On the one hand, I have several patents for project(s) that took years to develop. The processes are unique, very difficult to replicate, and should be offered some protection (if we agree that motor designs should be protected). The companies I have worked for would defend the IP and would constitute these as "offensive" patents, because they would use it to actively stop upstarts.
On the other hand, I also have worked with lawyers to just patent ideas I had off hand. These are "defensive" patents, and go into the patent arsenal, containing hundreds to thousands of patents, to be used if someone decides to sue. These are just "ideas" and often will only have the most basic design(s) and testing (if at all).
Unfortunately, it's impossible to tell the difference, and more over - I don't think it's fair (personally) to patent something that doesn't exist in reality yet.
What's even more frightening to me personally, is that I am morally opposed to patenting... However, when someone offers me $1k, $3k, $5k, etc. to work with them to file a patent I'm incentivized to file. I have to be pragmatic for my family.
For reference, I'm on or currently working through filing close to 150 patents.
For each one, I donate a portion to the EFF; for what it's worth...
That said, my employer has filed a patent for some work I did for them, and it’s a tough issue for me. In this case, I don’t think the innovation is so world changing that I need to fight for it to be open, nor do I think they would honor my desire to leave it unpatented as I’m not really in a position to ask for that.
But it’s an issue I feel uncomfortable with, and I kind of dream of moving to a different place where my employer doesn’t try to patent my work.
It is tough when they offer you a few thousand for these ideas you come up with. That money could help me build a family, but in closing off these ideas I’m making it harder for everyone else to prosper.
FWIW, if anyone says “patents encourage innovation” I would ask you for citations. I understand this is the story we’re told, but it’s typically presented with simple anecdotal evidence and hunches. I’ve never seen a thorough study of the issue.
It is also a wealth transfer from the poor to the wealthy: the justice system protecting IP capital is financed by taxpayers, the hard majority of which hold no patents.
Disney making billions off Mickey Mouse? They can pay a tiny fraction of that and they can have their extension.
Novel by obscure dead author? Don't extend the copyright unless the estate wants to pay for it.
Abandoned and nobody to pay the tax? Enters the public domain.
All those defensive spurious patents? They impose a search cost on every single other innovator. There should be a carrying cost for the defensive patent wall.
The tax on this value could scale from 1% for year 10 onwards, increasing by 0.25% per year. Year 50 of your copyright? Be prepared to pay 11% APR rent on its value.
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/10/06/a-closer-loo...
Patents are government-enforced monopolies. They enable all of what anyone would expect with monopolies, namely high prices for consumers.
If you've ever tried to read a patent, you'll know this system has failed. In almost no cases can you meaningfully replicate an invention from a patent. Quite apart from which, a huge number of things under patent protection today are public knowledge anyway, or can be considered 'obvious'.
Ive never been satisfied with this necessity; its not like innovation would just seize without patents: innovation in processes is still incentivized, because falling behind would mean higher prices than competition, and lost market share, so you still need to r&d to at least match the competition, let alone best it. Innovation in consumer products is still incentivized, by first movers effect, though perhaps the easiest copied things are lost (ie plastic lids might be too easy to copy design updates). Innovation in software obviously wont stop, and shenzhen succeeds in electronics with lax (absent?) patent/copyright law.
The primary innovation patents might be necessary for is a small company taking on a larger one, and needing to protect its design while it gets itself going.... but in practice, it proposed hinders innovation there more than it helps.
Patents, I think, are about essentially open-sourcing the design of things, and the incentive to do so is a temporary, gov-enforced monopoly. If theres any idea about innovation, its in the long-term, as 5,10,20 years from now, we can read up on these ideas and build on top of them, instead of seeing them lost in time with the company's demise.
However I never found that argument to be believable. Big companies have such a vast patents portfolio that it's impossible for small companies that try to create a product to not infringe on anything. So what happens many times in practice are actually cross-licensing deals.
Therefore small companies developing some innovative algorithm or technology are better off keeping it a trade secret until launch.
In the real world, open source and open research communities have no shortage of innovation, even without being able to place artificial blocks on the competition. It turns out, creator's motivations are more complicated than making money alone.
In my opinion, innovation might move a bit slower without the money injections from VCs who can be confident they can get patents and a safe ROI, but I think we'd be better off in the long run if we allowed creators to build off past ideas without the fear of being sued.
I don't disagree. I look at it as a way for me to profit, I have to be pragmatic, unfortunately. I do donate 25% of each bonus to the EFF and personally I look at it another way...
This problem is going to get worse before it gets better. If I don't do this someone else will. The powers that be want this, and the lower levels like myself live on a bounty. It'll eventually fix itself, but until then I can net enough money to pay off my student loans, my cars, my house.
Just to clarify the discussion. Patents do not exist for protection of innovations or to guarantee income for innovators. Patents exists so that the society would get more innovations. And that is the only measure that patents should be judged against: Do we generally get so much more innovations (within motor designs kn this case) with the patent scheme that the welfare loss caused by monopolizing the IP is covered?
Interestingly enough, it is widely agreed that monopolies are bad, so one could imagine that the proof pf burden here would be on the ones who support monopolization of IP. And I have seen very little proof of benefits of patents that do not reduce to assuming that patents are benficial as per the measure I described above.
Basically, increasing the cost of filing patents incrementally to regulate excessive patenting and encourage companies to be more selective.
Unfortunately Berne convention has been written in a way that basically does not allow any kind of taxation of IP in arts and literary works. Which, of course, is amazing, mindboggling power grab by IP industry, done already in 18th century.
Generalizing patents and copyright as IP is a fallacy and leads to wrong conclusions.
I recommend reading this article by Richard Stallmann on this topic https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/not-ipr.html
It's not free at the beginning, and the fees are less than you suggest, but that's mostly what we do have: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maintenance_fee_(patent)
What a great idea. Thanks
I should also add that usually the inventor can't take the patent to their next job but if the inventor wrote super-narrow claims into the patent then that would be easy to work around at a future employer.
But you can't "use it" unless you own rights to the invention. Patent inventorship and ownership are different things.
Most likely, you assigned all rights to your invention to your employer at the time of invention. The patent will name you as the inventor, and your then-employer will have all rights to the invention.
Neither you nor your next employer can use the patent unless you negotiate permission from the rights holder (your former employer or whomever they sold the rights to).
Almost no one involved with software patents think they are a good idea, but until everyone backs down at the same time, you gotta keep doing it or that one evil player will destroy everyone.
I don't think software patents should exist, but I've worked on a bunch (and have a few myself). Not a single person I've worked with in that process, including the lawyers, thinks software patents are good.
But if my company didn't file them, then another patent troll or big evil corp could sue us out of existence.
By having a huge patent library, it make the discussion easier. The big companies just get together and decide to cross license all their patents at no cost to either party. But if you don't have a big inventory of patents, then the company that does won't want a cross licensing deal.
Also, large patent collections don’t protect you from patent trolls since they aren’t exposed to counter suing anyway - they don’t make or sell anything!
But whatever you have to tell yourself to sleep at night, right?
Same thing here. Big companies have large patent portfolios. If my company doesn't have one as big as the evil corp, then my company will have problems when they sue.
And having a large patent portfolio does protect against trolls -- because if you're cross licensed with another big portfolio, you can use all of those to defend yourself in the suit. The trolls know this and will be less likely to sue the companies with large cross licensed portfolios.
Of course the size of the other party's portfolio shouldn't matter if you're only interested in defensive use.
I think there was recently a company that got patent on “clicks in your email messages” and sued everyone relevant to shake out $$, and got laughted at by judge. (Im on mobile so can find relevant article atm)
Also worth noting that even if they don't themselves derive certain conclusions from our data or use that conclusion, it doesn't mean another party does not. For instance, a user's sleep/wake cycle could be determined by others from the data FB collects and shares with them.
This is a forward looking protection mechanism due to the environment that we actually have in the real world today. Even so, I don't like the idea of a social media company that sells advertising to have so many patents of the kinds mentioned in the article.
Just FYI, a patent doesn't "grant rights to do operation XYZ". Patents only allow you to forbid others from doing XYZ. That means that you can have a patent that covers XYZ, but if someone else has a patent to do X (or XY), then they can stop you from doing XYZ.
Some people mention "defensive" patents; They are only defensive in the sense that "the best defence is an offence" - that if someone attacks you, you have something to attack them back with. But that's not actually useful against entities that aren't practicing, such as Intellectual Ventures.
In that way, while there isn't legal approval, there are real world patent rights that create a bar which stops many from interfering with your business processes. In this way, there is a non-offensive and defensive ability to conduct business.
I am the inventor on a number of patents, and this is exactly how patents work out in practice for the specific type of industry and purpose that this thread is about. I am not talking about the law of patents but how patents are used in the actual real world by large companies. That was in reply to what the GP wrote, "It's crazy how the large companies file so many patents for any idea their employees can think of."
In fact, it's not "crazy" that companies do this. What is crazy is the system in which they are forced to do this. Unfortunately lawsuits take a lot of money and time, which I am sure you are familiar with.
That makes no sense at all:
Cost of publishing in a newspaper, or arxiv, or any other verifyable source: $0.
Cost of getting a patent: $5K-$100K spent on patent editors, patent lawyers, maintenance fees, re-editing after feedback, etc.
It's been a long, long, time since I heard about anyone spending less than $20K for a granted patent. Paying $20K for something that you can get (essentially) for free, prior art defense, makes no sense at all.
Patents are an offensive legal measure; the only way the work for defence is in the "offence is the best defence" sense.