Patents of Business Destruction 171
SnapShot writes "Over on Slate there's an opinion article on the Blackberry patent case. Here's a quote: 'It's easy to bash trolls as evil extortionists, to do so may be to miss an important lesson: Patent trolls aren't evil, but rational and predictable, akin to the mold that eventually grows on rotten meat. They're useful for understanding how the world of software patent got to where it is and what might be done to fix it.' "
Expect the worst (Score:5, Interesting)
Forget about maximizing the best possible outcome in the best possible world. It's not going to happen anyway, so why worry about it? Instead, focus on the worst possible outcome, and create your system so as to minimize that. Any outcome that turns out better than that pessimistic minimum is then just a happy bonus.
So, make rules for patents that discourages fluff patents and extortion (you need to deposit a substantial sum that is returned upon a successful grant, but witheld if turned down?). Make it reasonably easy to challenge patents when invalid grants have slipped through, but that discourages vapid challenges (loser pays, for example).
Re:Funny definition of useful (Score:4, Interesting)
There is nothing wrong with the 'patent troll' (Score:2, Interesting)
if by 'patent troll' the author means people who buy up neglected patents, and then enforce them, how is this bad ? Its no different than some real-estate agents who buy up crappy houses, give them the once over, and flip them for profit. One man's garbage
If the author means 'people who file friviolous patents', thats alread self limiting. Its either a very time intensive process to write a good broad patent, or a very costly process to have someone do it for you. A non broad patent isn't very enforcable except in the EXACT case that it states. The average patent out there has fees associated with it that are well above 15k over the life of the patent.
Its not like someone just sends in a document, and *poof* they have a patent for 25 years. You have fees all along the way until the patent expires. Assuming the patent even gets granted and is novel.
What people don't seem to realize is that for ever RIM-esque patent case, there are thousands of infringements that never even get discovered or enforced. [either due to cost or time or neglect]
There are very large companies *cough*-*cough* ebay *cough* *cough* Microsoft *Cough* that have been charged with several large patent infringement cases, and simply paid out to the inventors listed on the patent. Or bought the rights from them. YEARS after the fact.
There are companies out there who's entire product lines infringe on patents held by private inventors, guys like you and me in our garages, who can't do anything about it because of the legal fees. I mean, what can one little guy do against a company that has 50-60 million in sales every quarter
The reason patent trolls exist isn't because they are 'evil' or 'money grubbing'. Its because problems like this exist, and they are willing to either step in to help enforce patents, or willing to purchase the patent themselves and take all the risk with the rewards in mind.
But to sugges that we not allow patents to be filed for some of the reasons mentioned here, like non functiong prototypes etc
Re:Almost there (Score:3, Interesting)
Agreed. The hardest part of any patent reform (with good intent) is to differentiate the patent trolls from the small researches.
Blackberry isn't relevant (Score:4, Interesting)
This still leaves open the question of whether the patents should have ever been issued to begin with. Software patents are asinine. Almost as asinine as being able to patent something that exists in nature.
Oh, oh!!! Great business idea! Invent a new programming language and patent it. Then when people start releasing software written in it you can sue all of them for infringement.
How to fix patents (Score:3, Interesting)
The patent trolls that run around gobbling up defunct businesses to exploit other peoples work do nothing to help inovation - they mostly stand in the way. Patents are there to protect the inovators not the scavengers.
Predictable, yes... but like mold? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:How to fix it? (Score:2, Interesting)
Further, patents are legal monopolies and basically an infringement upon property rights. If it is my steel, my wood, I'm going to build exactly whatever I want to build with it. I don't care if you've invented it before, it's mine, mine, mine and you have no right to stop me. Neither does the State. Software patents are even worse. I'm going to put ones and zeros on my disks, and what those ones and zeros do when put through other ones and zeros is none of your business. Get off my property! If you invent some new metal alloy twice as strong as steel, well, congratulations. You own some metal. You do not own my metal, I repeat: you do not own my metal. If I make the same alloy as you do, well, bad news for you. It's called competition. Welcome to capitalism, dude.
Now you say, won't people stop inventing stuff? Yeah right. Ever heard of that invention, the steam engine? Watt's patent stopped others from building better engines, and most of his time and money was used not to build steam engines, but to lobby the government and collecting royalties (See Against Intellectual Monopoly, chapter 1 for a longer discussion of Watt's patent and how it stopped progress.). Further, they stop many new inventions. Just look at Blackberry. So much for patents and innovation. As the old joke goes, if pro is the opposite of con, congress is the opposite of progress. No other organisation has hindered progress more than the coercive beast that is government.
Moving on, the argument that no one will develop expensive stuff is completely false. First, it's just another protectionist argument, one that relies only on what is seen and what is not seen. With patents, you see X dollars being invested in developing Y. Without patents, what would those X dollars be used to do? You have no idea, I don't, no one does. We can't prove that society benefits from X being developed instead of some Z, W or Q. Secondly, the argument shows a huge lack of economic insight. No person can predict the future, or the future economic situation. If so were the case, no humans would act (Rothbard explains this in Man, State and Economy). Ok, so say company X develops some miracle drug. You think company X would need a patent, to prevent free riders, people who rip off the product and sell it cheaper because they have no R&D costs. Ok, well, how are companies Y, Z, Q going to know that the drug is a sucess? Isn't success defined as earning a huge profit? Well, then, when the drug is a success, company X has obviously made a lot of money from it. Arguing for patents because of free riding effects is stupid.
Imagine you're in a race. You try to imitate the guy who wins, to win yourself. However, to know what he does and who he is - you have to let the race progress and let him win. That'll help you, I'm sure. You cannot know who the winner is before he has won, and then it is too late. That's what the free rider argument is all about.
As we have seen patents are no more than arbitrary government monopolies given at the whim of some random bureaucrat, in effect giving someone the right to control what you do with your property. Further, they are an obstactle for innovation, and protectionist. They are clearly nothing else than a pure, counter-productive government intervention into the economy and an abuse of governmental power.
Support property rights, help innovation, abolish patents.
Re:Almost there (Score:3, Interesting)
The reality though, is that if I come up with some kind of invention that makes another obsolete then the current players will step up and buy in since they don't want to become obsolete along with their product.
I actually like the pp's ideas:
Since the 'deal' is that society grants protection in exchange for publishing for the purpose of promoting progress* it makes sense to me anything not being used gets immediately pushed into the public realm, and will (possibly) be used as a basis for something new that (might) be used much more quickly than if you had to wait 20yrs...
*most people seem to be mistakened as to the purpose of patent protection. It's not to enrich the inventors in a monetary way, but rather to enrich society with more innovation...
Re:How to fix it? (Score:2, Interesting)
No, the real harm are application patents - these are patents that don't describe new technology, but just the application of technology. The patents in this discussion would be in that category, as would a lot of patents that help "lock up industries" to a particular holder. If it doesn't matter, in detail, HOW you do something, just THAT you do something, I would call that an "application patent" and I don't think they should be allowed.
What if companies stopped filing for patents? (Score:2, Interesting)
I don't understand (Score:3, Interesting)
The patents in questions are likely to be rejected. The whole object of this lawsuit are those patents.
How can the judge dismiss that? What if he awards the injunction, either forces to close or settle. One way or another. What will happen if/when the patents ARE rejected? Because the lawsuit would have been on invalid ground?
Why can't this new evidence taken into account for the lawsuit? I don't understand this law aberation. Why can't the judge either order to wait to know the result of the patent re-examination, or forces the PTO to re-examine faster and be a party in the lawsuit?
I just don't understand why this lawsuit is going on ground (patents) that are likely to be dismissed and deemed invalid. Because if I understand right, patents not valid = lawsuit not founded anymore.
Can someone explain?
Re:Expect the worst -- but promote the best (Score:3, Interesting)
I really really like this! Thank you! It would be reasonable, then, for the USPTO to require that software patent holders actually publish their source code -- which is the real equivalent of publishing diagrams and illustrations for a mechanical device. Currently, then, the GPL better fulfills the role that SW patents ought to play.