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USPTO Issues 8,000,000th Patent
toybuilder writes "It took nearly 80 years for the first 1 million patents to issue in the U.S. On Tuesday, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office issued its eight-millionth patent. This most recent 1 million patents took only about 5 years."
Or most technological advances will not improve life on this planet.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
So essentially, US patent #8,000,000 is more or less a very, very early version of Lt. Commander Geordi LaForge's visor. We have a long way to go.
Oddly, it was a patent for a method of issuing patents given to a small legal firm, who then filed a lawsuit against the Patent Office.
All those patents are useful and unique - right?
Right. According to IP industry insiders, what we need is a Patent Stimulus to end the recession
The nice thing about this Patent Stimulus Plan is that it will cost only a small fraction of the amount of money we have already wasted on failed economic stimulus. What we need to do is have President Obama issue an Executive Order directing the Patent Office to start allowing patents. A 42% allowance rate during the first quarter of 2009 is wholly unacceptable. So while you are at it President Obama, order the Patent Office to issue a patent UNLESS there is a reason to deny it.
This was patent #8,000,000, or the 8,000,000th numbered patent. before the 1830s, patents were issued but not given numbers. I choose to be pedantic, rather than think about the travesty that our patent law has become - I'll leave that to someone else just this once.
The patent system is already quite expensive for the small businesses. The PTO office isn't so bad, but to come up with a any decent patent that will make it through, you need to hire a patent lawyer which will cost in the $300 to $500 an hour range. I just went through it and it's excruciatingly painful and expensive.
Then there is this:
http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2011/08/05/138934689/the-tuesday-podcast-the-patent-war
"Eighth-million patent" -> "eight millionth patent"
Yeesh - true geeks would say the editor's off by a factor of 2^5.
It would also be awesome (as in amazing, unbelievable) if you would your verbs.
The fact is, without patents we would have far fewer inventions and technology would advance at a much slower pace.
If software patents were issued in the 70's, we would have practically none of the mainstream computer tech we have today. Every single piece would be too legally encumbered.
There are other incentives for inventing things like being the first to market etc.
And implementations of software are already protected under copyright anyway.
If you take that away, why should I invest all that time and money?
You shouldn't. Leave getting rich to people like Bill Gates, or the other people and companies that made computer software up through the 90's (especially the 1998 State Street decision) before software became generally patentable. They seemed to do just fine without them.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
The problem is that the ability of the people to comply with increasingly byzantine laws isn't increasing at a similar rate. The rule of law depends upon the people being governed being capable of knowing all the things which are prohibited. In the US at least we've long since past the point where one could reliably know what is and isn't prohibited and under what conditions.