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Comment by reedciccio | Hacker News Reader

Easy to say but what about paying creditors? The legal system we have now needs to be radically rethought to allow a scenario where a company going bankrupt will be forced to give up its patents and copyright on software to the public, instead of selling them to the highest bidder who will then decide what to do. It's not simple, but we need a serious reform in this direction.

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I don't see what would be so different than what we have now? A company in bankruptcy is already forced to sell all IP to satisfy creditors. Now the only additional requirement is they sell to a company planning to make use of the IP. If they can't the IP is worthless, and so should just end up in public domain.

I don't think you're considering how loose the definition of 'use' is in this case. They might intend to 'use' the IP in a way that makes them no more able to help previous customers than a patent lawyer is able to build a robot.

I think you're getting hung up on minutia that could be sorted out. The definition of "use" could be sufficiently limited to allow for the company to either support the previous customers, or lose the IP

But even if the new company plans on using the IP, there's no guarantee that the company buying the IP will use it for the same purpose or want to continue supporting the existing use. Like maybe the same technology is useful for implants to provide artificial hearing to deaf people and the new company wants to use it for that.

So if the sale of IP is allowed because the new company will use it, that still leaves the visual implant users in the dark (no pun intended), but if the sale of IP is not allowed or is placed into the public domain to allow visual implant users to use it, then the original company was deprived of the value of the IP.

Presumably the company that buys the IP would also be obligated to support the patients. And would have to prove their capability before the sale would be allowed.

And if nobody qualifies, then even if there are willing buyers the IP would be public domain'ed.

This is likely to have the unintended side effect of reducing research -- investors will be less likely to put money into a company if they'll have severe restrictions on what they can do with the IP if the company doesn't succeed and they may even have there millions of dollars of investment released to the public domain because they couldn't find a company willing to continue with an unsuccessful use of the IP even if it would be valuable for other uses.

The restriction is really “use it or lose it”. I don’t see how that would influence anything. If they are investing and plan to use it, then they retain all value. If they chose not to use it, they can sell it to someone who will or release it into public domain.

There is still a huge potential for earning by investing in something like this, even with restrictions as described.

If they chose not to use it, they can sell it to someone

Well, they can sell it to someone who is willing to continue supporting it for the use that the original company couldn't make work.

or release it into public domain

Yeah, that "lose it" part is the problem - if they can't find a company that's willing to continue supporting what was already proven to be an unsuccessful use case, then their IP has no value.

It is lose it. That’s the point.

> If they chose not to use it, they can sell it to someone who will

You're assuming that someone else can make it work financially in the original domain, but what if no one can?

The IP may have value in other domains, but you seem to be saying that it goes into the public domain if no one can make it work in the original domain.

If that's the rule on IP with medical uses, medical applications just went to the bottom of the list of uses. In fact, you'd be stupid to go for a medical application of IP that is used elsewhere.

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