The Patent Pledge • Hacker News Board

Re: The Patent Pledge

#111

Post by beagle3 » Wed, Aug 31, 2011, 10:15 PM UTC

crenshaw wrote: post #22

samgro wrote: post #11

I have a PG question for PG: what problem does this solve? I see 2 problems currently. 1. Microsoft suing Android makers, and other similar examples, where large companies burn billions of dollars of our economy over something pointless. 2. Patent trolls like Intellectual Ventures and their shell companies suing startups. How does this solve either of these problems? Who really needs this?

Yeah, I'm not really afraid of Microsoft -- especially if I don't ship a product based on Linux or Android. And patent trolls aren't going to agree to this pledge. Patent trolls worry me the most. I'd like to see a pledge around having the tech community pool together against patent trolls. Not sure how you'd do it, but I'd like to see that.

you should be worried about Microsoft: see the chilling effect case of virtualdub, a Windows-only software.

Re: The Patent Pledge

#112

Post by michaeldhopkins » Wed, Aug 31, 2011, 10:19 PM UTC

pg wrote: post #59

tc wrote: post #31

It's not immediately clear to me whether this solves any part of the current problem. But on reflection, I believe I understand the motivation here. Big companies that use patents as a revenue stream (MSFT, IBM, etc.) typically bide their time and bring a patent lawsuit once a new company is established and there is blood to drain. It's the threat of such a lawsuit in the future that can negatively impact investment…

If you want to start a movement, you can't aim too high initially, or you just stall. The patent pledge in its current form is at least fairly easy to swallow. If it sticks, it will have the effect of making patent suits against competitors seem more dubious, which would in turn prepare people for more exacting versions. How far ultimately would you want to push it? I honestly don't know yet. Patents may have some ut…

Paul, how do we join? I'd like to support this.

Re: The Patent Pledge

#113

Post by damonpace » Wed, Aug 31, 2011, 10:22 PM UTC

The only problem I see with patents is the legal process (legal bullying). It should not take 2 years and $1 million to prove your innovation does not conflict with another patent. That's ridiculous! Ideas & companies are killed by the threat & cost of going through a lawsuit, not by the threat of actually losing a law suit. That's why so many companies would rather pay a fee to use a patent than actually go through a lengthly lawsuit to fight the patent owner. (See Microsoft & many phone manufacturers.) It's called legal bullying, not patent failure. It doesn't just happen in the school yard anymore. PG is simply trying to get the 6th graders to stop picking on the kindergartners, so the kindergartners can play safely in their own playground.

Re: The Patent Pledge

#114

Post by FredBrach » Wed, Aug 31, 2011, 10:23 PM UTC

I think it solves everything unless patent trolling.

Here is why. Well let's say Microsoft marks its name into the current patent pledge because it’s so green to be in the patent pledge even in its current form.

So now, it is the same as always, Microsoft will not be able to pursue ANY company which SEEMS to be a STARTUP at a given time from the point of view of the mass. Do you understand? Microsoft can’t say: “Hey! Are you dumb? This company has 26 people so I can sue them. Don’t troll me fools!” Hello the greenness… That’s too late! The goal is to be green, nobody care about the strict truth. I think even a hype company with 500 people can be safe with the current patent pledge.

And probably it may even overtake the patent framework. It may be almost a "don't sue a startup" pledge.:d

Re: The Patent Pledge

#115

Post by chc » Wed, Aug 31, 2011, 10:29 PM UTC

Have any lawyer-types looked at this? IANAL, but I kind of doubt corporate lawyers will allow this even informally. For any target that a big company would want to sue, I'm pretty sure that going through with this pledge would leave the company vulnerable to a laches defense (basically, "You should have sued me before I invested billions in this") once the little startups aren't so little anymore. If I'm talking nonsense, anyone can feel free to correct me. It will be cool if this works.

Re: The Patent Pledge

#116

Post by beagle3 » Wed, Aug 31, 2011, 10:32 PM UTC

jessriedel wrote: post #109

beagle3 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To clarify: the declared value puts a _maximum_ on awarded damages, but does not make it in any way automatic (even if the product is found infringing). My proposal is that it is set retroactively one year back: when you file your 2011 taxes (on April 2012 at the latest), you would assign a value for it for 2011, and pay it at that point. If you sue (or even threat to sue) someone in 2011 before paying the tax, that…

I don't get it then. If my company holds a huge portfolio of patents, and we sue for $X damages on some subset of them in a given year, we will simply value those patents at $X and the rest at zero. Then we recover $X in damages, and pay 1% of X in taxes. In other words, doesn't this just reduce to a 1% tax on patent damages? (Even if we think we'll only recover on average p% of our claims, we still only pay 1% of X…

No, it does not reduce to 1%. At worst, it will reduce to (1/p)% (with pHowever, it does chill the chilling effect - right now, e.g. Microsoft has ~20,000 patents, and they can sue anyone for anything. This way, they will actively have to choose strategically what they want to enforce.

Finally, and I think I haven't made this clear enough, I don't think my proposal is a GOOD patent system in any way. It is bad. But it is not as bad as the existing system, and (I suspect) it has a much better chance of passing than a complete reform.

Furthermore, it stops some of the (currently legal) tax loops that involve passing patents among shell corporations.

The basic idea is to align value with cost. Any system in which the value of the patent is potentially infinite (as in the current system) is materially broken, and it is just a matter of time until someone finds a way to game it (non practicing patent trolls). Any sane system must have cost (of patent, property, copyright, etc) rise at least linearly with value.

Re: The Patent Pledge

#117

Post by gord » Wed, Aug 31, 2011, 10:38 PM UTC

Its a bandaid where a bazooka is needed... but its an epsilon of improvement in the right direction.

Re: The Patent Pledge

#118

Post by motters » Wed, Aug 31, 2011, 10:38 PM UTC

As far as I know, pledges are legally worthless.

Re: The Patent Pledge

#119

Post by cienrak » Wed, Aug 31, 2011, 10:44 PM UTC

tc wrote: post #31

It's not immediately clear to me whether this solves any part of the current problem. But on reflection, I believe I understand the motivation here. Big companies that use patents as a revenue stream (MSFT, IBM, etc.) typically bide their time and bring a patent lawsuit once a new company is established and there is blood to drain. It's the threat of such a lawsuit in the future that can negatively impact investment…

A recent study found that patents per capita was the most important factor in determining the gap between the haves and have nots in a nation.

http://thinkprogress.org/yglesias/2011/08/31/309483/patents-...

What's poorly thought out about this pledge is that a shop of far less than 25 people could easily clones of web and mobile apps at scale.

Re: The Patent Pledge

#120

Post by pjscott » Wed, Aug 31, 2011, 10:51 PM UTC

guelo wrote: post #64

SoftwarePatent wrote: post #46

This pledge boils down to "shine light on bad actors", but I doubt it will change any behavior. Only rent-seekers [1] want software patents to exist, and you can't decrease their reputation any more, it's already 0. The S. Ct. already had their big chance in Bilski to dial back software patentability, and they blew it. Our only hope is Congress. (/me shudders hopelessly) And to anyone suggesting we abolish patents co…

I'm not so sure pharmaceuticals are an example of good patents. Most of the patented research is actually paid for by taxpayers through the NIH, and then paid for again by patients through exorbitant prices for 15 years. Then there is the problem of people in the third world dying because of the high prices charged by patent monopolies.

The patent monopolies are partly there to offset the very high costs of getting FDA approval, which are there in order to ensure safety and efficacy, to prevent people from dying from unsafe pharmaceuticals. And this causes people to be unable to afford drugs that could have kept them from dying, because the prices need to be high to pay for the testing.

I'm not sure what the right balance is between caution and cost in FDA drug trials, but I think that the procedure should probably be made less rigorous (and long, and expensive) than it is today.