Tech Giants Bankrolling IP Hoarding Start-Up

theodp writes "Microsoft alum Nathan Myhrvold so strongly believes intellectual property is the next software that he's studying for the patent bar exam. His company, Intellectual Ventures, doesn't actually make anything - only patent attorneys roam the hallways. Myhrvold isn't the only true believer. Microsoft, Intel, Sony, Nokia, Apple, Google, and eBay have contributed to a $350M bankroll which the firm is using to buy up existing patents that can be rented to companies who want to produce real products."

A company built on patents only?

[by Anonymous Coward]

I've though about doing this, but I'm sure I'm not the only one who came up with the idea. Dammit, should've patented it when I had the chance.

Re:A company built on patents only?

[LeBlanc_Joey (756213)]

Don't worry, you still can, that is how gangs work.

This company is no more than a gang, you pay the fee, they protect you from the other IP whores. And not only is this legal, the taxpayers actually pay for it, when this bullshit floods the courts. I think some vigilante justice is in order.

Re:A company built on patents only?

[Directrix1 (157787)]

Thats terrorist talk there bud. On that note, fuck America (or more specifically its government). It has ceased to care about any person without a million dollar pocket book. The laws of America now exist to enslave its poor and empower its rich.

Although, the sad part is that the comman man is just as responsible as anybody else for this outcome. We have empowered them through our complacency and utter lack of regard for anything other than what is on our damn televisions every night. We have been enslaved to technology, and as a result those that produce that technology own us all. Especially, now that what we see on television (our defacto standard for the propogation of our culture) tells us that men have to be ignorant fools who are only interested in football, sex, gadgets, and being retarded with their friends to fit in. And women just have to buy everything including a perfect body to do the same. We are trained to be submissive idiots, questioning those who are otherwise.

Oh well, at least we still have our sweet... sweet capitalism. At least we have a choice of where we buy things. You know ma & pa shop down the street or Wal-Mart up the street for 70% less (which coincidentally enough is all you can afford now that you work there). Good thing McCarthy came along and kept us from falling into the hell hole of desperation that is communism.

And at least we still have our voice in our government. You know our solitary occasional whispering voices, compared to industries full time lobbyists. I am perfectly satisfied with all of my governmental representatives are you ;-). So when's the next civil war?

Re:A company built on patents only?

[Jennifer E. Elaan (463827)]

"We have been enslaved to technology, and as a result those that produce that technology own us all." That's doublethink. You're confusing those that produce the technology with those who own the people who produce the technology. Or else the engineers of the world would be rich. While we often make quite decent livings, we're certainly not wealthy.

Re:A company built on patents only?

[LaCosaNostradamus (630659)]

So when's the next civil war?

That depends upon your definition of "war". Tax evasion is now at epidemic levels, and that only makes sense, since the Neo-Libs and Neo-Cons both want to make government power more focused: much more narrow and intense. As long as you avoid the withering glare of the All-Seeing Eye of the modern Sauron (i.e. the Federal Government), you can pretty much get away with anything you like. You little Hobbitses -- Sssss! -- can scrabble around in Eriador, raising tomatoes and chickens ... just look out for Orcs^W National Guard on the march, and Nazgul^W Al Qaeda in the air.

In short, an environment it being created in which is will be difficult to obtain a welfare check of any sort, but it will be easy to evade all kinds of taxation. This is well within the Neo-Con vision of future government. Any fool can see it. And there's your civil war ... fought very civilly.

Re:A company built on patents only?

[serutan (259622)]

The patent system has created a magical bridge between the world of actual achievement and the made-up world of Intellectual "Property." It's sort of like letting people go into Ultima Online and become rich and powerful, and then somehow transfer their titles and authority into the real world. The patent system clearly wasn't meant to be a platform for clever attorneys to systematically lay claim to future innovation. These people are simply taking advantage of defects in the system, making it work for them in ways it was never meant to, at the expense of everybody else. That used to be a pretty good definition of the term "con artist."

The mere fact that companies can openly perpetrate this sort of flim-flam says something about how far into la-la-land our legal system and our culture have gone. There was a time when such behavior happened behind closed doors and involved discreet payoffs to officials. Now IP pirates proudly wave their sabers and flash their gold teeth. There was a time when the media and the public would have been outraged by such brazen manipulation of the system. Now the primary response is more along the lines of, "I wish I'd thought of that."

I don't really think this sort of thing will stifle innovation -- people with great ideas will still want to see them become reality. What it will do is ensure that more of the beans end up in fewer people's piles, which is the way the economy has been going anyway for some time. In the future, if you have a clever idea you will have to look around for the right Baron to pay your tithe to, so you don't get caught poaching in the royal forest.

Re:A company built on patents only?

[Audacious (611811)]

All that's really needed is a law which ensures that the moment a company makes more than a billion dollars a year - it must break up into two companies. The newly formed company must be given everything the original company has and the newly formed company must relocate to a separate state. Should the company already have been broken apart (as in those companys who make hundreds of billions of dollars a year) then the newly created company can not reside in the same state as any of the other broken up bits of the company. Nor may these companies unite in any way, shape, or form but must work in isolation from each other.

Were this done, we would not have the problems we are having now.

Think it won't work? Look at history. So long as companies are kept in check the people flurish. When one or more companies become overly powerful - the people suffer. Just like when governments become overly powerful. Both tend to intrude into the private person's life and both tend to try to dominate, like a dog, everything a person tries to do.

On the funny side: I wonder how many times you can patent a flashlight as a cat toy? And how many times will a company buy that patent?

Re:A company built on patents only?

[JonnyCalcutta (524825)]

I think a better and much simpler way of limiting companies is to simply not allow companies to own other companies or to exist outside their original remit. A company should have a specific and narrowly defined purpose (which was the original intention of the Articles of Incorporation until lawyers came up with the idea of being very generic in those articles). Going outside those defined goals or making them too generic should be illegal, resulting in the automatic (with an appeal obviously) un-incorporation of the company. If a company wants to change direction is should be wound up, money returned and investors can choose to start another company for their new purpose if they so wish. And as I said at the start, companies should have no rights to own shares in other companies - share ownership should be limited to actual human beings. This will result in a world of small businesses, which is the required model for a free market as envisioned by Adam Smith and the other thinkers that those big business economist hold so dear whilst running their monopolies and cartels.

Re:A company built on patents only?

[killjoe (766577)]

It's even worse. It punishes the doers. The people who get the patent often don't produce anything. They wait for other people to get off their ass and do the hard work of creating and marketing products and then sue them.

We have set up a system that punishes the risk takers and achievers and rewards the lawyers, the greedy, the immoral, and the bastards.

Nice.

Re:I am not a "true believer"

[Jennifer E. Elaan (463827)]

I don't think there is any way they can fail with this. They'll just buy so many patents that they can sue anyone except another patent house (who they will NEVER sue directly) into oblivion using a shotgun method. Citing several infringements in a single case also ensures that even if one patent is invalidated, they still recover the investment in litigation. Besides, when the company is composed almost entirely of lawyers, legal costs aren't nearly as high as they would be if the lawyers had to be hired seperately.

Exports.

[by Anonymous Coward]

Intellectual property is the biggest export of the US. People say we import everything and export nothing, but that's not true. It makes sense there would be an industry built around the largest export.

Re:Exports.

[gid13 (620803)]

Hmm... "Intellectual property is the biggest export of the US."... "we import everything and export nothing"... They sound pretty much the same to me. :P

Re:Exports.

[mrchaotica (681592)]

The only trouble is that unlike with physical goods the rest of the world could decide to stop paying us for our IP at any time, and we wouldn't be able to do a damn thing about it.

Re:Exports.

[rodgerd (402)]

And yet less than 50 years ago the US was the biggest IP thief in the world.

A more retched hive of scum and villany...

[Froze (398171)]

How much more broken does our system have to get before it becomes completely disfunctional.

The way I see it, These guys will basically crank random noise into the patent system until virtually every idea that trys to come into production will have a lien of some kind on it. Thereby blocking any kind of developement by the small guy, only the mega corps will be able to produce new ideas and they will keep the pace as slow as possible to maximize there profit returns on current technology. In short THIS Bites.

Re:A more retched hive of scum and villany...

[null etc. (524767)]

Marx posited that capitalism would eventually collapse in upon itself. Interestingly enough, he thought that private property would be the mechanism that inhibited, rather than secured, freedom. I think he's right, except that intellectual property will be that mechanism.

Re:A more retched hive of scum and villany...

[skrysakj (32108)]

Sort of....
Private property != intellectual property.
One is private, and is meant to stay that way. It does
not affect public.
The other is coveted, and meant to be used. It affects the
rest of the society.

When you patent an idea, you are not doing the same thing
as planting a flag in the ground and building a house for yourself. You are taking a piece of "society" and claiming it for yourself.

Re:A more retched hive of scum and villany...

[a whoabot (706122)]

You're so right. Marx didn't have any influence on the world. His works are totally forgotten by any serious scholar of philosophy and economics and theory in general. His ideas weren't used by people through the 20th century to overthrow old governments and create the basis for some of the most powerful countries the world has ever seen. The USSR never existed, and they definitely weren't the first ones into space. Mao didn't exist, and neither does modern day China. You're so right. Modern syndicalists and unionists owe nothing to Marx. Barthes owes nothing to Marx. Althusser didn't exist. Situationists didn't exist. Le Corbusier designed nothing. The International Movement didn't happen. What was Bauhaus? You're so right.

On that thought. Aristotle was wrong too! The four elements? Preposterous. Let's forget Aristotle ever existed. Same with Descartes. The world is deterministic? Ha! Newton? Corpuscles? Not likely! Let's forget all these historical figures and their entire work because in the end they were incorrect. They must have nothing to teach us.

Re:A more retched hive of scum and villany...

[the gnat (153162)]

however, his cautions on unfettered capitalism still have considerable merit. however, vigilence and a little regulation here and there to hold the corporations from getting too much power are usually enough

It's worth pointing out that even Friedrich Hayek, whose famous "The Road to Serfdom" is (rather unfortunately) much beloved by conservatives, fully endorsed regulation as necessary to ensure a level playing field and protect consumers. Hell, I think Adam Smith said something similar. Point being, there's nothing necessarily contradictory about combining free markets with regulation, and Marx wasn't really saying anything original or particularly insightful. You can be strongly pro-capitalism and also favor strong regulation; this was pretty much Clinton's position.

The problem is that most modern capitalism advocates tend to be strongly anti-regulation, for reasons ranging from absurdly idealistic to transparently selfish, and hence most people equate support for free-market capitalism with naked greed and opportunism. (Plus, of course, the dominant party in the USA is really just another group of mercantilists, pro-business instead of pro-capitalism.)

Re:A more retched hive of scum and villany...

[mrchaotica (681592)]

3) the small companies go broke trying to pay their lawyers, the big companies buy them up, and then our entire technology industry will be held hostage by a few companies

I say, let's hope for scenario #1!

"Don't be evil"

[Carlbunn (817714)]

What about the "don't be evil" google motto? more like Don't be evil, unless it gives you a s***load of money

Prisoners' Dilemma

[Tony (765)]

What about the "don't be evil" google motto?

As a short definition of "evil," I submit that "evil" is the "willingness to fuck over other people for your own profit." That provides a quick-and-dirty litmus test for evilness.

The current marketplace encourages evil. Google is a prime example-- they make a big deal about how they don't want to do evil, but then they invest in a company which is designed from the git-go to perform evil.

The reason is simple: if they don't, they will be in a world of pain when everyone else starts using trivial patents as weapons of restraint. (99.999% of all patents are trivial, IMNSHO).

So, either they do evil now and protect themselves, adding to the decay of honest business; or, they take the moral high road, and risk death by a thousand lawsuits.

In an area where thugs rule the streets, only thugs may walk the streets free of worry. Our current system is ruled by thugs. Google is just arming themselves like the rest of the miscreants; but by doing so, they are joining them.

This makes sense...

[datastalker (775227)]

...if we truly are in "The Information Age". These sentences in the article sum it up:

"Patent owners get money upfront for the dusty ideas sitting on their shelves, the investors get the rights to use the ideas without being sued and Myhrvold gets to rent those same ideas to other companies that need them to continue creating products. Intellectual-property experts say his plan is audacious and unprecedented, customized for a new, rapidly dawning business environment."

It certainly seems like a Win-Win... of course, until the first lawsuits start flying. But we'll just have to see how this shakes out. In the meantime, it makes sense to parlay information as a product in "The Information Age", and that's what's being done here.

Re:This makes sense...

[colmore (56499)]

It certainly seems win-win if you're a corporation large enough to afford his fees as a middleman.

Suppose you're a big-name software company and you find out something you're doing infringes a 15-year dormant patent that he's bought rights to. You can afford to pay his $500,000 (or whatever - but it won't be small) license fee. If you're a small time engineer trying to get an idea going out of your garage, you can't.

This is a more streamlined engine still going down the wrong track.

Hey I like that metaphor.

Patents should be "use it or lose it"

[Anonymous Brave Guy (457657)]

The sad thing is, this has always been the biggest danger with patents, but the people who could make a difference were too busy worrying about the big-guy-licensing-out-little-guy problem (or making their own money, depending) to notice.

Patents should work like trademarks: if you aren't actually using the invention and don't have any plans to do so within a reasonable timeframe, you automatically lose the patent rights and anyone can use the knowledge your patent documentation provides. (It would be better if you had to demonstrate a use or intended use before a patent application was approved, but that's obviously unrealistic right now.)

there goes Google's claim to the moral high ground

[Daniel Ellard (799842)]

I would expect this sort of thing from Microsoft, Sony, maybe Apple (or Sun, my kind employer). But isn't Google supposed to be above this sort of crap?

Same old story, sorry.

[mr i want to go home (610257)]

It's worth remembering that Apple has been through this before with Microsoft. If I remember correctly, when Microsoft ripped off Apple's UI elements (that weren't specifically licensed to them) in Win95, Apple fought them with the idea that their interface was protected under copyright (trashcan -> recycle bin, etc etc).

Apple lost (this was the one lawsuit many of us were hoping would sink Microsoft once and for all) because their UI elements were not 'patented'. They learnt well from this lesson and have since been patenting every widget under the sun.

I fully expect Google know their history well, and also know that Microsoft is sniffing around their territory. They would be fools to think that Microsoft would treat them any differently to Apple, and are probably thinking how to protect themselves as best they can.

Goodbye, competition. Hello, Lawyers.

[RancidPickle (160946)]

This is an unfortunate turn of events, and I believe one of the biggest threats to the open source movement. Some of the patents are so oddball or general that anyone can use them to hammer away at some underfunded Sourceforge group to keep them from developing anything that can be used as a competitive product.

The small software houses can't afford to hire patent specialists, and the big behemoths will steal the ideas out from under the little guys. I wonder how well the patents will hold up in other software-rich countries, like India, Russia, Croatia and Serbia.

the new bubble?!?!?!?!?!?

[ghettoboy22 (723339)]

QUICK KIDS!!! Go change your CS major to a law degree!!!!! It's the wave of the future!!!!

I sure as hell hope litigation and royalty fees aren't going to be the "new" new economy.

As a side note, with how many "patents" Amazon has, I'm pretty surprised they aren't on board with this.

sigh...

Back to basics

[by Anonymous Coward]

The purpose of intellectual property law is promote innovation and investment in our societies. This 'rent-seeking' approach by major companies shows we need some serious reform in this area of law. We need to get back to basics -

Copyright is to reward authors NOT publishers and distributors.

Trademarks are to help consumers identify choice b/w products NOT assist virtual monopolies stifle competition.

Patents are to promote innovation and reward inventors NOT allow lazy rich companies to 'rent-seek' from others.

People need to remember that IP law ultimately exists to help the public. If it is not doing that it is seriously flawed.

Title should read...

[gamer4Life (803857)]

"Tech Giants Bankrolling IP Whoring Start-Up"

The IP Armageddon Commences at Last

[Catbeller (118204)]

Damn.

It's like a dream. I remember posting this more or less same comment in a PC Magazine online forum back in '98 or '99.

This is the endgame, folks. This is what Gates has had planned for years -- the real endgame. Not some iffy market monopoly over PC operatings systems and office software.

This is the whole enchilada. They want to own EVERYTHING worth owning. This is why the "Intellectual Property" meme has been pumped so hard these past few years. the real reason why the RIAA, MPAA, the SPA, and all the overseas equivalents are suing anything that moves. It's the natural outcome of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act.

The biggest boys are pooling their resources to start the ultimate monopoly. They want to put a meter on every conceivable human idea they can beg, buy, borrow or steal. I'm not overstating how enormous their ambition is. Don't look at the distracting smiling face; keep your eyes on the magicians' hands.

I DO understand that they are talking about patents. But it's really irrelevant. They are going to force revenue to precipitate out of the ether into their hands that dwarfs anything Gates ever dreamed of. And that kind of wealth, driven by monoploy players, will be used to buy up more than merely patents.

It's why MS has been pumping the RIAA and MPAA to adopt MS proprietary codecs. It's why the X-Box REALLY exists. It's about owning the culture, or more precisely, the circulatory system of the culture. They want to own processes, patents, and eventually, every piece of ownable video, audio, and images of art. They will own the newspapers, or at least the means of disseminating the newspapers. All cable networks. They want the internet(s) under their control, if only to control the information flow so it can't affect their power.

The biggest boys are lining up for a piece of something even they can't visualize. The ultimate shape of this monster will be worldwide. It's power will be greater than any government or combination of governments.

They won't permit any real change in patent or copyright laws. They might let us have token victories on things that don't matter much, but the final shape will be dictated by them.

Here's the final outcome:

A loose confederation of very wealthy men will run a structure composed of corporations that will really, truly own every copyrighted work of man. They will own our history. They will meter it out to their advantage. Witness (NBC?) refusing to permit use of a copyrighted video of Bush making an idiot of himself on TV before the election, just because they could, no reason necessary.

And these corporations will hold copyrights and perhaps even patents, in some form, for ever-extended periods of time. Effectively for eternity. Corporations can't die. They can't go to jail. You can't arrest them. They are fictions designed to hide real men from real responsibilty for their actions.

We're going to have immortal fictions own our world. Americans say, "So what? I'll buy stock."

That's why privately owned corporations are all the rage right now. Why some of the biggest are invite-only for those they deem worthy. ICANN was bought by one of these monstrosities. Some corporations are buying back their own stock with an eye to, well, not share the wealth.

I'm only pointing out the obvious.

I'm not anti-business. I'm anti-corporation. There is a difference. I want expiration dates on IP. I want the corporate shield for individual malfeasance to be gone. I want this incestuous network of greedy buggers to hew to some kind of law that they didn't write themselves. We fought long and hard to break up the 19th century trusts that were smothering the life out of representative government; I DON'T want them back, only immortal, anational, and unkillable.

Agreed: all hell is about to break loose

[argoff (142580)]

You know, during the 1800's there were those who believed that the entire purpose of the industrial revolution was to leverage inventions like the cottin gin to expand their plantations for unlimited groth and profit. However, what the industrial revolution really demanded was a mobile and educated workforce - the anti thesis of the plantation system. At first they made laws so harsh you couldn't even teach a black person to read and extended slavery to forever, then they tried to regulate all the industries in the north and force them to respect slave ownership rules in the south, and when that failed they tried to break themselves off from the union and fence themselves off from the rest of the world causing all hell to break loose.

Well today, there are those who believe that the entire purpose and meaning of the information age is leverage their IP holdings to the four courners of the earth for unlimited growth and profit. But what the information age really demands is the uninhibited and unrestricted flow of information. At first they passed harsher laws until a person who coppies a CD can get worse penalities than a violent murderer, then they extended the terms of copyrights to effectively forever, then they tried to fence themselves off from the rest of the world using Digital Rights Managment technology. Well all hell is about to break loose.

Simple Fix

[AstroDrabb (534369)]

There is a _very_ simple fix to this issue. To aquire a patent, you must have working prototype. While I don't agree with software patents, this can still be applied. It would prevent people from just thinking of crap and getting a patent. There is not cost or R&D in thinking of something. The real purpose of a patent it to protect the investment of all the R&D by people. To just look at the market and try to guess things that may come up in the next 5-10 years is not innovative or deserving of a patent. If a patent would just require the submission of a complete working prototype, most of the problems of the patent system could go away (not all, but the biggest ones).

Re:Slippery slopes

[Anita Coney (648748)]

It's all about the status quo. Back in the old days of personal computing companies competed on quality and price (and not necessarily at the same time). But now that we have huge companies such as Microsoft, they want to defend their positions by making it nearly impossible for any new company to gain any ground.

This isn't really new. When was the last time you saw a new automobile manufacturer in the US? It's not because it's hard to make cars. There are tons of places to outsource production. The thing which makes it nearly impossible is selling them. In the US it's illegal in almost most states to sell automobiles without going through dealerships. In other words, it's illegal to sell new cars and trucks directly to consumers.

Because any new automobile manufacturer would be locked out of the current dealerships, he'd either be out of luck or would have to build thousands of dealership across the country. A daunting task for sure.

Now the same type of behavior is taking place in computers. It shouldn't be surprising at all. The downsides of course will be no real innovation and rising prices. But you probably knew that already.

Re:Slippery slopes

[bigberk (547360)]

We seem to have "progressed" from companies that competed on product (ie free market choice), to those that competed on lock-in (eg. MS anti-trust stuff) to those that compete by making IP roadblocks.

What I find interesting is how far we have come from a real free market. Ask any student of economics... what we have now in America and Europe is not a free market, rather there is government intervention propping up the strong and upsetting the "natural" balance that we would find with free market forces.

Do you consider yourself a capitalist? Do you respect your politicians and trust them to uphold the economic system that made us great? Bad news. Your politicians are failing you, they are using government control to hurt innovation, progress, and competition. Your elected politicians do not believe in the free market, they don't believe in capitalism, and they certainly don't value innovation.

Take as another example the music/video industries . They are being kept alive by the government, not by the market. In a free market economy, we would let them collapse without shedding a tear.

Re:Slippery slopes

[fuzza (137953)]

As quoted in Lessig's OSCON speech (kudos to whoever made that Flash presentation), Bill Gates has been thinking along these lines for a while:

The solution... is patenting as much as we can... A future startup with no patents of its own will be forced to pay whatever price the giants choose to impose. That price might be high - established companies have an interest in excluding future competitors.

Re:Patent for using air to breathe

[Canordis (826884)]

We can't do it because someone already patented the Clue Hammer(TM), the Clue-by-Four(TM) and the Clue ICBM(TM)

Re:Hey, good job fellas!

[Zocalo (252965)]

You know, I've been thinking about this kind of thing too. Just as we currently have Tax Havens, how much longer before we have the "Patent Haven"? It works like this: a small country rejects the Berne convention etc. so that all patents, copyrights and trademarks become null and void within its borders. For a smallish fee (gathered through taxes perhaps) a business can set up shop on the island, produce pretty much any product it wants and sell directly over the Internet to the global market.

There are a few problems of course. Certain companies in the US and EU will kick up a stink and political/economic pressure will no doubt be bought and applied. So it will need to be a fairly wealthy and largely self sufficient country, or have some other bargaining chip. Laws might get passed banning "gray imports", but that's not a problem for the seller if they have a disclaimer stating that it is up to the buyer to check import regulations before ordering and they do not accept liability for goods seized by customs. It's even easier if the product is a software program of course, there are already plenty of websites offering software for download upon recipit of credit card details, both legit and otherwise.

This whole "patent company" idea looks more like a great way for a country to hand over more control to lawyers and its industry overseas to me. And how will the overpaid lawyers get their nice shiny cars, watches and other luxury goods when their own laws prevent them from importing them?

Re:Hey, good job fellas!

[rodgerd (402)]

Taiwain is already an IP haven to a certain extent - because China has been so sccessful at bribing/threatening other nations on Taiwan's status, they haven't signed up to some of the more insane aspects of international treaties such as WIPO. Because the US is a big supporter, they don't suffer much for it.

Re:Seventeen years is a blink of an eye...

[Salsaman (141471)]

Not at all. You can sue someone for patent infringement even if they developed the infringing code independantly. To label a patent infringer "scum" or a "sponger" when they could be perfectly innocent is going way too far.

Seventeen years is an incredibly long time in the world of IT. That means that patents from as far back as 1988 (when people were just getting excited about the new 386) are still valid now in the US.

you don't understand

[geg81 (816215)]

Having somebody floating around whose only real motivation is ferreting out such scum and getting them to pay for the hard work that they're trying to sponge off of is a good thing.

Have you ever written any substantial piece of code? Chances are that you are infringing dozens of patents. Are you "scum" or a "sponger" because of it? I don't think so, since I doubt you even know of the existence of the patents you are infringing.

Many ideas that are being patented are so obvious that many people have them independently. The one who happens to be first to the patent office wins.

The real scum are the people who patent things that they know full well (or should know) are part of the public domain: ideas that others have talked about, ideas that have been discussed, ideas that are in textbooks. They steal from the public ideas and property to the tune of billions of dollars.

tulips

[poptones (653660)]

Actually, I think nonsense like this hearkens back to a story about tulip bulbs and unsustainable markets.

The end is coming for the corporate kings, and it's nonsense like this that will expedite their demise.

Go, Bill, Go...

Re:I'd like to thank the USPTO

[java.bean (66111)]

I'm sick of people claiming this is capitalism, it's mercantilism, there is a difference. Don't assume that anything done by our current government necessarily makes it capitalist.

Re:I'd like to thank the USPTO

[lightknight (213164)]

I'll see your Wikipedia, and raise you a Merriam-Webster:

One entry found for mercantilism.

Main Entry: mercantilism
Pronunciation: -"tE-"li-z&m, -"tI-, -t&-
Function: noun
1 : the theory or practice of mercantile pursuits : COMMERCIALISM
2 : an economic system developing during the decay of feudalism to unify and increase the power and especially the monetary wealth of a nation by a strict governmental regulation of the entire national economy usually through policies designed to secure an accumulation of bullion, a favorable balance of trade, the development of agriculture and manufactures, and the establishment of foreign trading monopolies
- mercantilist /-list/ noun or adjective
- mercantilistic /"m&r-k&n-"tE-'lis-tik, -"tI-, -t&-/ adjective

Re:I'd like to thank the USPTO

[Waffle Iron (339739)]

Patent law is subjective by its very nature. If the USPTO had a vested interest in not granting patents, it could probably reduce the number of granted patents by a factor of 10 just by interpreting the letter of the law as conservatively as possible, never giving the applicant the benefit of the doubt, doing exhaustive prior art searches, and generally making it a royal pain in the ass to get any patent.

However, the USPTO has a vested interest in encouraging as many patents as possible, since more patent applications == more income, and a bigger patent office is a bigger kingdom for the people in charge. Plus, it's just plain easier to rubber-stamp the stuff coming in without checking it thoroughly. That's why we see the exact opposite of the approach I described above.

Basically, if a law is really bad, the local police often don't bother enforcing it. They've got better things to do. The USPTO doesn't have anything better to do, and it enforces the bad laws that it oversees with great enthusiasm.

Re:I'd like to thank the USPTO

[TheHonestTruth (759975)]

Except what the whole point of this article actually has nothing to do with getting a patent to begin with. It is that companies with gobs of money are paying inventors/small companies to assign their rights to the big company.

Inventor gets paid for selling his patent for X to Microsoft. Now whether X is a patent for an artificial brain or a triple-click on a mouse has nothing to do with the fact that MS now has one more patent in their arsenal. What is another choice? Ban people from assigning their patents? How then will the people that file them make money and what is their incentive to file the patent, thus disclosing it to the world? There isn't one and they'd be better off using it as a trade secret. Or, as the argument goes, if companies did not have clauses in their employment contracts stating that everything done on company time was property of the company (i.e., an agreement to assign all IP rights), then the inventors would walk out the door with millions of dollars in R&D to go to the competitor. Please propose a better solution given the real focus of the article.

-truth

Re:I'd like to thank the USPTO

[back_pages (600753)]

If the USPTO had a vested interest in not granting patents,

The USPTO is primarily paid to examine patents, not issue them or except maintenance fees. The USPTO receives roughly 350,000 applications per year (7000 per week) and issues about 1000-1500 per week.

it could probably reduce the number of granted patents by a factor of 10 just by interpreting the letter of the law

Interpreting law is what judges do. Most people seem to like it that way. I suppose police you suggest that police officers interpret the law as well? It's never been their job before, but I bet they could realize lots of "results".

never giving the applicant the benefit of the doubt

And this is how patents have been examined for over one hundred years. Good idea, unfortunately it's not new.

doing exhaustive prior art searches

Can you define prior art? I am talking about the legal definition. Have you ever debated prior art with an attorney? Have you ever signed your name and submitted papers to a federal court where your entire argument depends on a date you found on a website? Do think that's a fun or easy thing to do?

and generally making it a royal pain in the ass to get any patent.

The USPTO receives more than 7000 applications per week and issues about 1250 per week. It has also expanded to address the growing backlog and break even (the backlog is no longer increasing in almost every department.) I'm curious where you establish "royal pain in the ass", since more than 80% of patent applications are abandoned in the current system.

However, the USPTO has a vested interest in encouraging as many patents as possible, since more patent applications == more income, and a bigger patent office is a bigger kingdom for the people in charge. Plus, it's just plain easier to rubber-stamp the stuff coming in without checking it thoroughly. That's why we see the exact opposite of the approach I described above.

I guess you're just being funny now. If there were the slightest shred of truth to your hyperbole, then why does the USPTO issue about 1250 patents per week but we read about maybe 1 or 5 per month at most? Why do people always fall back on the "swinging sideways on a swing" or the "one click purchase" patents? If reality and facts were on your side, then wouldn't we be reading about hundreds or thousands of "rubber stamped" patents per month? Per year?

Of course, it's not really your fault. You probably aren't aware that when a patent ends up on the front page, the examiner's entire career is in jeopardy. You probably aren't aware that the examining process takes 12-48 months and involves 10-200 pages of correspondence between the attorneys and the examiners. You probably aren't aware that having a high issue percentage is taboo among examiners and definitely not something to talk about. Finally, you probably aren't aware that 35 U.S.C. 102 states "a person shall be entitled to a patent unless..." which means that ultimately, the attorney can push the application to a board of appeals, in which case the decision to issue is largely out of the examiner's hands yet the examiner's name is still on the issued patent.

Basically, if a law is really bad, the local police often don't bother enforcing it. They've got better things to do.

What, like prohibition? I guess you never heard of the war on drugs? I guess you haven't seen police officers enforcing segregation? You have a seriously deficient understanding of the difference between interpreting law and executing law. If you combine those powers, you have bad results. They are kept separate for very important reasons.

The USPTO doesn't have anything better to do, and it enforces the bad laws that it oversees with great enthusiasm.

Once again, the USPTO doesn't "oversee" anything. Interpretation of the law is done by judges. The USPTO issues a patent if it fails to enforce the application - "a per

Re:I'd like to thank the USPTO

[Waffle Iron (339739)]

The USPTO is primarily paid to examine patents, not issue them or except maintenance fees.

Yes, and there wouldn't be so many patents to examine if people didn't think that they had a good chance of getting them issued. The more that get issued, the more that get examined. Are you sure that you're not including applications that get re-examined? In my experience (I have well over a dozen patents, courtesy of my former employers), most applications ultimately get approved.

Have you ever debated prior art with an attorney?

Yes. I've been pulled into patent lawsuits.

Have you ever signed your name and submitted papers to a federal court where your entire argument depends on a date you found on a website? Do think that's a fun or easy thing to do?

Who the hell cares if it's fun or easy? If the patent examiner sees evidence that there's prior art on of a website, then its his civic duty to investigate further before yanking a chunk of knowledge out of the public domain for 20 years.

. If there were the slightest shred of truth to your hyperbole, then why does the USPTO issue about 1250 patents per week but we read about maybe 1 or 5 per month at most? Why do people always fall back on the "swinging sideways on a swing" or the "one click purchase" patents? If reality and facts were on your side, then wouldn't we be reading about hundreds or thousands of "rubber stamped" patents per month? Per year?

Because a vast numbers of bogus patents are issued but haven't yet been "discovered" by the appropriate leeches. That's one of the things that this VC new venture is going to be involved in. It doesn't matter if 95% of the patents are reasonable. One bad patent can cause orders of magnitude more economic damage to an industry than the economic worth of a typical good patent.

Of course, it's not really your fault. You probably aren't aware that when a patent ends up on the front page, the examiner's entire career is in jeopardy.

Sure, there's always going to be a couple of low-level scapegoats per year to cover the collective asses of the whole system.

You probably aren't aware that the examining process takes 12-48 months and involves 10-200 pages of correspondence between the attorneys and the examiners.

Sure I am. I've been through the process many times. All it takes is ca$h, a good attorney and some technical jargon. My employers have patented some of my brilliant ideas, and some of my less-than mediocre ideas, depending mainly on how many patents they wanted to get that year. I've never noticed any correlation between the quality of the idea and the difficulty of obtaining a patent. (BTW, have you ever noticed that one of the main jobs of an attorney is to simply reformat technical documentation into double-spaced courier font for $200/hr, changing every 's' ending on a plural noun to the phrase "a plurality of". How can you read that monospaced crap all day?)

the attorney can push the application to a board of appeals, in which case the decision to issue is largely out of the examiner's hands yet the examiner's name is still on the issued patent.

The board of appeals is an integral part of the overall flawed system.

What, like prohibition? I guess you never heard of the war on drugs?

That would be mainly pushed by the feds headquartered in the same city as the USPTO.

I guess you haven't seen police officers enforcing segregation?

I'm not aware of any current laws requiring segregation. Back when police did enforce it, they were part of the problem, when instead they should have been protesting and resisting the laws instead of saying "I'm just doing my job here".

The USPTO does not have authority to "reject" an application (in the sense that the USPTO says "no" and the case is final) - it can only attempt to convince the attorneys that an appeal would be a waste of time, then the applicant abandons.

Any

Re:Linux

[di0s (582680)]

Is it any coincidence that all those companies (except maybe Apple and Google) detest FOSS and can't find any better way to compete with it?