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Comment by fr33bird | Hacker News Reader

"use" means you bring SOME manifestation of the patentable innovation to bear. you have to be able to point at an implementation. that means 99% of the patent trolls will bugger off because none of them wants to do any real work anyway, and more to the point, they would have no idea how.

there's nothing saying you even have to have intentions of using, marketing or giving away the implementation...but you have to demonstrate that you are actually have the capacity to create an innovation, not just churn out whitepapers to tax others who actually will implement.

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If your not actually using it in practice, how is that different from today? Do you really think making these trolls spend a bit of money to build a prototype fixes it?

If this is going to work, you HAVE to come up with a system that forces the patent to be reduced to practice within some context.

Maybe you create classifications of patents:

- protective: Anyone can use it, you just can't sue me for using it. - commercial protection: I am the only one allowed to use it, and I will be using it for some commercial purpose - licensing protection: Anyone can use it if they license it from me, with the caveat that the term of protection is greatly reduced.

We're not talking a little "bit of money to build a prototype" in all cases though. Often a prototype would be impossible to build in a short time - suppose my invention is a new more efficient engine, it requires a few million in funding which I don't have; I've spent 15years developing the idea ... shouldn't I be allowed to sell my idea for even a little bit of money? If I present the idea to the companies who can make it - won't they just say, "you're not making it now, we'll wait a year" (or however long you're enshrining in your law) and then make it free from my license.

If instead I'd spent that time coming up with a new cheaper way to make icecream, the machine takes me a couple of months and a few thousand $USD to make, then I sell my idea worldwide and become a billionaire; isn't that a bit of an unfortunate disparity?

As an artisan inventor I'd only ever be able to successfully patent things I can make at home without outside funding.

> not just churn out whitepapers to tax others who actually will implement.

An insightful turn of phrase - the relevant congressional committees should hear it.

Actually, all patent trolls can point to some implementation; namely, those who they license the patent to.

More importantly, "some manifestation" still does not address the "use" definitional problem: it a computer simulation sufficient? If the product is purely software, is pseudo-code sufficient manifestation? Is a prototype adequate manifestation? Can a company hire another company to build its prototype to spec (b/c under your definition, they cannot)? Is a subsidiary too divergent from the parent company, such that the research subsidiary cannot ask the manufacturing subsidiary to construct a working prototype? (subsidiaries are separate companies).

Why do we require the inventor to have the capacity to create the invention? Some of the most remarkable breakthroughs of the past century were created by people who didn't have the means to build their own invention. (For example, the inventor of the most efficient oil derricks in use in America during the early 20th century.

The problems that your manifestation requirement impose do nothing to actually fix the problem of patent trolls, and merely impose additional burdens upon inventors, thereby discouraging invention.

For a first-hand discussion of the inventor's dilemma, read/watch Flash of Genius.

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