Hacker News Reader

Comment by arockwell | Hacker News Reader

This allows a lone inventor to patent a device and then license plans to a large company to manufacture and sell the product.

I agree that this might help curtail patent trolls, but I am not sure this will help that much since the way patents are granted seems fundamentally broken. I think requiring someone to actually produce the invention is treating the symptom of patent trolls and not the cause. If the USPTO stopped granting patents when there is prior art or stopped granting patents that are "obvious" would help more.

View on HN

My experience has been with the inverse of this, though. I've been seeing Microsoft and friends reserving literally thousands of patents on things that aren't even tangentially related to anything they're working on, in language so broad it rules out huge areas of development.

This is true, however for these large companies many of the patents are filed as a defensive measure. Its fairly uncommon to hear them sue someone for patent infringement, and they probably have a patent on just about anything (MS has a patent on the strlen algorithm for example, its really insane).

In other words, worry about getting sued by a patent troll not a big company. Also, perversely, I think you better off not even looking for patents in the first place because one of the factors that can go against you in a patent lawsuit is whether or not you were aware of the patent in the first place.

The problem isn't the USPTO, it's the patent applicants themselves who do not disclose the prior art in their own applications. The USPTO is supposed to conduct its own prior art search, but the volume of applications, coupled with funding which decreases every year, results in a very minimal search for direct prior art.

Patents can and often are invalidated for the patentee's failure to include prior art; in fact, it is the leading cause of patent invalidation.

The problem is that the USPTO doesn't have the number of employees it needs to examine each patent, as fully as would be necessary to stop "obvious" patents from getting through, within a time frame for allowing meaningful inventions to hit the market in a timely fashion.

I think the problem is more structural. All of USPTO's funding comes in the form of patent applicant fees, so they have an incentive to let us many through to encourage others to file ridiculous patents as well. The way the system is set up its really not in their interest to act as an effective judge.

The problem [is] the patent applicants themselves who do not disclose the prior art in their own applications. [...] Patents can and often are invalidated for the patentee's failure to include prior art; in fact, it is the leading cause of patent invalidation.

That seems to differ from this:

http://robertplattbell.blogspot.com/2009/01/prior-art-search...

Why would I need one?

The simple answer is, you don't. There is no requirement to search the Prior Art for previous inventions. And increasingly, many folks are shying away from searching. If you do have a search done, however, you are required to cite the referenced discovered to the Patent Office, should you later file a Patent on the same invention.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com