China Leads In Graphene Patent Applications 86
hackingbear writes According to British patent consultancy CambridgeIP, China has filed for more than 2,200 graphene patents, the most of any country, followed by the U.S. with more than 1,700 patents, and South Korea with just under 1,200 patents. In terms of institutions, Samsung, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, and IBM lead the way of number of patent filing on this futurist materials with seemingly unlimited potentials, followed by Qinghua University of China. As China's moving its economy to be more innovation based and strengthening its IP laws, American companies will perhaps soon be at the receiving ends of patent law suits.
Re:So now we can steal their IP? (Score:2, Interesting)
It's time to abolish patents completely.
Ten, twenty years ago we were hearing all about this 'wonder material' .. then suddenly we stopped hearing much at all, and didn't really see applications come to market. Now we know why. It's been all but killed by this patent minefield. Your children someday might have a terminal illness that could have been cured by some graphene-based medical product? Sorry, they must rather die so that the corporations who control these patents and patent lawyers can sit on the tech forcibly preventing anyone else from benefiting from it. We could help green deserts and make new regions of the planet liveable with cheaper desalination? Sorry, that must be killed by patents. Cheaper solar? Kill it. Potential electronics applications? Kill it.
Unless we abolish patents, our children and grandchildren are going to be living in a world that is scarcely more technically advanced than our own is now.
Even patent attorneys [mises.org] are starting to agree that patents are not or are no longer encouraging innovation, are stifling it, and are imposing a great cost burden on us, both financially and in terms of being robbed of our 'jetson's future'.
This is also the reason we've stopped seeing much real innovation or cost reductions in smartphone development: "There Are 250,000 Active Patents That Impact Smartphones; Representing One In Six Active Patents Today" [techdirt.com]
Study: Patent Trolls Cost Companies $29 Billion Last Year [theatlantic.com] (that's a conservative estimate)
There is no way to "reform" this system. It's non-reformable as it's intrinsically unethical. It should be thrown out entirely.
Why even pay attention? (Score:4, Interesting)
China doesn't pay any attention to trademark, copyright, or patent law.
Why should anyone pay attention to their trademark, copyright, or patent applications? Or grants? They should just be round-filed until China takes on the concept of intellectual property. Not that I'm so in love with the whole idea myself, but there still nothing which is not hypocritical about the nation of China expecting us to give a shit about their IP.
Complete lack of US involvement (Score:5, Interesting)
This is what happens when you let everything get privatized, including basic research. You end up with no stake in the future.
Re:Why even pay attention? (Score:3, Interesting)
Don't worry, the US are similarly ignoring patents when it is in the "national interest", you should be careful when casting stones, might destroy your own glasshouse.
And likewise, don't worry, as soon as China holds a lot of important patents they will instantly start not only honoring patents and IP but becomes one of the strongest advocates of it. They would be the first that don't turn from copycat to IP zealot as soon as it becomes more profitable.
How have you solved the free rider problem? (Score:4, Interesting)
It's time to abolish patents completely.
It's clear that the patent system has serious problems. Patents on software or algorithms or business methods are absurd. However before we go ahead and abolish patents altogether, what is your proposed alternative solution to the free rider problem [wikipedia.org]? Patents were created as a means to mitigate that specific problem. If you have no alternative to solve the free rider problem that is better than a well executed patent system (our current one is not well executed), then your argument is a non-starter. If you do have a solution to the free rider problem then let us know so we can alert the Nobel committee that they owe you a prize.
And before anyone says it, just abolishing patents and doing nothing else is NOT a better system even as screwed up as our patent system has become. If you need evidence of this, please show me how many inventions that would be patentable in the US or Europe that were invented in places without a patent system. Drugs, vehicles, integrated circuits, etc. You will find that places without something resembling a patent system also have a rather low rate of invention. While this is evidence based on a correlation, the correlation is VERY strong. Without some way to mitigate the free rider problem there is limited incentive to solve certain types of problems.
Unless we abolish patents, our children and grandchildren are going to be living in a world that is scarcely more technically advanced than our own is now.
Oh cut out the hyperbole. Technology is advancing very quickly even in the face of an arguably broken patent system. There is no evidence that our rate of technological advancement is slowing down.
Study: Patent Trolls Cost Companies $29 Billion Last Year
While I'm not arguing that patent trolls aren't a real problem (they are), $29 billion is pocket change compared to what companies made off of patented products last year. Intel alone had $52 billion in revenue last year, virtually all of it from patented products. Patented inventions account for literally Trillions of dollars of economic benefit to society, much of which would not exist without some sort of system resembling patents. For many types of inventions, it is virtually impossible to bring products to market in the face of the free rider problem. The solution to the free rider problem doesn't have to be patents in their current form but there does have to be some sort of solution to that problem. Simply tossing out patents without some alternative way to mitigate the free rider problem will almost certainly do more harm than good.