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Comment by save_ferris | Hacker News Reader

How would that work? If company A receives a "defensive" patent on a technology design, and company B decides to use that patented design without a license, seems like they'd be able to without any recourse. In which case, does the patent system even make sense anymore? I think that's the bigger question in the context of software.

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That's the point. The idea of having a "defensive patent" is to avoid having trolls patenting the same thing and then going after small companies with no means to defend themselves in a patent suit. For instance: https://www.x-plane.com/2015/12/patent-troll-update/.

Anyone would be free to use the patent. But trolls can't sue with it.

The way the system is supposed to work is that simply publishing should be sufficient to prevent anyone else from registering future patents on anything that you've published. After all, publishing creates prior art which should invalidate any future patents covering your technology.

Defensive patents are for when IBM comes after you with a stack of patents demanding licensing fees amounting to 3% of your revenue.

Then you whip out your defensive patents and demand that IBM licenses your IP for 3% of their revenue. (Win-win cross licensing ensues...)

Patent trolls are a different animal though. However, having some good patents may at least protect you from willful infringement (increased damages)

I feel like this is just a loose-loose situation that instead of encouraging and protecting small innovators from the power of established companies instead just locks them out. Patents are essentially MAD (except of course for the part where everyone dies if it goes wrong). Like nukes, these patents aren't actually useful. They are only necessary because everyone else has them and the people actually under threat are the less powerful people that don't. This is very different from say pharma patents, where companies seem to directly benefit from Patents in their intended way.

I wonder if it's time for a Patent Denuclearization... but I'm not exactly sure how that could look like.

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