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China Leads In Graphene Patent Applications
hackingbear writes According to British patent consultancy CambridgeIP, China has filed for more than 2,200 graphene patents, the most of any country, followed by the U.S. with more than 1,700 patents, and South Korea with just under 1,200 patents. In terms of institutions, Samsung, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, and IBM lead the way of number of patent filing on this futurist materials with seemingly unlimited potentials, followed by Qinghua University of China. As China's moving its economy to be more innovation based and strengthening its IP laws, American companies will perhaps soon be at the receiving ends of patent law suits.
why development has stagnated on this 'wonder material'. Patents are killing innovation and development. This is an insane number of patents .. pretty much nobody can realistically develop any graphene-based products and navigate this patent minefield.
My other UID is three digits.
The only ones to get rich will be the lawyers.
Who drafted all these laws in the first place...
'Don't worry' said the trees when they saw the axe coming, 'The handle is one of us.'
actual referenced article, not lousy BusinessInsider. http://moodle.epfl.ch/pluginfi... Roadmap.pdf
Doesn't that also apply to the US one as it is implemented, rather than as it was intended?
N.B. this user is far too lazy to write a witty and intelligent sig.
It's time to abolish patents completely.
Ten, twenty years ago we were hearing all about this 'wonder material' .. then suddenly we stopped hearing much at all, and didn't really see applications come to market. Now we know why. It's been all but killed by this patent minefield. Your children someday might have a terminal illness that could have been cured by some graphene-based medical product? Sorry, they must rather die so that the corporations who control these patents and patent lawyers can sit on the tech forcibly preventing anyone else from benefiting from it. We could help green deserts and make new regions of the planet liveable with cheaper desalination? Sorry, that must be killed by patents. Cheaper solar? Kill it. Potential electronics applications? Kill it.
Unless we abolish patents, our children and grandchildren are going to be living in a world that is scarcely more technically advanced than our own is now.
Even patent attorneys are starting to agree that patents are not or are no longer encouraging innovation, are stifling it, and are imposing a great cost burden on us, both financially and in terms of being robbed of our 'jetson's future'.
This is also the reason we've stopped seeing much real innovation or cost reductions in smartphone development: "There Are 250,000 Active Patents That Impact Smartphones; Representing One In Six Active Patents Today"
Study: Patent Trolls Cost Companies $29 Billion Last Year (that's a conservative estimate)
There is no way to "reform" this system. It's non-reformable as it's intrinsically unethical. It should be thrown out entirely.
My other UID is three digits.
And you don't fuck with Chinese lawyers.
Ezekiel 23:20
China doesn't pay any attention to trademark, copyright, or patent law.
Why should anyone pay attention to their trademark, copyright, or patent applications? Or grants? They should just be round-filed until China takes on the concept of intellectual property. Not that I'm so in love with the whole idea myself, but there still nothing which is not hypocritical about the nation of China expecting us to give a shit about their IP.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
We need to distinguish between a discovery and an invention, and prevent patenting the former. You shouldn't be able to patent graphene, as it is a discovery. If you invent a clever way to manufacture it cheaply, than you should be able to patent that method as it is an invention. Also, if you bring a lawsuit against someone for patent infringement and you lose, you should be executed.
This is what happens when you let everything get privatized, including basic research. You end up with no stake in the future.
Why is Snark Required?
Filed with whom? And where? Does this mean 2200 filings within the Chinese patent system? (cambridgeip.com is vulnerable to heartbleed bug and keeps telling me I need Javascript running even if I have it running.)
This posting is provided 'AS IS' without warranty of any kind, implied or otherwise.
I highly doubt that the solution is to abolish patents, though a great deal of patent reform is certainly necessary.
What we should de doing is looking at when patents are and are not useful, and modifying patent law accordingly. A lot of the analysis should be fairly straight forward to do. Patents themselves have to be registered, so we have records. When patent disputes are taken to the courts, we have records. Many, if not most, of the businesses that license patents have to publish financial reports. (Again, there are records.)
Questions can be asked and answered through all of that data. We can look at the optimal duration for patents for different sectors. We can look at what types of patents stimulate innovation, and what types of patents stifle innovation. We can even look at licensing practices in an effort to reduce the burden that patents place upon the courts.
It isn't all or nothing. Patents are neither entirely good, nor entirely bad. We simply need a way to separate the good from the bad so that we can keep the former and discard the latter.
What would be the point? We have no real manufacturing capability, so we'd just end up sending the stolen back IP to China to be made into products.
Are the Chinese patents filed in the U.S.? Are patents filed in China accessable for foriegners to read? Would a patent filed in China be honored in Vietnam? Our children are going to be busy learning stuff it appears; which may save their lives after we are "busy" elsewhere.
Depending on what metrics you chose to use the US is still at or near the top of international rankings. The U.S. still remains the largest producer of advanced technology products, SO I say the US appears to have some manufacturing capability and that capability is growing stronger because the surge of domestic gas and oil is bringing down energy costs. There are foreign companies that are in the process of moving some of their manufacturing to the US because of the reduced energy costs and reduced shipping costs are balancing the higher labor costs. The only advantage China has had in growing their exports is cheap labor. Their economy was certainly not built on quality and innovation. Their success has resulted in it's workers agitating for more money plus they now have completion from the other emerging South East Asia countries who can match their labor costs. China has had to manipulate it's currency to keep it's export costs down and attract business but there are limits to the manipulation.
Patents are implemented within a country, and then honored (or not honored) by other countries by means of treaties, right? So how has China "filed for" 2200 patents?
There is no way to "reform" this system. It's non-reformable as it's intrinsically unethical.
[citation needed]
It should be thrown out entirely.
Possibly true. Certainly true that only products should be patentable, and never business methods or technologies. Reducing the time scale on a patent significantly would also solve the problem. Meetings and bureaucracy aside, things happen much faster now so there is no good reason for a patent term to be so very long.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
The U.S. still remains the largest producer of advanced technology products
Like everything else, these are mostly produced in other countries and then assembled here. Only a small portion of the manufacturing is actually done here, but we take credit for the whole thing. If everyone did that, we could probably double the world's reported production, but it wouldn't actually result in anything more being produced. I like to point to my engine, which is an International-Navistar supposedly MADE IN 'MERICA but whose block was cast in China. And that's over a decade old.
There are foreign companies that are in the process of moving some of their manufacturing to the US because of the reduced energy costs and reduced shipping costs are balancing the higher labor costs.
A little bit of manufacturing, and a whole bunch of assembly. Most of the actual manufacturing is being done in China, then the parts get shipped over and assembled. Subaru might assemble an engine here in the USA, but they don't cast parts here, either. Etc. This practice is restricted to large and heavy items, predominantly automobiles. All the modules (relays, computers etc) are made in other countries, like China or Malaysia. The leather is imported. The metal is imported if it isn't virgin; we send our steel to other countries for recycling so that we can abstract away the pollution.
China has had to manipulate it's currency to keep it's export costs down and attract business but there are limits to the manipulation.
Only the fat cats at the top win a race to the bottom.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I'm hoping the rest of the world ignores the Chinese Patents much like the Chinese ignore those of everybody else.
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
We have no real manufacturing capability
Hogwash. American factories produced goods worth more than two trillion dollars per year. That is about 20% less than China, but still the second highest in the world, nearly as much as Germany and Japan combined. Manufacturing output in America is at an all time high. American manufacturing employment has declined, but improved productivity has more than compensated for that.
Well said.
It's time to abolish patents completely.
It's clear that the patent system has serious problems. Patents on software or algorithms or business methods are absurd. However before we go ahead and abolish patents altogether, what is your proposed alternative solution to the free rider problem? Patents were created as a means to mitigate that specific problem. If you have no alternative to solve the free rider problem that is better than a well executed patent system (our current one is not well executed), then your argument is a non-starter. If you do have a solution to the free rider problem then let us know so we can alert the Nobel committee that they owe you a prize.
And before anyone says it, just abolishing patents and doing nothing else is NOT a better system even as screwed up as our patent system has become. If you need evidence of this, please show me how many inventions that would be patentable in the US or Europe that were invented in places without a patent system. Drugs, vehicles, integrated circuits, etc. You will find that places without something resembling a patent system also have a rather low rate of invention. While this is evidence based on a correlation, the correlation is VERY strong. Without some way to mitigate the free rider problem there is limited incentive to solve certain types of problems.
Unless we abolish patents, our children and grandchildren are going to be living in a world that is scarcely more technically advanced than our own is now.
Oh cut out the hyperbole. Technology is advancing very quickly even in the face of an arguably broken patent system. There is no evidence that our rate of technological advancement is slowing down.
Study: Patent Trolls Cost Companies $29 Billion Last Year
While I'm not arguing that patent trolls aren't a real problem (they are), $29 billion is pocket change compared to what companies made off of patented products last year. Intel alone had $52 billion in revenue last year, virtually all of it from patented products. Patented inventions account for literally Trillions of dollars of economic benefit to society, much of which would not exist without some sort of system resembling patents. For many types of inventions, it is virtually impossible to bring products to market in the face of the free rider problem. The solution to the free rider problem doesn't have to be patents in their current form but there does have to be some sort of solution to that problem. Simply tossing out patents without some alternative way to mitigate the free rider problem will almost certainly do more harm than good.
Pirating their IP would imply that we were actually going to do useful things with graphene, such as large-scale desalination for our coastal cities. But we're not doing to do that. We're going to sit around trading legal punches with the Luddite lobby until the tech becomes available off the shelf and cheap from China. Then we can whine about the 'Chinks stealing our jobs'.
Certainly true that only products should be patentable, and never business methods or technologies.
You have to be a little careful there because some products are essentially processes made tangible such as machines to build other products. I think it would be better to say that only novel tangible goods that have actually been produced should be eligible for a patents. If you cannot make one even in crude prototype form, it is science fiction and should not be patent eligible. The good seeking patent protection should be made available to the patent examiner in order to receive a patent. No math, algorithm, software, firmware, chemicals found in nature, intangible idea or process or conceptual tangible goods that have not actually been made should be eligible for patent protection. Creative intangible and written works including software, firmware, music, literature, art and video can be adequately covered by copyright.
....if it comes to patents that they want to use but don't hold, the Chinese will likewise lead in the number of graphene patents IGNORED.
IP = not a big deal for China....unless they hold it.
It's so much easier to compete when the rules apply only to everyone else.
-Styopa
The U.S. does make quite a bit of industrial machinery domestically, mostly higher-end stuff. I believe it's 2nd to Germany in that market.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Tragedy of the commons doesn't apply to the intangible.
I wasn't talking about the tragedy of the commons. I was talking about the free rider problem which is not the same thing. Furthermore patents shouldn't apply to the intangible either so exactly what is your point?
If the patent system is a net harm, then doing nothing is a superior alternative.
Your logic is faulty and I don't accept your attempt to frame the question either. I disagree that the patent system is a net harm and you certainly haven't established that as a fact. There is a HUGE difference between showing that the patent system causes some harm (which it demonstrably does) and showing that it is a net harm. You have not shown in any way that it is a net harm.
But let's assume for a moment that the patent system as it stands is a net harm as you claim. If the patent system as it stands is a net harm, it does not follow that doing away with it in favor of no system at all is automatically less harmful. It's entirely possible that by doing away with the patent system and replacing it with nothing that you will do an even greater harm. Your logic only works if those are the only two alternatives and if you can somehow prove that any possible patent system would be inherently more damaging than no system at all. In reality there are many potential alternative systems to mitigate free riders. In addition to leaving the system as is, or abolishing it altogether, the patent system can be reformed in various ways or replaced with a different system that accomplishes the goal of mitigating the free rider problem.
Basically if you can find and prove that no system at all is a better way to mitigate the free rider problem then please publish your work, have it peer reviewed and collect your Nobel prize.
There were also people who sought to partially end slavery. No, slavery was evil, and you either ended it, or not. There is no such concept as "slavery isn't entirely bad". Likewise with patents. From a patent attorney: "Intellectual Property Is “Evil” - And Businesspeople Should Oppose It"
My other UID is three digits.
Where do you stand on rounded corners?
I think they are lovely. However they aren't particularly novel and rounded corners do have a functional aspect to them so they should in principle be ineligible for patent protection. I'd need a lot of convincing to think they are worthy of trade dress protection. At most I think they *might* qualify as a trademark but even there I'm a bit dubious.
The U.S. does make quite a bit of industrial machinery domestically, mostly higher-end stuff. I believe it's 2nd to Germany in that market.
Yes, we are still very good at making shit that kills people, and shit that rapes the earth. Not so good at anything else, except in the design phase, using our imported foreign scientists (a proud tradition since WWII or so.) Construction equipment tends to be made out of virgin steel, we still make that here. It's less brittle and more predictable than recycled, important in stuff you don't want to break.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Specifically, learn about America's adherence to IP after WW2. Protip. They didn't recognize it at all! In fact, WW2 machinery production coupled with the Americas unwillingness to recognize the IP of other countries is what allowed America to become a super power.
On the other hand, with a history like that, one would think America could see that all the blanket IP crap is good for no one.
Patents, in their current state are certainly vastly more harmful to both consumers and industry then they are helpful. As such, having no patents would be more beneficial.
Patents were NEVER intended to be used the way they are now. The intention was simply give the inventor a short time period in which to bring his product to the market before everyone could copy it.
I would think a blanket restriction of two years is enough. Not from time to market, but from time of filing. This will prevent patents for ideas. Only a product should be able to hold a patent. Not a process or an idea.
Not a slide to unlock to a bounce scroll. These things are destroying the global economy and destroying innovation.
Is the number of patents really meaningful ?
For example, a patent on the ballpoint pen is much more powerful than 1000 patents on various ways of making ink cartridges for fountain pens.
The paper I cited explains how complaining about free riders doesn't make sense in regards to innovation.
The paper you cited is a long winded opinion piece. It contains no discernible actual research regarding the effects of the free rider problem on innovation.
Patents themselves convey control over something intangible.
What patents themselves are is irrelevant. The only questions are whether it mitigates the problem (free riders) that it was intended to mitigate and does minimal economic harm in the process.
I would recommend reading Against Intellectual Property.
No thanks. I briefly looked and I have zero interest in opinion pieces from someone pushing an ideological (libertarian) agenda. I think you are suffering from confirmation bias.
No system is by definition zero harm. That's where we draw the baseline.
No, you draw a baseline on the system you actually have and compare changes to that. Here in the real world we have a patent system and so that is the baseline for any analysis. If you want to assert that every possible system to combat the free rider problem is more harmful than no system at all, then you need to provide actual objective evidence for that hypothesis. Heck you might even be right. But you haven't done that and until you do this debate is finished as far as I'm concerned.
Bad example. Graphene isn't actually patented!
The word "patent" itself means expose and make accessible. The patent system was created to spread information while keeping the inventor protected. Otherwise, the inventor would not share his method with anyone else.
Patents are (supposed to be) for tangible expressions of ideas. Once the idea is expressed, most of them are easy to copy. Without some protection against others copying the original work, there is no economic incentive to work on certain problems because it gives an insurmountable price advantage to the copier. This IS the free rider problem. Even better patents (ideally) harnesses free riders to productive work by making the results of the invention public so others can build on the works in the future. It accelerates getting the information into the public by the same method it mitigates the free rider problem in permitting the inventor to benefit from their efforts. It's a fairly ingenious solution actually. But make no mistake that the entire purpose of patents is to advance society though mitigation of the free rider problem.
The classic example is making a medicine. Doing a chemical analysis and manufacturing a pill is a trivial exercise and costs very little. The research to determine whether a drug is effective however is complicated and very expensive. That cost has to be recouped and if someone else can easily copy their work that someone else has an insurmountable price advantage. $Reseach + $Production >> $Copying + $Production. Always. Why would any sane person invest large sums in research if their work can be trivially copied and their prices undercut as a result?
The free rider problem is a modern problem.
It most assuredly is not. The free rider problem has existed almost since the dawn of life on earth. I can show you examples in the animal and plant kingdoms. Parasites are a form of free rider. Some of the permutations of the problem are new but the problem itself is not new at all. The "solutions" such as patents are (relatively) modern innovations but the problem is nothing new at all.
Holy fuck... we need citations for opinions now?!
Actually, I just wanted a citation for the first part. Seldom does it make sense to throw everything away and start over. There's upheaval and you usually don't end up that much better off. Citation: Look around.
For the second part, I demand more of an explanation. What is wrong with the system that shorter patent terms wouldn't cure? Say three or even two years for software, maybe five years for ideas, seven years for products? Or whatever numbers would actually solve the problem, but I just made these up as a starting point. Perhaps it is also necessary to raise the bar such that less patents are granted — indeed, I believe that to be the case. But I still haven't seen any invalidation of the concept of patents, only of the application.
Patents make sense in a lot of ways, and most of the ways in which they do not are related to the length of their terms. If the idea is to enable profit to encourage investment (of whatever sort) in research, then the length of the patent should be related to the potential time to profit. It's not reasonable to determine that for each individual patent, so a standard must be applied. I contend that it's the specifics of the standard which make the system unfair.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Patent application:
<insert well-known invention here> made of graphene!
Yea I can see exporting bull dozers, cranes, and dump trucks is an ecological disaster just waiting to happen. And rest easy the US never sells the really top of the line weapon systems capable of killing people individually or wholesale when required. And without the US providing the "design phase" none of the other countries would have much to build now would they?
TFA does not says in what country the patent were filed. Are they US patent? Chineese patents? Sum of patent filed in every countries?