There needs to be a "use it or lose it" doctrine/law around technological IP. I get all the arguments around creating a market for the patent rights, but it just leads to these bottom feeders creating no value and increasing costs for the industry and consumers.
Cloudflare defeats patent troll Sable at trial
121–130 of 426 posts
Re: Cloudflare defeats patent troll Sable at trial
#122There needs to be a "use it or lose it" doctrine/law around technological IP. I get all the arguments around creating a market for the patent rights, but it just leads to these bottom feeders creating no value and increasing costs for the industry and consumers.
There are research companies who only do research and get money by licencing their patents. I mean, I really would like to live in a world without patents, but currently those companies do provide value, but cannot exist, without guarding their IP. Yet they would cease to exist, with your proposal.
Re: Cloudflare defeats patent troll Sable at trial
#123Earlier quoted context omitted.
> $500/year per patent, will ensure use it (if you think it is valuable) or lose it. Not really. Some patents are fantastically valuable to patent trolls. Some are not. A $500/year fee isn't going to deter a "company" of lawyers who are making millions soaking businesses with patents that should never have been granted. If you want a scheme that actually does what you want, you'd need something like: The owner of the…
>making millions soaking businesses with patents that should never have been granted. Invalidity arguments and IPRs suddenly aren't things?
Presumption of validity is what makes patent trolling more lucrative than other forms of predatory litigation. You're guilty until proven innocent, because the law assumes that the patent office is generally doing the right thing.
Re: Cloudflare defeats patent troll Sable at trial
#124Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ok I'll bite, why stop at software?
Software patents do not provide the benefits other patents do. Name a piece of software that would likely not have been written if it wasn't able to be patent protected. Now compare that with other industries like pharmaceuticals, textiles, chemical processes, etc. Software is different because it's more straight forward engineering than explorative science. If an implementation is obvious to anyone with the prerequi…
The consequence of this is that the state-of-the-art in many areas of software are not in the public literature and there is no trivial way to learn it. Ubiquitous deployment in the cloud greatly limits the ability to reverse-engineer the underlying architectures, data structures, and algorithms. This is notionally the situation patents sought to avoid, but the practical unenforceability of algorithm patents has made it the default outcome regardless of whether there are patents on software.
Re: Cloudflare defeats patent troll Sable at trial
#125Earlier quoted context omitted.
Patents are property and we need taxes/fee on it. $500/year per patent, will ensure use it (if you think it is valuable) or lose it. This is no different from domain names, most people pay $10 - $100/year just to keep a domain name. Some domain names are used, most aren't. These taxes can fund free education or healthcare or defense.
> $500/year per patent, will ensure use it (if you think it is valuable) or lose it. Not really. Some patents are fantastically valuable to patent trolls. Some are not. A $500/year fee isn't going to deter a "company" of lawyers who are making millions soaking businesses with patents that should never have been granted. If you want a scheme that actually does what you want, you'd need something like: The owner of the…
In the future you can amend the value claim, but you can only adjust it down.
Re: Cloudflare defeats patent troll Sable at trial
#126Earlier quoted context omitted.
>making millions soaking businesses with patents that should never have been granted. Invalidity arguments and IPRs suddenly aren't things?
> Invalidity arguments and IPRs suddenly aren't things? I'm sure that you're aware that when you go to court, the result is never certain. Bad ruling happen all the time.
Re: Cloudflare defeats patent troll Sable at trial
#127There needs to be a "use it or lose it" doctrine/law around technological IP. I get all the arguments around creating a market for the patent rights, but it just leads to these bottom feeders creating no value and increasing costs for the industry and consumers.
the moment you put an expiration date on patents due to lack of use, watch moneyed competitors sitting around waiting for your patent to expire instead of using yours to bring it to market
Re: Cloudflare defeats patent troll Sable at trial
#128Earlier quoted context omitted.
>making millions soaking businesses with patents that should never have been granted. Invalidity arguments and IPRs suddenly aren't things?
The troll can price their licenses slightly less than the presumed legal costs. Then most victims won't fight. Presumption of validity is what makes patent trolling more lucrative than other forms of predatory litigation. You're guilty until proven innocent, because the law assumes that the patent office is generally doing the right thing.
It's just an evidentiary presumption that is trivially rebutted with any evidence.
Re: Cloudflare defeats patent troll Sable at trial
#129Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maybe the patent system could work, without the possibility of selling patents at all? Have not thought it out, but I know musicians also seldom profit of selling their IP to the major labels. But they are pushed into it.
Based on the text of the IP clause of the US Constitution I have wondered whether selling or licensing of IP (or even assigning it to a corporation) is technically allowable. https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/article-1/section-8... : To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries; "Exclu…
Re: Cloudflare defeats patent troll Sable at trial
#130At the end of the day, this is a deep legislation issue, patents should not exist at all. They are supposed to promote innovation, in practice, it's more about protecting guys who sitting and waiting for passive cash. Once we give exclusive rights to all AI stuff to Nvidia, is the world going to be a better place ? What would be with ChatGPT if Google actually had enforced (or enforces) patents on Transformers. Is th…
I'm not so convinced of your argument yet. You point out some cases in which granting a patent will lead to reduced innovation, which I agree is bad. But how about innovations which might never have happened without the patent system in place? I agree with you that patents a probably a net negative for innovation, but we need to come up with a stronger argument than monopolies are bad.