Why Are There So Many Weird Tech Patents? (slate.com) 35
Companies are constantly patenting strange things they have no intention of developing. From a report: Amazon is putting humans in cages to protect them from machines! Facebook is selling your face to advertisers so it can CGI you into ads! Sony has a system where you can skip ads if you stand up and yell the brand's name! None of these things are technically true -- they're headlines driven by patents filed by these companies. In each case, the company has not developed these technologies. And it's likely that they never will. And yet, head-scratching and sometimes hilarious patents continue to populate the patent office and generate headlines. So why are there so many strange, somewhat terrifying patents that companies will likely never act on?
There are lots of reasons to patent something. The most obvious one is that you've come up with a brilliant invention, and you want to protect your idea so that nobody can steal it from you. But that's just the tip of the patent strategy iceberg. It turns out there is a whole host of strategies that lead to "zany" or "weird" patent filings, and understanding them offers a window not just into the labyrinthine world of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and its potential failings, but also into how companies think about the future. And while it might be fun to gawk at, say, Motorola patenting a lie-detecting throat tattoo, it's also important to see through the eye-catching headlines and to the bigger issue here: Patents can be weapons and signals. They can spur innovation, as well as crush it.
There are lots of reasons to patent something. The most obvious one is that you've come up with a brilliant invention, and you want to protect your idea so that nobody can steal it from you. But that's just the tip of the patent strategy iceberg. It turns out there is a whole host of strategies that lead to "zany" or "weird" patent filings, and understanding them offers a window not just into the labyrinthine world of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and its potential failings, but also into how companies think about the future. And while it might be fun to gawk at, say, Motorola patenting a lie-detecting throat tattoo, it's also important to see through the eye-catching headlines and to the bigger issue here: Patents can be weapons and signals. They can spur innovation, as well as crush it.
Patents are just a game (Score:5, Insightful)
Ignore patents. They are dumb, they're not about having novel ideas anymore, they're all about having an arsenal of weapons against the competitor's patents. The US patent office is not doing its job and is passing through everything, and no one checks validity on a patent until a lawsuit arrives. So you will have meaningless patents that exist only to force the other side to pay you a fee or to spend even more money pursuing a lawsuit.
If you're an engineer, please try to opt out of creating more patents when your executive management starts pressuring you to churn out more and more patents!
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Patents were always a game, they were always about having an arsenal of weapons against competitors. The only place this wasn't true, was in the movies, where inventors were turned into misunderstood geniuses who finally got their due. It has always been necessary to sue to enforce patents, so only those who were willing to sue, were able to protect their "inventions." And the ones who will sue, historically were rarely the ones who did the actual inventing.
It's new (Score:3)
"Amazon is putting humans in cages to protect them from machines!"
Previously machines were put in cages to protect humans.
If you opened the cage door or came inside it any other way, the machine stopped.
Nowadays machines are getting smarter and more numerous than humans.
August 29, 1997 (Score:2)
August 29, 1997
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Maybe they know how buggy their warehouse robots really are.
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employees get paid (Score:4, Interesting)
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Yes, and generally speaking, the companies I have seen pay out for even *applying* for a patent, even if it ultimately gets denied. The wait time to see if it will get granted is so long, that a reward on file was deemed too disconnected from the effort to motivate employees. They had patent reviews and attorneys between the employee submission and file, but all of those people generally get more money if a patent goes through so they will err on the side of letting things through.
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20 years is "relatively short"?
Still waiting for the mosquito laser, which is patented so nobody can actually sell one. No harm being done? Nah, just wait 20 years, what are we complaining about? Patents spur innovation! And encourage patience!
You can now buy water faucets with integrated heating elements that can instantly deliver boiling water. Guess when they were invented? More than 20 years ago. Since when can you buy them? Yep, when the patent ran out. Countless examples like that.
Interesting (Score:2)
I wonder if the (theoretical) ad-skipping would still work if you stood up and yelled “F**K SONY”?
Sony INT-W250 (Score:2)
I think it works if you have a Sony INT-W250 [theonion.com].
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It's better to yell "Bolo!" and hope someone responds properly:
https://youtu.be/iIToSVlFjBk?t... [youtu.be]
putting humans in cages?? I think the jail / priso (Score:2)
putting humans in cages?? I think the jail / prison system has that for years. So good luck reinforcing that.
Create an intellectual property minefield. (Score:5, Insightful)
If you can get many seemingly random claims out there, it increases the probability that someone will accidentally stumble on your claim. In the large business world, this gives you ammunition to negotiate and cross-license when you stumble on someone else's patent. This really stinks for the small innovator, however.
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It's also a defensive move. When you get sued for infringement, you can probably find a patent of your own that will let you counter-sue. Then, instead of going to court, you create a cross-licensing agreement. Then you get a bigger company to buy you out so it can have all your "inventions" and in turn protect itself.
Motorola patenting a lie-detecting throat tattoo (Score:3)
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I used to believe that in order to get a patent, it had to describe an invention in enough detail that someone skilled in the art could duplicate the invented thing. Did Motorola have to implement a lie-detecting throat tattoo in order to patent it? Could someone else make one using the patent as a guide?
Not in the US. The closest thing would be the 'working requirement', but: https://www.law.uci.edu/lawrev... [uci.edu] p. 508: "the United States for a significant part of its history (...) its patent system included a patent working requirement for only a brief time." - we need patent reform, folks.
Why Are There So Many Weird Tech Patents? (Score:2)
Why Are There So Many Weird Tech Patents?
No.
I mean, because they can. It's like a lottery -- most of the time you lose, but a few times you can win it big due to someone else (spinning the wheel or pulling a ball for said lottery.)
With a patent, you wait for someone to accidentally include it as a minor component of their product and win big. *I* patented addition a while ago, I'm waiting for it to fully catch on before I start suing everyone.
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Answer (Score:4, Informative)
"Why Are There So Many Weird Tech Patents? "
because you don't have to actually show it works.
No no no! It's not about "protection"!!! (Score:1)
"The most obvious one is that you've come up with a brilliant invention, and you want to protect your idea so that nobody can steal it from you."
The purpose of patents was to allow inventors to SHARE their inventions with others. Prior to patents inventors had no incentive to SHARE so everything was kept confidential, like trade-secrets are today, and multiple people would invent the same thing to meet the same needs. (Look up Elisha Gray and Antonio Meucci... they "invented" the telephone the same time a
Money (Score:1)
no text
WTF (Score:1)
Companies are constantly patenting strange things they have no intention of developing. From a report: Amazon is putting humans in cages to protect them from machines! Facebook is selling your face to advertisers so it can CGI you into ads! Sony has a system where you can skip ads if you stand up and yell the brand's name! None of these things are technically true -- they're headlines driven by patents filed by these companies. In each case, the company has not developed these technologies.
If they haven't developed these technologies then why in the fuck are they applying for and granted patents? They should be fined $5 million dollars for every patent they filed in this manner and the patent clerk who granted it should be fired. Actually this kind of shit should be illegal to begin with. If you file a patent and don't do anything with it within a reasonable time frame, then it should become public domain.
I realize it's naive of me to think this is abuse of the patent system, but it's mak
Hypocrites (Score:2)
Re: Hypocrites (Score:2)
You are right. Three word solution:
Eminent Intellectual Domain.
You need a full time task force that decides when patent trolling and rent seeking are undermining innovation.
Patents are all about the claims (Score:1)
From a legal standpoint, the CLAIMS of the patent are basically all that matters. I think in many cases the title of the patent, the graphics, the body... it is all fluff to get some valuable (mostly as legal defense) claim onto the books. Most "inventions" aren't actually patentable, but they will usually have some novel claims that could have value. So ignore the weird titles, graphics etc... what are the claims behind these?
Looking at the amazon "people in cages" patent [uspto.gov] there are some pretty broad thi
AREA DENIAL, INVENTION SUPPRESSION AND... (Score:2)
Because... (Score:2)
... patents and IP law is just a game to further entrench big business interests. The original intents of IP and patent law have vastly outlived their usefulness because in practice they are just used to make claim a monopoly on the idea space so it can be used later to extort money.
If one looks at IP law over the last 200 years, we're creating a de-innovation society in which things never go public domain and patents are just a vehicle for big companies to develop warchests of half-baked ideas with next t
In Russian/Soviet America (Score:2)
Try Communism (Score:1)
At end of decades of factory work get old age pension.
Invent something good?
All other workers have to invent something too as that is new level of productivity.
Get told to do it again next shift. No invention? That sabotage at work is reported to the gov.
Work on many inventions and get reward.
A medal.
A real key (not just spanner) to a new apartment. With real working plumbing and heating to share with entire building.
Work really hard on a lot of inventing and t
Sighs... (Score:2)
The number of patents that are rubber-stamped despite prior art or being derivative is utterly astounding. Of course, this is by design. the USPTO has been so underfunded and short-staffed that they can't do much more *than* rubber stamp applications.
Amazon (Score:1)