EU Patent Staff Go On Strike

h4rm0ny writes "Last Friday, staff at the European Patent Office went on strike. They protested outside for several hours and issued a statement claiming that 'the organisation is decentralising and focusing on granting as many patents as possible to gain financially from fees generated.' They also declared this as being disastrous for innovation and that their campaign was not for better wages, but for better quality patents. Meanwhile, an article on it discusses the US's own approach to dealing with the increasing flood of patent applications: a community patent project to help identify prior art. It might sound like a grass-roots scheme, and maybe it is, but those roots include such patent behemoths as IBM. So it looks like on both sides of the Atlantic, some signs of sanity might be emerging in the patent world from those people right in the thick of it." Note, this was a half-day strike, not ongoing.

That's europe for ya !

[unity100]

Well done. now only if we could just beat some sense into their u.s. counterparts with a thick stick ...

Re:Patents were always a money making scam

[Anonymous Coward]

Historically, the invention of the cotton gin and its introduction to the south made slavery mucch more profitable in the United States, expanding both cotton production and black slavery all over the south. This exacerbated one of the major conflicts that caused the Civil War.

Also note that Eli Whitney developed guns manufactured with interchangable parts, greatly decreasing the costs of making firearms.

So you might say that Eli Whitney enslaved thousands, caused the American Civil War, and then sold the guns used to fight it.

That's the kind of innovation we need to encourage in this country!