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Mark Cuban: If you want to see more jobs created -- change patent laws

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Re: Mark Cuban: If you want to see more jobs created -- change patent laws

#71

Post by Hyena »

Auction patent extensions in blocks. First, you start with a free, though much shorter than present, initial period. After that, however, you must purchase the next extension at auction. At period2, there will be X2% as many extensions as there are expiring patents. At period3, you must buy another extension out of that tranche, which has X3% as many extensions as period2. And so on.

Extensions could be sold to any party before their "apply on" date, they are not specific to a particular patent until it has been attached to it. Once a patent passes its expiration date, it can never be recovered and is now public domain forever.

I think this would work best if the sum of the extensions was less than currently available. The basic idea is that a company who felt a patent really was central to their business could pay a potentially very hefty price for the privilege, so the number of extensions for sale should be kept quite small.

Re: Mark Cuban: If you want to see more jobs created -- change patent laws

#72

Post by jonmc12 »

extension wrote: post #67
jonmc12 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've worked with computer forensics investigators before - you'd be surprised how much data you can get from your harddrive and mobile devices.. If inventors took a bit of care, and good logging / storage software was available, I think the certification process could be as straightforward as applying for a provisional patent.

Can forensics investigators tell whether I came up with an idea in the shower vs hearing about an existing product?

This is exactly the mindset that leads to the patent system we have today. You are thinking of intellectual property as an idea - its not. Meaningful intellectual property is a functioning method or product that delivers value to people (is this all IP? no, but this the scope of IP I am suggesting protecting). It takes, research, communication, testing, experimentation, failure, and repetition to truly build something that works. And yes, forensics will show the hard drive state and web history logs before, and after you were in the shower and then all the way along the long road to you building something that people actually want.

You hear of an existing product? Who cares? If you can invent something similar without referencing related documentation or code during the actual process of invention keep it out of the legal system.

Re: Mark Cuban: If you want to see more jobs created -- change patent laws

#73

Post by masklinn »

Hyena wrote: post #71

Auction patent extensions in blocks. First, you start with a free, though much shorter than present, initial period. After that, however, you must purchase the next extension at auction. At period2, there will be X2% as many extensions as there are expiring patents. At period3, you must buy another extension out of that tranche, which has X3% as many extensions as period2. And so on. Extensions could be sold to any p…

The only point I would see for this scheme is to make money for the patent office.

> The basic idea is that a company who felt a patent really was central to their business could pay a potentially very hefty price for the privilege, so the number of extensions for sale should be kept quite small.

It won't be. There's too much money to be made and too much lobbying involved.

Re: Mark Cuban: If you want to see more jobs created -- change patent laws

#74

Post by schwabacher »

beagle3 wrote: post #68
schwabacher wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a very good idea, but one downside is that it gives the government an incentive to grant patents and to prevent them from expiring.

It is no worse than the existing system. If you are not aware, filing a patent costs a few thousand dollars, and after receiving a patent, you have to file "maintenance fees" which easily total tens of thousands through the lifetime of a patent. Same incentive exists today to grant patents (government makes much less money from rejected patent than from granted patent), and to prevent them from expiring (collect more…

Existing maintenance and filing fees clearly have not been enough to prevent large numbers of frivolous patents. Any IP tax would have to be quite a bit larger than fees existing now to be effective.

I read somewhere that although Russia has serious problems with alcoholism, public programs trying to fight it have been handicapped because a large part of govt. revenues come from a liqour tax. I think it is at least worth considering this outcome before creating any kind of 'sin tax'.

Re: Mark Cuban: If you want to see more jobs created -- change patent laws

#75

Post by [deleted] »

beagle3 wrote: post #68
schwabacher wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a very good idea, but one downside is that it gives the government an incentive to grant patents and to prevent them from expiring.

It is no worse than the existing system. If you are not aware, filing a patent costs a few thousand dollars, and after receiving a patent, you have to file "maintenance fees" which easily total tens of thousands through the lifetime of a patent. Same incentive exists today to grant patents (government makes much less money from rejected patent than from granted patent), and to prevent them from expiring (collect more…

[deleted]

Re: Mark Cuban: If you want to see more jobs created -- change patent laws

#76

Post by [deleted] »

beagle3 wrote: post #68
schwabacher wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a very good idea, but one downside is that it gives the government an incentive to grant patents and to prevent them from expiring.

It is no worse than the existing system. If you are not aware, filing a patent costs a few thousand dollars, and after receiving a patent, you have to file "maintenance fees" which easily total tens of thousands through the lifetime of a patent. Same incentive exists today to grant patents (government makes much less money from rejected patent than from granted patent), and to prevent them from expiring (collect more…

[deleted]

Re: Mark Cuban: If you want to see more jobs created -- change patent laws

#77

Post by [deleted] »

beagle3 wrote: post #68
schwabacher wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a very good idea, but one downside is that it gives the government an incentive to grant patents and to prevent them from expiring.

It is no worse than the existing system. If you are not aware, filing a patent costs a few thousand dollars, and after receiving a patent, you have to file "maintenance fees" which easily total tens of thousands through the lifetime of a patent. Same incentive exists today to grant patents (government makes much less money from rejected patent than from granted patent), and to prevent them from expiring (collect more…

[deleted]

Re: Mark Cuban: If you want to see more jobs created -- change patent laws

#78

Post by shawndrost »

Cushman wrote: post #43
shawndrost wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Actually, I would be happy with just one patent. I nominate RSA, which is kind of the foundation of modern commerce. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSA http://www.google.com/patents?vid=4405829

Was the patent really necessary, though? Wiki even mentions that it was only patentable in the US because of prior art, and likely would have been unpatentable if all extant prior art were known. If anything, this seems like an example that argues the insufficiency of patents. If you invent something as important as RSA, you should be rewarded with a kingdom— and the information should be freely available to everyone…

(I'm actually opposed to most software patents, so take this outlier as I do: a strange case that bears further consideration.)

This patent is definitely the kind of novel, amazing discovery that we want to reward.

Yes, the authors filed for a patent after their work was originally published [0], so they lost their international patents on a technicality. Yes, another scientist may [1] have secretly discovered the same thing, filing it away in classified documents, but by definition, "prior art" has been "made available to the public" [2].

Nonetheless, here are some important facts: first, if it weren't for this work, ecommerce would have been delayed for an unknowable amount of time. Second, if it weren't for this kind of fantastically profitable outcome, MIT (the original patent holder) would be hundreds of millions of dollars poorer.

[0] The wiki is misleading. It says "Since a paper describing the algorithm had been published in August 1977..." but it turns out that the referenced paper was on RSA itself, written by a pop science author. From the reference: "RSA was first presented to the public by Martin Gardner, in an article in Scientific American in August 1977."

[1] The wiki cites no source for this fact, so I can't compare the algorithms.

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prior_art

Re: Mark Cuban: If you want to see more jobs created -- change patent laws

#79

Post by beagle3 »

schwabacher wrote: post #74
beagle3 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is no worse than the existing system. If you are not aware, filing a patent costs a few thousand dollars, and after receiving a patent, you have to file "maintenance fees" which easily total tens of thousands through the lifetime of a patent. Same incentive exists today to grant patents (government makes much less money from rejected patent than from granted patent), and to prevent them from expiring (collect more…

Existing maintenance and filing fees clearly have not been enough to prevent large numbers of frivolous patents. Any IP tax would have to be quite a bit larger than fees existing now to be effective. I read somewhere that although Russia has serious problems with alcoholism, public programs trying to fight it have been handicapped because a large part of govt. revenues come from a liqour tax. I think it is at least w…

Earlier you mentioned:

> it gives the government an incentive to grant patents and to prevent them from expiring.

as a downside to IP tax, when said downside already exists with said system, and is not made worse by my proposal. Then you say:

> Existing maintenance and filing fees clearly have not been enough to prevent large numbers of frivolous patents.

But this does not support your earlier assertion - the existing fees actually _support_ a large number of frivolous patents, because the value of a patent is (potentially) infinite, whereas the cost is known, and not prohibitive. The existing fees were NOT designed to curb patents -- they were designed to make it profitable for the government.

> Any IP tax would have to be quite a bit larger than fees existing now to be effective."

My proposal addresses this perfectly. It puts the "cost of carry" of a patent in direct proportion to its value. It is not a "sin tax", it is a "use tax" - if you use the legal system (courts, customs) to protect your profits, you pay according to these profits.

The end result is likely to be much fewer well written patents which are non-trivial and (relatively) easy to defend in court, which will be strategically selected by the grantees. Furthermore, it puts older and newer patents on equal grounds, unlike other suggestions of "from now on ..."

It is probably possible to balance the filing fees (because of fewer patents) and the IP tax so that it doesn't reduce the government intake; This might not actually be at 1%/year, but rather at 2%/year or 0.5%/year (or some other number), so the liquor thing might not be relevant -- although I agree, in general, that the government is itself a "fee / tax" junkee and therefore cannot be trusted to do the right thing.

Re: Mark Cuban: If you want to see more jobs created -- change patent laws

#80

Post by atlei »

From Wikipedia:

"The term patent usually refers to an exclusive right granted to anyone who invents any new, useful, and non-obvious process, machine, article of manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, and claims that right in a formal patent application. "

In my opinion, the key part is the non-obvious part of "new, useful, and non-obvious"; the invention of a new medicine is usually non-obvious, but the invention of Amazon 1-click shopping is obvious (in hindsight).

What is "non-obvious" ? If a single individual can come up with a similar solution (without access to the underlying research/data involved in the patent) in a short amount of time (a week, or at least in a DAY in the 1-click example) it does not represent a significant investment.

There should also be a requirement that the idea is implemented to be able to sue others. You may stop others' implementation if you have a patent, but you should not be able to charge them for anything until you have implemented a working solution yourself (to avoid patent trolls).

Or simply use the KISS principle and remove all software patents once and for all !

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