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Hardware Hacker Proposes Patent and Education Reform To Obama
ptorrone writes "In a welcome turn of events, President Barack Obama spoke directly to the patent troll problem and the need for more comprehensive patent reform yesterday in a 'Fireside Hangout' — a live question and answer session (video) hosted in a Google+ hangout. The President was responding to a question by the prominent electrical engineer and entrepreneur Limor 'Ladyada' Fried of Adafruit Industries, who in 2009 won an EFF Pioneer Award for her work with free software and open-source hardware."
Yeah, he's basically just Bush plus gay rights minus gun rights. Same economic and military policies, just a few changes in "culture war wedge issues" to give the illusion of choice in the elections.
Patent trolls are just a particularly visible example of exploiting low-quality patents. The main difference between patent trolls as "non-practicing entities" and practicing entities is that the mutually-assured destruction pacts don't apply to them, because they don't themselves build things which they could be counter-sued over in a retaliatory patent suit. But MAD hardly fixes the problem in the rest of the sector: all it does is turn it into a cartel-like system, where IBM and Intel don't sue each other because of MAD, but Intel is perfectly happy to sue startups that try to enter their sector and compete with them. That kind of anti-competitive, turf-defending patent usage is actually considerably worse than patent trolls imo.
If the patents are high-quality, on the other hand, representing actual non-trivial inventions, then I don't see much of a difference between practicing and non-practicing entities. For example, university research labs sometimes invent some significant things which they then license to a third party to commercialize, which is perfectly fine (and an intended use of the patent system).
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
[Obama] describes patent trolls as "a classic example," of the problem, and that "they don't actually produce anything themselves."
Whether a bad patent is wielded by a producer or a holding company does not change the fact that it should never have been granted. If we kill the trolls, we will still be left with the runaway, wasteful patent litigation over bad patents by companies that do produce things.
The problem is not production. The "patent troll" hobgoblin is misdirecting the patent backlash that should be directed at a patent system that is too powerful. We are getting bad patents because we grant them too easily and give too much enforcement power to those who hold them. That is every bit as true of the mobile patent wars between producers as with the network service patent wars of the trolls.
The "patent troll" misdirection is harming our ability to fix the actual problem.
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The problem is dumb patents that do not advance the state of the art and provide no solution to anything. Most software patents are only problem statements and provide no solution to the problem at all, so they are totally worthless except to harass other people who actually invested the time and energy to solve the problem. If a patent describes something useful in a way that furthers the art, then no-one will have an issue with it. Every patent application should be accompanied by a working machine. Whether it costs 10 pence, 10 dollars, or 10 billion dollars to make that working machine - that will prove the value of the patent.
That would destroy drug patents as well as software patents.
It should require a demonstration to show practicality. In the case of a drug patent, that would mean a successful clinical trial
In the case of sotware (and yes, I think there should be software patents but not for obvious, workmanlike programs) it would be a working program that implements all the claims of the invention.) and a demonstration that it does what is claimed.
In the case of hardware, it would require a physical implementation of the invention and demonstration that it does what is claimed.
In the case of a gene patent, no such fucking thing unless you built that gene yourself and it isn't known to exist in a living organism in the wild. For example, if you invent a new DNA sequence that will cause bacteria to break down cellulose quickly and convert it into ethanol or methane, that would be an invention. And the modified bacteria could then be an invention, though I have qualms about letting any living thing be patented because if it escapes into the biosphere it becomes impossible to commercially control.
More children choke to death each day than have ever died in all school shootings, combined.
Seriously.
And better, there is NOTHING to you could do to stop an activity like a school shooter. NOTHING. No law, no amount of money, no defense you can erect around the school. If a guy is determined, he will succeed.
Meanwhile, you'll drop $40000000000 per school and still fail. You'd save more kids by banning hotdogs.