Why There Are Too Many Patents In America

whitroth writes "The judge who just dismissed the lawsuit between Apple and Motorola writes a column explaining what he considers to be reasonable uses of patents, and unreasonable ones. One of his thoughts would be to require a patent holder to produce the patented item within a certain time, to cut out patent trolls."

Comments

As someone

[Anonymous Coward]

who worked for a company that got sued by a patent troll for some really insane email to fax patent from the 1990s that would NEVER have been a commercial product, I concur.

Make it, sell it, or the patent is tossed. Give them 3 years.

Re:As someone

[SomePgmr]

[...] not some bloody FOR and NEXT loop.

Yes, this.

While I can appreciate how trolling companies exacerbate the situation, it seems to me like it's also a problem of trivial and obvious things being patented, less than people not being able to implement them.

I mean, Amazon can implement one-click. Apple can implement searching more than one source per query. The problem is that of course they can, and so can everyone else... because it's obvious, not innovation. Defensive or not, issuing patents for that kind of crap stifles real business and innovation.

Go farther

[girlintraining]

I do not find many people that disagree with the idea of patents: Namely, that you publish how something works, and then for a limited period of time, you are allowed exclusive rights to sell that something. Then everyone is allowed to do it. When the patent system was first invented (pre-industrial era), new inventions came out every few years. The steam engine, which became the locomotive, which became the combustion engine, which became the car, etc. Technological progress from decade to decade wasn't that fast. Ford created the assembly line, and 14 years later, it was still a novel concept. Today, much of the equipment and processes we had a decade ago isn't worth much more than scrap. 10 years is a very long time. But patents still have the same timeframe; 7 to 14 years. 14 years ago, broadband internet was a luxury item only the rich and a few people lucky enough to be in the right neighborhoods could get... Today, it's just assumed you'll have access to it, and at a reasonable price.

The patent system needs to take into account the industry in which the patent's primary use is: Metallurgy, for example... not exactly a fast-moving industry. Software design... very fast moving industry. It's stupid that the time limits are the same for a new computer algorithm, or a new metal deposition technique.

The other part of this is the originality of the invention; A hundred years ago, every invention was novel, because few people had the resources to research, prototype, develop, and market something new. Today, there are hacker spaces in most metropolitan areas. Anyone with an idea for a new idea, process, or concept, can plunk down a few thousand and develop a new invention. A lot of it isn't even original; it's repurposing technology designed for a different use. And that's where the patent system fails miserably -- today, they take a patent for encoding binary data over copper wires (original idea), and when it expires, they submit a new patent for encoding data over the internet. Same tech. Same concept. Slightly different application. New patent. BZZZZT! No. No new patent should be given. Only truly original, game-changing technology, something that advances the state of the art, should be awarded a patent. Otherwise, it's just re-engineering... anyone with a basic grasp of the concepts could do it.

Fix those two problems, fix most of what's wrong with the patent system today. Most.

Re:Having to produce the patented object...

[zzyzyx]

If you stopped producing the object what good does it do society if you're allowed to keep the patent? Other companies should be able to make use of the patent if you don't make use of your government granted monopoly.

Re:Because the USA is pwned by lawyers?

[girlintraining]

Why are there too many patents in the USA? because the country is owned by lawyers?

It's not that we have too many patents. It's that patents are used to lock out competitors, inhibit free trade, and are used offensively to protect and expand business. Patents are not used to advance the state of the art, or to make available for public inspection true advances in science, technology, or methodology... they're used solely as weapons of mass distraction.

And it has utterly destroyed our ability to compete globally. There is no more innovation in this country -- building a product now has to be done overseas, not because it's cheaper as much as because it's necessary: Basing your operations domestically means that if your competitor wins in a patent suit, your entire business could go tits up -- you can't export something that's in violation of a patent. This way, you can continue to sell your product in other marketplaces while going through our endless appeals process. Your manufacturing process can't be threatened if its based in a country that doesn't have a corrupted patent system.

Another idea

[SoftwareArtist]

How about this concept. Currently, the default assumption is that anything can be patented. Devices, processes, visual styles, anything. There are a few things that explicitly aren't allowed to be patented (such as mathematical algorithms - yes, laugh everyone), but as long as something doesn't fall into one of those categories, and meets some very minimal requirements (being original, useful, and non-obvious to a patent lawyer), it's patentable.

Let's reverse it. By default, things cannot be patented. The government shouldn't give out monopolies by default. Then we should consider specific categories and decide whether there's an overwhelming social interest in letting that type of invention - and only that type - be patented. And we should use a very high standard for making that decision. If there's any uncertainty in whether patents for a category of invention would really help society, we should err against giving out monopolies.