A Bull Market in Tech Patents
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
I look forward to this particular bubble popping, although what people are going to do once they realize that everyone's sitting on everyone else's hands is beyond me.
That's why you need lots of tickets to guarantee a win.
In a memo to his senior executives, Bill Gates wrote, “If people had understood how patents would be granted when most of today’s ideas were invented, and had taken out patents, the industry would be at a complete standstill today.” Mr. Gates worried that “some large company will patent some obvious thing” and use the patent to “take as much of our profits as they want.”
"In 1895, George B. Selden, a patent lawyer and inventor, was granted a broad patent on the automobile, covering a machine with four wheels powered by a gasoline engine. Henry Ford and other early automakers fought the patent for years, and it was eventually pruned back in 1911."
He filed for a patent on May 8, 1879. His application included not only the engine but its use in a 4 wheeled car. He then filed a series of amendments to his application which stretched out the legal process resulting in a delay of 16 years before the patent US 549160 was granted on November 5, 1895.
No, investment is too risky.