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Do Patent Laws Really Protect Small Inventors?

whoever57 writes "Patent trolls like to claim that patent laws provide a way that small inventors can create products and benefit financially from their invention. One such inventor faces selling his house, despite inventing a product that has sold tens of millions worldwide. From the article: 'Inventor Trevor Baylis says he faces having to sell his house after failing to make money from his wind up radio and is now calling for the government to step into to protect inventors. “I’ve got someone coming around in the next couple of weeks to do a valuation on my house,” says Trevor Baylis, as he walks into the sitting room of his home on Eel Pie Island, in Twickenham, south-west London. “I’m going to have to sell it or remortgage it – I’m totally broke. I’m living in poverty here.”'"

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  1. Patent trolling should become a crime by cribera · · Score: 1, Offtopic

    Better evaluations should be built, to differentiate real innovators from patent trolls.

    The supposed inventors should leave some kind of economical guarantee, that would be collected by the state, if it's a trivial patent or a troll is detected.

    Real innovators would get refunded everything, and would even get tax breaks as a plus for their efforts and the risk they took.

    The economical punishment to the rejected patents, must be high enough, to fund the more strict evaluation process, and would serve as a deterrent for patent trolls.