a patent that wont generate enough money to cover the cost of the patent?
It's not a typo if you understood the meaning!
FTA:
It's foolhardy to use this statistic to infer that American firms are losing ground to foreign competitors because with patents, it’s important to consider quality, as well as quantity
Ah, except the patent office isn't exactly concerned with quality. A patent is a patent, regardless of quality, and granting more of them is in the interest of anyone in the system (as the actual cost of the economic burden it imposes isn't accounted for by the granters, legislators or recipients).
While American companies continue to add patents, IFI Patent Intelligence says foreign firms are also working to win patents at a "frenetic pace," which could be considered a good thing for the U.S. economy overall.
Right. As IPR is macro-economically equivalent to taxation, that's the same thing as saying 'more taxes are a good thing for the economy overall'. As a general rule, I don't actually think that's an accepted theory within any economic branch; even the most tax friendly theories usually prefer a somewhat efficient use of the taxation burden.
"The silver lining may be that the high priority foreign firms place on U.S. patents is a confirmation of the value and importance that the U.S. market represents."
The question is why wouldn't a foreign company be interested in obtaining taxation rights to the US economy? There's nothing as lucrative as having government enforced rights to take money without doing anything.
Of course it utterly screws those paying for the system, but it certainly is nice for those who can skim the pot. Eventually it falls apart of course, as the burdens on industry and workers mean they simply cannot compete and when the ability to borrow to keep going is lost one ends up without industrial base, in deep debt and with significant legal risks to any industry trying to operate within the economy.
I can only speak for the domain of software development, but there was a period from 1996-2008 when the USA was disproportionately feeling the rewards of software patenting. The rewards were always severly outweighed by the costs ($11 billion in 2008), but there were always people pointing at these rewards.
Now that the companies of the USA's economy will increasingly become the targets of software patents instead of the users, those rewards will diminishing.
Patent policy for other domains can be considered while only looking at the economic effects. For software, the social effects have to be considered too because software development is something that individuals can do and participate in - like writing a book, reporting news, or writing music. So, it makes sense to have economic studies to make our point, but we also have to remember to have other arguments and to point out that these other issues exist.
The good news is that there's the Bilski case which might solve the problem, and there are also initiatives in other countries, most notably Israel, New_Zealand, the EU, Australia, and something starting in . Help sought.
Please help publicise swpat.org - the software patents wiki
This is hardly surprising. If you create a major, marketable invention, you're going to patent it pretty much everywhere. Since the US doesn't have a majority of the worlds population, thus it's not surprising that we have a large number of patents held by foreigners/foreign companies. I'm sure that there are patents held by US citizens/companies in tons of other countries as well. I'd be curious to see what these percentages are like in other countries, that might yield a more interesting system.
As a foreigner i see this a a huge win for the US.
Just think, the US patent system has attracted the cash of thousands of foreign companies. Sure, it might just be because the US is the only country allowing things such as the "do some every day task but on the internet" type patents, but whatever the reason, you have foreigners paying money into the US patent system. The filing fee for a software patent can be ~$10,000 according to Google.
I wish my country had a stupid patent system raking in the dough like that.
Here in Australia It's quite common for people who have never been to the US to be extradited for not giving in to IP trolls. The US government even provides a mechanism to help the patent trolls do this called the USPTO-IPAU patent prosecution highway.
http://www.uspto.gov/patents/init_events/pph/pph_ipau.jsp
The Hew Raymond Griffiths case showed us that apparently the internet is allowable jurisdiction for court of Virginia and that IP crimes are enough for extradition.
So if we Australians were ever to think about creating a competitor to Amazon for example we'd probably get a letter stating we have violated their 'one-click' patent. We couldn't fight it without traveling to the states yet if we didn't fight it we'd be extradited. In the end you'd need a US patent portfolio of your own.
All in all this broken system is a win for the US. You have foreigners pouring in money to the US government and legal system. Any foreigner that pisses of a US organisation can be extradited by simple patent trolling.
Move over US car industry, your replacement has arrived - international IP trolling, backed by the long arm of US international law enforcement.
Neither did Somalia, for all practical purposes. Didn't stop the U.S. from helping. Rwanda just got really unlucky in their timing, with the whole genocide happening just a month after the U.S. pulled out of Somalia, which was something of a disaster. And Rwaanda was basically exactly the same situation as Somalia---a civil war between warring factions. The U.S. and the U.N. had just failed miserably at stabilizing the first situation, and were still licking their wounds. Had they failed to learn from that experience and turned right around and made the same mistake, one could rightly have called them insane beyond all hope.
What happened in Rwanda was tragic. Knowing about it and being able to realistically stop it, however, are two different things. In the history of the world, attempts to interfere in a civil war have almost invariably ended badly, usually very badly. That's something that would be good for future political leaders to remember.
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If other countries began to win with this rules, is time to change the rules.
...it's important to consider quality, as well as quantity.
To name a few.
So if this is the future...where's my jet pack?
Er?
Slashdot really needs a "+/- 1, Incoherent" moderation.
"What do you despise? By this are you truly known." --Princess Irulan, Manual of Muad'Dib
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It's foolhardy to use this statistic to infer that American firms are losing ground to foreign competitors because with patents, it's important to consider quality, as well as quantity
If we do make that consideration, then it's probably worse. Keep in mind that a) we have a thriving patent troll industry in the US, and b) anyone outside the US who bothers to patent in the US probably is more likely to have something worth patenting.
And what about Zimbabwe? There is tangible evidence (Photos, videos, witness accounts, missing opposition leaders and members, etc) of tyranny, oppression and gross human rights violations but the US is not helping them. If Zimbabwe suddenly discovered oil reserves within their borders, the US would invade them in an instant under the guise of 'removing the yolk of tyranny and oppression from the people of Zimbabe'.
They're probably US companies with offshore interests. You know, the kind of interest that substantially reduces a company's US tax burden.
That US law doesn't apply to foreigners when they're in our island prisons, but does apply when a foreign company wants to get a patent?
Yeah and add Afghanistan, at least that was a legitimate target unlike the joke Iraq was.
For sake of matter they supply 90% of the worlds rubble.
And more to that point, many companies now a days start to be multinationals and for tax or legal purposes registered offshore. It could still be an "US company" or do majority of its business in US. Even Google plays that tax game
At those levels, the taxes the company pays for its operations are also significant, so much that choosing the right country to pay those taxes for its international revenue can save it several hundred million pounds a year
Outside of its US operations, the UK market is the biggest revenue earner for Google, yet the company doesn't pay any taxes whatsoever in the country. Instead it reports all revenue from the UK, from all over Europe in fact, in Ireland where the company has its headquarters for the continent. Thanks to the much lower corporation tax levels, Google can avoid paying as much as £450 million in the UK alone. And the savings can be significant, taxes are as two to three times lower in Ireland.
The company is, by far, not the only one doing this, all large corporations, even smaller ones with an international presence, will try to find the market with the most flexible tax system to set up shop. The practice in itself isn't illegal, but it certainly isn't viewed very well, especially with the economy being what it is.
I'm actually surprised they haven't moved their US operations.
Erm, doesn't the law say those of low quality shouldn't even issue? http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/usc_sec_35_00000103----000-.html
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Quality doesn't really matter.
When you have enough patents you can always find one that suits your needs.
The U.S. has foolishly decided that it could give up producing any tangible goods and live by simply creating "Intellectual Property". ...)
Well you know what? Other countries can and have always been creating as much "Intellectual Property" as the U.S. all along, but they haven't given up the other productions (Germany, China, India,
Given recent restriction on brain importations imposed by a recent genial govt. the U.S. has also put a brake to its creation of I.P.
Those brains are not going to sit idle, they are going to produce I.P. elsewhere, where they are accepted and treated fairly.
Either in their home countries, or in others like Singapore, Europe, etc...
Once the U.S. will loose their lead in I.P. creation there will be nothing left except a huge debt with China.
I believe the U.S. have just one ace left; their legendary ability to reinvent themselves.
But that was easier when the country was younger and politicians were not just puppets of a few greedy myopic corporations that can't see beyond a few quarters time frame.
But there is always hope ... and change ... ... ... oh wait!
Sad that individual patent holders don't even rate a mention. Corporations already have too much power, the patent arsenal makes that even worse.
Anybody want a peanut?
Why are we even granting patents to foreigners? It's not like we get any benefit out of this... or are we?
'It's foolhardy to use this statistic to infer that American firms are losing ground to foreign competitors because with patents, it's important to consider quality, as well as quantity.'
Riiiighhht. Just because we used to out-engineer the world by a long shot, and now the world has not only reached parity, but has done so on our own soil, doesn't mean that our position is weakened any! No, not that. Never mind that we train fewer engineers (as a percentage) than ever before. Never mind that we don't pay our engineers value anywhere near their wealth production, while we pay craptastic CEOs millions to help their companies lose billions, and then bail out the companies so that they can do it all over again, while pissing away trillions of dollars in a war that the media does its best to ignore. You know, the war in that country that bankrupted the USSR during its war there in the 1970s? No, never mind that!
Stick your f-cking heads back in the sand, you know, where it's still nice and warm, and just ignore that cold, cold north wind!
If America doesn't turn NOW, and re-emphasize infrastructure, education, and wealth production, then we are guaranteed to step down as a "player" in the world leadership. Unfortunately, all signs are showing otherwise, from bailing out financial crooks and giving them leadership positions to teaching Intelligent Design and other travesties of knowledge in our schools.
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
The poster is misquoting the article, which indicates that foreign companies counted for more than 50%. There are several countries technically foreign to the US that are not overseas, at least not from the US perspective (not counting Hawaii) - Canada and Mexico to name 2.
Considering that most foreign companies with anything to sell will want to sell into one of the largest markets in the world, it's only prudent of them to apply for patents there. In terms of being a source of intellectual capital - compare 6+ billion against 300+ million and realize that the US is definitely outnumbered.
The reason is simple: We need to stop letting the government make life difficult for American buisiness. The government already destroyed the credit market by subsidizing high risk loans and now we're facing a huge debt problem, not personal debt but government debt. Regulations have become crippling. It's choking American enterprise.
The large percentage of the sub prime loans weren't subsidized. Simple regulations/requirements on loan prudence, capital reserves and transparency for financial instruments like the infamous CDS would've saved the economy far more than changing subsidies. In fact, countries with more tightly regulated financial systems (such as Australia) did much better in the recent crisis than those that didn't.
Sure, the government is at fault (as are the businesses themselves for making imprudent investments), but blaming over-regulation and too much government interaction is just an ideological kneejerk. Sometimes regulations are good, sometimes they're bad but the important thing is you get them right instead of focusing on some narrow ideology.
I've personally always wanted to be in buisiness for myself, but recently it's become all but impossible due to the taxes, regulations and so on. You know what it takes to hire a single employee? Payroll tax, record keeping regulations, insurance, OSHA compliance, registration, W-40, workers comp insurance. I can't do it! It's gotten so bad no matter how bad I want to expand, I can't do it. The current administration has made it so much worse.
Half of the things you mentioned are there for your benefit, in particular when you get sued (just see what happens if you don't have insurance and you haven't kept proper records) or need to take a trip to the accountant. The other half are for the employee's benefit, in that they should be able to work for you without risking serious injury or at least being fairly compensated if they do. Really, it sounds awfully like you want a free ride here; employees are an investment, you have to pay money to make money. They may not be instantly profitable, but if you can't afford to pay for them, it's your business model that's wrong, not the government. As a business owner myself, you have to realize that the benefits of having a business come with a whole bunch of responsibility and risk.
When was the exact moment that Slashdot changed from being about devices and tech to trying to make us fear just about everything?
Be afraid:
- Half of US Patents go to external companies!
- Wikileaks are dying!
- China is hacking Google!
- Hackers take down search engines!
Even a tech announcement about Google able to host any file type is focused on how it will be used for malware and bring more vulnerabilities.
There is only one positive article on the front page: Tech downturn is over. Even that is attempted to show negatively by having "Unofficially" in the title.
What is it with all the whining and doom-crying?! Am I just really new here and it always been thus? Are the editors all sufferers of depression?
What the government does to companies is makes it harder for them to compete with each other and harder for them to compete with countries outside of the United States. It also allows them to fuck consumers hard and fast. If we stop letting them fuck consumers, it will cost them money. If we make it to where they can compete, it will cost them money. If we make them more able to compete, it'll give them some money, but we'll be drinking concentrated sulfuric acid out of our drinking wells.
So what can we do? All we really have to do is endure. Eventually a good chunk of China will become contaminated with whatever they're dumping in their back yards (factories open, stay open for a few years, and then are forced to close because their polluted ground/water systems are killing the workers).
Job? I don't have time to get a job! Who will sit around and bitch about being broke and unemployed then?
Since when did quality of patent matter ? The significant numbers of patent trolls out there is proof enough that it doesn't much.
'It's foolhardy to use this statistic to infer that American firms are losing ground to foreign competitors because with patents, it's important to consider quality, as well as quantity.' That was the most foolhardy ostrich behavior I have heard of. Of course it matters. Look at Europe, we had a brain drain to the American market accumulating over the last century. The Americans may well end up as us, but now conceding not to us, but to East Asia. And, don't forget that Europe is coming back, too, with a stronger, more unified agenda than ever. Watch out for this trend if you care about your future. Only the paranoid survive. .
Yeah, the big difference between Somalia and Rwanda is that from Somalia the US could have controlled most of east coast africa but there is nothing to control in Rwanda.
Wake up my friend and realise that US only 'helps' countries where they can make a buck or two.
it's important to consider quality, as well as quantity
If the companies with the largest portfolios of new patents in the US include Microsoft, and given a few of the Microsoft patents highlighted in Slashdot over the year... I think the US is worse off than the numbers make it sound.
I mean honestly do you expect 6% of the population to produce 50+% of the worlds intellectual property?
Well I don't think that was the idea exactly. The idea was that by having the most obnoxiously expansive patent system in the world, and granting obvious patents for a number of things, the USA would have an economic advantage over its neighbors, where patent laws are saner. The USA corporations could attack foreign corporations using this stupid laws and this would give the USA a competitive advantage.
In other words, it wouldn't mean that 6% of the population produces 50+% of the worlds intellectual property, but that corporations based on a country with 6% of the population file 50+% of the world's patents. Thats a very different proposition.
But of course foreign corporations are adapting to USA laws and now they patent stupid and obvious things on the USA like native companies do. This negates USA the benefit of this strategy and means that it will likely be changed in the future.
When his defense asked, "Which computer has Jon Johansen trespassed upon?" the answer was: "His own."
Ah yes, the evil government is stopping you from being an entrepreneur. Of course. The US must be like an even more restrictive version of the USSR if it is impossible to practise capitalism.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
... am I the only one disturbed by companies playing at this tax game?
They use us down to nothing and don't give shit back in taxes. That's fair.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
I love simple reasons. Really. They're almost always accurate.
Because fuck knows it wasn't the companies who asked for money to prop up their failing business models with, it was the government's fault for being captured and giving in.
All that's happened in the past 20 years is people lobbying to get more freedoms for a select few companies, the government granting that because of no adequate oversight and a severe lack of foresight in legislators (perhaps partly due to regulatory capture, but that's pretty hard to reconstruct), and businesses capitalizing on that to fleece everyone they could out of their money.
And yet, somehow, this is all the fault of government rather than of the egotistical fuckers who feel it is their "duty" to maximize corporate profit (and get "healthy" bonuses out of it in the process). The credit market was destroyed because the banks can currently borrow from the government at no cost, and use that money any way they like, which is far less risky than loaning to businesses. Which is why they don't feel the need to try to restart small loans etc. anymore. And there were no strings attached to those loans because of filthy little fuckers like Geithner and Summers who conveniently forgot, or claimed that "regulation at this point would keep the banks from using and applying their expertise".
No aspect of this "crash" has anything to do with the crippling effects of regulation, if anything, regulations prevented it, until they were abolished (Glass-Steagal, leverage rules for the big 5 being suspended in a backroom without oversight, you name it they've done it) through lobbying by rich people who wanted to become richer and didn't care what the effects would be for everyone else. And all of this largely made possible because senators are so dependent on campaign contributions (much more so now in the age of TV than ever before) that they will suck anyone's cock just so they can stay in power a bit longer. Why US citizens accept this to be the case I haven't the faintest, but it's probably because nobody in the MSM is really pointing people towards the fact that only on token issues (abortion) where the public "speaks up" they have any input in the process any more.
"We do the opposite of what would help" because the things that are done then do help a group of perhaps 10.000-100.000 people who have the most say. Only their interests don't really always mesh very well with the interests of the other 300 million.
bureaucratic rules that small companies have to adhere to explain perhaps 0.001% of the variance, but considering how much money they make compared to the big ones, your problems really don't matter.
Neither did Somalia, for all practical purposes. Didn't stop the U.S. from helping.
Good point. After all, Somalia is a stable democracy now, well on its way to becoming a developed nation, with a growing economy, trade with many different countries, an active role in the African Union, well-respected all around, peaceful, safe...
I don't get it.. File a US patent in the US, and you can sue anyone violating that patent anywhere in the world? Then what is the point of having patents tied to nation? Can I patent something here in Norway that isn't already covered by a Norwegian patent, then go sue someone in the US for patent infringement and/or theft of IP? That is after all, the way they do it in the US..
Yeah, that makes about as much sense as if a huge US corporation pressured, say, the Swedish government to pass a new law weeks before a trial, ensuring people could be convicted of enabling piracy by running a service that could very well be used for legal purposes.
Oh, wait..
attempts to interfere in a civil war have almost invariably ended badly
It's not hard to see why. Governments benefit from international conflict. If they play their cards right, there are large monetary rewards involved. They make a calculated estimate of how much they can gain, and base their decision squarely on that, despite what they claim. The business of government benefits from war, disaster, poverty, and crisis of any kind. International conflict is simply the business of government sensing an opportunity to profit, as with any other crisis.
I don't doubt that the people who actually do the work (military, etc) honestly believe in what they're doing, and honestly feel that they're doing the right thing. But at the top of the power pyramid, the primary concern will always be pulling in revenue for the business of government. How do I know this? Because according to history, all governments expand in power and revenue throughout their lifetimes, never willingly or permanently releasing it. This holds true for all of human history, and the only reasonable conclusion is that the people who run the business of government have a vested interest in continuous expansion of power and revenue.
No, you're not the only one, but you probably won't get a lot of sympathy here. Got to protect the shareholders, don'tchyer know.
Rule of Slashdot #0: You and people like you are not representative of the larger population. - A.C.
...but do they really have to issue their sick people to other countries?
Oh, patents.....
Yes, in the case of Australia and the US you can be extradited for IP infringement. This includes cases where the server is located in Australia and the person involved in IP infringement has never set foot in the USA. As given in the Hew Raymond Griffiths example, if you post something on the internet from Australia, then US courts can claim jurisdiction. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hew_Raymond_Griffiths That particular example is relevant to copyright but it sets a precedent that IP infringement is worthy of extradition and that the US has authority over what Australians do on the internet.
You may want to check your local extradition laws. Not all countries are as servile to the US as we are.
You may want to check your local extradition laws. Not all countries are as servile to the US as we are.
Not even going to bother. The Norwegian officials are well known to lick the proverbial Presidential Posterior. To the best of my knowledge, there has yet to be a case where RIAA/MPAA and associates have managed to actually do anything over here (unlike in Sweden), and our ISP's have dead refused to give over logs and such on suspected piracy etc.
Other than that, I think we (in principle and by law) extradite criminals, but Mullah Krekar has remained here despite the fact that several countries, including the US, have requested that he be extradited. This is (as far as I know) because we refuse to send people anywhere where they might risk torture, murder or a death sentence, even if they are wanted terrorists/criminals pretty much everywhere and continue to travel home and broadcast "jihad-TV" from the comfort of their welfare-sponsored apartment.
GOOOO NORWAY! -__-'
I actually calculated the percentage for about 150 countries using all available data from WIPO, and you do find some interesting patterns. What you've said is pretty much right... the U.S. has a strong patent system, and huge internal market, so it's no surprise foreigners want to patent their inventions here.
GDP per capita plays a big role in this percentage, as does the total population of the country, and the strength of the patent system. I'm not going to upload all my images, but here are a few interesting ones:
China Russia (not USSR) Germany (including West Germany) USA Japan India
The dashed line indicates when the country implemented TRIPS.
"Anyone who [rips a CD] is probably engaging in copyright infringement." - David O. Carson
If Zimbabwe suddenly discovered oil reserves within their borders, the US would invade them in an instant under the guise of 'removing the yolk of tyranny and oppression from the people of Zimbabe'.
The yolk of tyranny? You, sir, have egg on your face.
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These graphs show the total number of patents granted for all available years with data.
These show the percentage granted to residents of the country for all years with data.
"Anyone who [rips a CD] is probably engaging in copyright infringement." - David O. Carson
There is far more than oil to be won in southern african countries. They are packed to the brim with exotic rare metals and loaded to the teets with copper. Other countries, such as Japan & China, know this and you can tell when you travel around any country down there. Those two countries have built almost all the roads & highways where none existed before and there is signs in almost every larger village/town saying 'our well was drilled for us by kind donation from the country of Japan/China' In exchange for so much infrastructure work they get very good deals on all the metals. Meanwhile the USA is nowhere to be seen for having done any noticeable every day development.
Erm, doesn't the law say those of low quality shouldn't even issue? http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/usc_sec_35_00000103----000-.html
Define "quality", please. You linked to 35 USC 103, so you may interpret low quality as "obvious", but not all would agree. Many would define low quality as lacking much utility, or low quality as lacking sufficient written description. In fact, I can think of many low quality patents that are not obvious. Your definition seems to be much narrower than anyone else would reasonably use.
Uh huh. And East Timor totally has tons of oil, which is why we helped them.
Oh, wait... you mean Australia is already developing the Oil field? And East Timor probably won't see a dime since it will all be extracted on that side of the border? And we knew all of this BEFORE we sent troops in?
Well, then... I guess you're just full of shit.
What's the reason to assume that because a patent comes from a foreign company, it's less likely to be a troll? Patent trolling in the U.S. is clearly a proven means of making money so maybe the prevalence of foreign applications for U.S. patents simply means foreign trolls have figured out the U.S. is the best place to ply their trade.
The quality/quantity argument is specious IMO because there is no objective measurement of patent quality. In fact I wonder how bad a patent application has to be in order to get rejected.
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
And what about Zimbabwe?
There's no money to be made in Zimbabwe, so there's no lobbyists who will pressure Congresscritters to send in troops because there's nothing they want.
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