Saturday, June 5, 2004
'Patent Trolls' & Technological Trickery
Posted by Jonathon Watkins in "OFF-TOPIC" @ 10:00 AM
The BBC has an interesting article up about possible reforms to the US Patent system:
"Mad cap patents ranging from protecting a method of painting by dipping a baby's bottom into paint or a system for keeping track of people queuing for the bathroom may soon be a thing of the past if the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has its way. Such patents, while humorous, clearly show both how broken the American patent system and how lax standards are hurting innovation when it comes to business, the Commission says. "The intellectual property system was designed to create incentives for people to innovate by giving them, for want of a better word, a monopoly on their ideas for a certain period of time," FTC commissioner Mozelle Thompson told BBC News Online. "But we have seen instances where companies use that monopoly in an anti-competitive way, sometimes to prevent other products from getting to market, to prevent people from sharing ideas and to prevent the kind of innovation that the patent system is really trying to spur on.""
No, patents being used to stifle innovation? 8O Really? Get outahere! :wink: It's good to see that the system is being reformed, as apparently over half of all US patents should have not been awarded in the fist place.
"An added problem is the growth of so called 'patent trolls' who can be likened to modern day highway robbers cashing in on the problem. These are lawyers and investors who buy cheaply or assume control over paper patents, mistakenly granted largely to failed companies, explains David Simon, computer firm Intel's chief patent counsel. The trolls can use these patents to threaten to shut down the entire computing industry with a court order injunction, no matter how minor the feature that has been patented is. Mr Simon cites one case where a patent troll claimed a patent they had bought for about $50,000 was infringed by all of Intel's microprocessors from the Pentium II onwards and that they were seeking $7 billion in damages. In the end, the case was thrown out by the court, but it still cost Intel $3m to fight it, Mr Simon says."
Ouch. The sooner the Patent systems works as intended, the better.
"Mad cap patents ranging from protecting a method of painting by dipping a baby's bottom into paint or a system for keeping track of people queuing for the bathroom may soon be a thing of the past if the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has its way. Such patents, while humorous, clearly show both how broken the American patent system and how lax standards are hurting innovation when it comes to business, the Commission says. "The intellectual property system was designed to create incentives for people to innovate by giving them, for want of a better word, a monopoly on their ideas for a certain period of time," FTC commissioner Mozelle Thompson told BBC News Online. "But we have seen instances where companies use that monopoly in an anti-competitive way, sometimes to prevent other products from getting to market, to prevent people from sharing ideas and to prevent the kind of innovation that the patent system is really trying to spur on.""
No, patents being used to stifle innovation? 8O Really? Get outahere! :wink: It's good to see that the system is being reformed, as apparently over half of all US patents should have not been awarded in the fist place.
"An added problem is the growth of so called 'patent trolls' who can be likened to modern day highway robbers cashing in on the problem. These are lawyers and investors who buy cheaply or assume control over paper patents, mistakenly granted largely to failed companies, explains David Simon, computer firm Intel's chief patent counsel. The trolls can use these patents to threaten to shut down the entire computing industry with a court order injunction, no matter how minor the feature that has been patented is. Mr Simon cites one case where a patent troll claimed a patent they had bought for about $50,000 was infringed by all of Intel's microprocessors from the Pentium II onwards and that they were seeking $7 billion in damages. In the end, the case was thrown out by the court, but it still cost Intel $3m to fight it, Mr Simon says."
Ouch. The sooner the Patent systems works as intended, the better.
