Half of US Patents Issued Out of US For Second Year 90
netbuzz writes "According to a new report from IFI Patent Intelligence, 51% of patents issued by the United States in 2009 went to companies located overseas. While this marks the second consecutive year that a majority of US patents have landed abroad, an author of the report says: 'It's foolhardy to use this statistic to infer that American firms are losing ground to foreign competitors because with patents, it's important to consider quality, as well as quantity.' IBM was once again granted the most patents of any company, 4,914, followed by Samsung and Microsoft."
when is enough? (Score:1, Interesting)
now thats just the USA, to get an international patent is about $10k+ (only including the most popular countries) so that would be $49,140,000 in international patent fees for about 10 years
now my question is, is it worth is spending so much on a patent that wont generate enough money to cover the cost of the patent?
Re:US != 50% of world (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Coincidence? (Score:3, Interesting)
That's IBM, through and through. They finally come up with a good short pronouncable brand name like "WebSphere" and proceed to adorn it with products like "WebSphere ILOG Rule Solutions for Office" and "WebSphere Development Studio Client Advanced Edition for System i" and "WebSphere Business Integration Server Foundation for z/OS" and... yeah.
Re:Stick a fork in it, the US is done (Score:3, Interesting)
As a foreigner i see this a a huge win for the US.
Just think, the US patent system has attracted the cash of thousands of foreign companies. Sure, it might just be because the US is the only country allowing things such as the "do some every day task but on the internet" type patents, but whatever the reason, you have foreigners paying money into the US patent system. The filing fee for a software patent can be ~$10,000 according to Google.
I wish my country had a stupid patent system raking in the dough like that.
Here in Australia It's quite common for people who have never been to the US to be extradited for not giving in to IP trolls. The US government even provides a mechanism to help the patent trolls do this called the USPTO-IPAU patent prosecution highway.
http://www.uspto.gov/patents/init_events/pph/pph_ipau.jsp
The Hew Raymond Griffiths case showed us that apparently the internet is allowable jurisdiction for court of Virginia and that IP crimes are enough for extradition.
So if we Australians were ever to think about creating a competitor to Amazon for example we'd probably get a letter stating we have violated their 'one-click' patent. We couldn't fight it without traveling to the states yet if we didn't fight it we'd be extradited. In the end you'd need a US patent portfolio of your own.
All in all this broken system is a win for the US. You have foreigners pouring in money to the US government and legal system. Any foreigner that pisses of a US organisation can be extradited by simple patent trolling.
Move over US car industry, your replacement has arrived - international IP trolling, backed by the long arm of US international law enforcement.
Re:Stick a fork in it, the US is done (Score:4, Interesting)
Neither did Somalia, for all practical purposes. Didn't stop the U.S. from helping. Rwanda just got really unlucky in their timing, with the whole genocide happening just a month after the U.S. pulled out of Somalia, which was something of a disaster. And Rwaanda was basically exactly the same situation as Somalia---a civil war between warring factions. The U.S. and the U.N. had just failed miserably at stabilizing the first situation, and were still licking their wounds. Had they failed to learn from that experience and turned right around and made the same mistake, one could rightly have called them insane beyond all hope.
What happened in Rwanda was tragic. Knowing about it and being able to realistically stop it, however, are two different things. In the history of the world, attempts to interfere in a civil war have almost invariably ended badly, usually very badly. That's something that would be good for future political leaders to remember.
The end of the Patent System (Score:1, Interesting)
If other countries began to win with this rules, is time to change the rules.
Re:Stick a fork in it, the US is done (Score:4, Interesting)
Er?
Slashdot really needs a "+/- 1, Incoherent" moderation.
Trends probably understated (Score:5, Interesting)
It's foolhardy to use this statistic to infer that American firms are losing ground to foreign competitors because with patents, it's important to consider quality, as well as quantity
If we do make that consideration, then it's probably worse. Keep in mind that a) we have a thriving patent troll industry in the US, and b) anyone outside the US who bothers to patent in the US probably is more likely to have something worth patenting.
Re:Stick a fork in it, the US is done (Score:3, Interesting)
And more to that point, many companies now a days start to be multinationals and for tax or legal purposes registered offshore. It could still be an "US company" or do majority of its business in US. Even Google plays that tax game [softpedia.com]
At those levels, the taxes the company pays for its operations are also significant, so much that choosing the right country to pay those taxes for its international revenue can save it several hundred million pounds a year
Outside of its US operations, the UK market is the biggest revenue earner for Google, yet the company doesn't pay any taxes whatsoever in the country. Instead it reports all revenue from the UK, from all over Europe in fact, in Ireland where the company has its headquarters for the continent. Thanks to the much lower corporation tax levels, Google can avoid paying as much as £450 million in the UK alone. And the savings can be significant, taxes are as two to three times lower in Ireland.
The company is, by far, not the only one doing this, all large corporations, even smaller ones with an international presence, will try to find the market with the most flexible tax system to set up shop. The practice in itself isn't illegal, but it certainly isn't viewed very well, especially with the economy being what it is.
I'm actually surprised they haven't moved their US operations.
Re:US != 50% of world (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:when is enough? (Score:3, Interesting)
Well if they file for a patent, they obviously think its worth the cost. You can't always directly measure the return either, since you don't know if you holding the patent lowers competition.
Also remember that because the system is like this, companies that aren't patent trolls still need to file for the patents if they want to defend their technology. Blame the system, not those who have to play by its rules.
Re:US != 50% of world (Score:3, Interesting)
What you're ignoring is the trend - the majority of US patents being for foreign companies is a new thing. It indicates US economic dominance is in decline.
Does it? It may instead indicate that cross-border economic activity is on the increase. While this may (arguably) show a relative decrease in US dominance of the domestic trade, it doesn't preclude the possibility of an increase in the US dominance of global trade.
HAL.