USPTO Issues 8,000,000th Patent 108
toybuilder writes "It took nearly 80 years for the first 1 million patents to issue in the U.S. On Tuesday, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office issued its eight-millionth patent. This most recent 1 million patents took only about 5 years."
High time to stop them (Score:3)
Or most technological advances will not improve life on this planet.
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Obesity also increased from virtually unknown to over half of the western population. I think we are evolving to a super race of fat and smelly geniuses.
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Re:High time to stop them (Score:4, Insightful)
Why would you credit them (the USPTO, I assume?) with the progress of the last 100 years? I'm pretty sure we'd have seen just as much progress without them. The USPTO is just a money sink that creates expensive paperwork for people who just want to get stuff done.
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Patent clerks (Score:2)
Yeah, they might invent new theories (relativity, atomic energy etc) and then we would really be in the shit.
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I'm pretty sure we'd have seen just as much progress without them.
You don't think a company would be shy about spending say a billion dollars to develop a new gadget if a competitor could duplicate it and have it on shelves within a few months?
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I think a company would be very shy. With or without patents - my company agonizes over office supplies costing far less.
Take a look around at the tech industry companies.
How many "R&D" departments do you see?
How many are actually doing any "R"? (I can think of about 3).
How many are "spending say a billion dollars to develop a new gadget"?
And even with today's "Intellectual Property" regime, how many popular "gadgets" can you count that are not cloned within a few months?
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No I don't. First to market usually wins. And when it doesn't, patents aren't going to save your market share either.
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The system consistently rakes in more money to the business of government than it does to any one if their associates in the "private" sector.)
Huh?
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If there is such a thing as non-runaway government, I am not aware of the country they govern.
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Only that they won't be available in the US.
But how many of the granted patents are useful in reality?
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Wow all these inventions! (Score:1)
This most recent 1 million patents took only about 5 years.
So, that means there's more technology being invented which should boost the economy and get us closer to a World like in Star Trek? Right?
All those patents are useful and unique - right?
Re:Wow all these inventions! (Score:4, Funny)
All those patents are useful and unique - right?
Right. According to IP industry insiders, what we need is a Patent Stimulus to end the recession [mises.org]
The nice thing about this Patent Stimulus Plan is that it will cost only a small fraction of the amount of money we have already wasted on failed economic stimulus. What we need to do is have President Obama issue an Executive Order directing the Patent Office to start allowing patents. A 42% allowance rate during the first quarter of 2009 is wholly unacceptable. So while you are at it President Obama, order the Patent Office to issue a patent UNLESS there is a reason to deny it.
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It would be so awesome if the Patent Office every patent when there's a good reason to do so. Unfortunately they just don't seem to check them.
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It would also be awesome (as in amazing, unbelievable) if you would your verbs.
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I the word "denied".
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It would be so awesome if the Patent Office denied every patent when there's a good reason to do so. Unfortunately they just don't seem to check them.
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1 million patents took only about 5 years
1 million brain farts in 5 years, world economy is in the crapper, the rich are richer, the poor are poorer, and the guy in the middle is bent over even more (without any lube). So we must conclude that more patents means being worse off for the majority of humanity. Something be wrong here people...
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# cat patents | wc -l
8000000000
# cat patents | sort | uniq | wc -l
96
Geordi's visor? (Score:4, Informative)
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Of the million's of major technical issues in building Geordi's visor, Patent #8,000,000 is about automatically turning off Geordi's visor when it isn't being worn.
Despite the fact that almost every portable device has sophisticated software systems to automatically power down any unneeded subsystems, they patented automatic power down when "an error is detected". This patent is a great example of what is wrong with the U.S. patent system. Almost every new RF and power distribution standard comes with au
So? (Score:2)
I would assume that patents are in some way related to the commercial value of technology. Otherwise there wouldn't be the money to do all this patenting.
Thus this report is a good thing.
What to do about it?
1. Monetize it. Increase fees of all sorts.
2. Use the income to improve the system. Better prior art searching for example. Better examiners.
Re:So? (Score:4, Informative)
The patent system is already quite expensive for the small businesses. The PTO office isn't so bad, but to come up with a any decent patent that will make it through, you need to hire a patent lawyer which will cost in the $300 to $500 an hour range. I just went through it and it's excruciatingly painful and expensive.
Then there is this:
http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2011/08/05/138934689/the-tuesday-podcast-the-patent-war
Sue! (Score:4, Funny)
Oddly, it was a patent for a method of issuing patents given to a small legal firm, who then filed a lawsuit against the Patent Office.
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o_o
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Patent 6,000,000 looks to be a bit like that. A patent on syncing data from a mobile device to a computer with a single button press. Still, looking at the patents listed in the article, they seem surprisingly valid. I'm getting the feeling that the USPTO is gaming the numbers on these patents so that they aren't really a random sampling. I imagine rather that they sat around in a conference room for a bit going over eligible applications and decided which ones to grant for these milestones.
Wow! (Score:2)
That's a lot of innovation!
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In lawyer guided repackaging/reintroducing/renaming of prior art. Impressive I know.
I'm off to the patent office... (Score:2)
...to patent a process for filing patents!
Meaning two things.. (Score:2)
1. If I ever invent something original, I wont own it - because I can't afford to patent it.
2. If someone actually has some world shattering amazing break through which could change the world - but they are not wealthy, that secret will go to the grave with them.
Go innovation... yippie.
PS: I fit into both categories, and I'm taking the goods to the grave.
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Well, if you're resigned to not make money off it anyways, why not attempt to write it up in a different form and publish it under the GPL or a similarly sticky open license; or publish under the creative commons?
You'll still not make money off it, but it'll be wide open in the public domain, available for everyone to pick up and improve the world with it, and unable to be locked in a corporate vault.
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if it's of practical value, then the patent is just icing on the cake.
just eating the icing makes you fat and stupid though.
Not 8,000,000th patent (Score:5, Informative)
Well, this fits the traditional view of a patent (Score:2)
It's to make tires more puncture resistant. Akron Ohio, must be Goodyear or an ex Goodyear employee?
We may not like the patent system but this one at least isn't a frivolous one for excercising your cat with a fricken laser beam! [patentstorm.us]
8,000,001st Patent (Score:2)
Hyperlinking (Score:2)
the 8,000,0000 patent was only the 10,000 for hyperlinking.
I'm proud to say... (Score:2)
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My grandpa got several patents in the 1940's, back when a patent actually meant something other than a method and system for trolls to screw over real innovators :-P FU USPO
I don't quite understand why some achievement of one's ancestors is a reason to make one proud.
Somebody said it better, just Google for "ancestry Samuel Butler" [google.com]
Simple solution (Score:1)
1. Make patent applications progressively expensive (with a reasonable cap), while keeping the first one affordable to independent inventors.
2. Do the same for fees keeping patents alive.
3. Use most of the extra income to allow each patent examiner more time per application.
4. Use some of the extra income to help independent inventors who can't afford paying a good IP lawyer $10,000+ per application.
BTW, the purpose of a patent is to allow the inventor a temporary monopoly in exchange for publicly discl
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What we need to do is go back to the system where the USPTO is primarily funded by the government and ensure that there's sufficient funding to properly review every application. If bullshit patents start being denied with regularity a lot of the bullshit applications will stop being submitted.
English much? (Score:3)
"Eighth-million patent" -> "eight millionth patent"
Yeesh - true geeks would say the editor's off by a factor of 2^5.
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How sad... (Score:1)
Most patents are completely ridiculous these days. In addition to that patents only serve to hamper innovation.
It's completely ridiculous to own an idea; somebody else might have the same idea at the same time, introducing actual competition. It also helps in creating monopolies and serves to strangle the market.
reexams (Score:2)
Considering how often high profile patents wind up getting overturned or narrowed on reexamination I propose that the front line of examiners of first instance that are simply rubber stamping everything that comes across their desk are either overworked or incompetent or both.
The fact that many of them are getting overturned later, either in court or on reexam, is strong evidence if not outright proof that most of them never should have been issued in the first place.
The USPTO needs to stop issuing bullshit
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My point is that honest politicians don't last long.
8,000,000 more reasons for bad economy. (Score:1)
8,000,000 government issued patents is 8,000,000 more ways in which innovation in the economy is stifled. That's 8,000,000 ways to prevent people from attempting at bringing products to the market. That's 8,000,000 ways multiplied by each claim in each one of those patents, multiplied by the number of patent lawyers around to start lawsuits, which do nothing to improve anything in economy.
That's 8,000,000 ways in which government prevents wealth from being generated by the public sector. That's 8,000,000 w
General increase in bureaucracy (Score:2)
This kind of acceleration in government can be seen everywhere.
Compare the sizes of the law books* put out by your state's legislature this year against ten or a hundred years ago.
I recently had to do some deed research at the County Registrar's office. Documents are organized by "book" and "page" number, for example, a deed will be referred to as "Book 123, Page 456." It took something like two hundred years for New Hampshire to hit book 1000, another 50 or so to hit Book 2000, and only a couple decades to
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The problem is that the ability of the people to comply with increasingly byzantine laws isn't increasing at a similar rate. The rule of law depends upon the people being governed being capable of knowing all the things which are prohibited. In the US at least we've long since past the point where one could reliably know what is and isn't prohibited and under what conditions.
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The rule of law depends upon the people being governed being capable of knowing all the things which are prohibited.
Well...not exactly. I had a history teacher in high school (college, maybe?) discuss the difference between how laws are generally created, interpreted and enforced in the U.S.* and the U.K. vs. how they are generally created, interpreted and enforced in mainland Europe**. In the U.S. and U.K., there is a list of things that are prohibited, and the laws are enforced rather strictly. That which is not prohibited is allowed. In mainland Europe, he claimed, the laws are written to describe what is allowed
All these "inventions", but no economy? (Score:2)
Gee, you would expect that with an entire country full of inventors, who are able to generate patents at such a rate that we've had a million patents in just the last ten years, that this country would be humming along brilliantly with a strong economy, and lots of people working on bringing those inventions to market.
But the sad state of affairs is that most of those million patents are for things which already exist with the words "on the internet" tagged onto the end.
"Method and Practice for Taking a Dum
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We have a pretty strong economy, actually. The strongest on the planet. It's just not as strong as people would like it to be, or imagine it could be, if only X had been handled differently.
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Yeah, but the western hemisphere's economy is bigger than the EU.
and nothing of value was created (Score:2)
A few million (Score:1)
Expiration (Score:1)
Am I correct in estimating that approximately 60% of these have expired and are now in the public domain?
Population? (Score:2)
It took nearly 80 years for the first 1 million patents to issue in the U.S. This most recent 1 million patents took only about 5 years.
And the average population of the US from 1790 (when the first patent was issued) to 1870 was around 15 million. Now it's around 300 million.
So... For the USA's first 80 years, we had 1/16th the patent rate of today, but 1/20th the population.
Is this, then, a story about how patent rates are declining?
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only if you patent choosing the stats like you want. 1980-1990 the population levels weren't that different from now.
...this month? (Score:1)
At least... (Score:2)
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They probably shuffled around the order they were granting/denying them in, so that they had a slightly less embarrassing patent for the milestone number.
Once in a million patents (Score:2)
Let's see a quick history of inventions over time, one million at a time:
Interesting to look at an evolution of wh
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The fact is, without patents we would have far fewer inventions and technology would advance at a much slower pace.
If software patents were issued in the 70's, we would have practically none of the mainstream computer tech we have today. Every single piece would be too legally encumbered.
There are other incentives for inventing things like being the first to market etc.
And implementations of software are already protected under copyright anyway.
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If you take that away, why should I invest all that time and money?
You shouldn't. Leave getting rich to people like Bill Gates, or the other people and companies that made computer software up through the 90's (especially the 1998 State Street decision) before software became generally patentable. They seemed to do just fine without them.
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Why would this get tagged as greed? If you ask me, it's the /. readers that are greedy for thinking that inventors shouldn't get legal protection for their hard work.
In response to the "get rid of patents" posts: if you had your way we would still be living in the 19th century. Why should I spend a ton of time and invest potentially millions of dollars coming up with an invention? Because my hard work will pay off and I can make a profit. This profit motive is protected by the patent process. If you take that away, why should I invest all that time and money?
The fact is, without patents we would have far fewer inventions and technology would advance at a much slower pace.
Now lets talk about patent "trolls." Lets say I invent something, but don't want to actually deal with developing a commercial product. Thanks to patent "trolls," I can sell my patent to them! This allows me to still be rewarded for my hard work, without having to develop a business around my idea.
The problem is that having 90% of all patents be complete unoriginal BS leads naturally to impulses to throw the baby out with the bathwater and get rid of the whole system.
If we were only now talking about the millionth patent coming up some time in the next 25 years, I bet there'd be absolutely no one suggesting we get rid of patents.