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The original point of patents were to get ideas into public knowledge. If you are selling a product it is public knowledge and we have no reason to offer a patent. If the idea isn't very novel it will be easily reverse engineered if it is novel then it won't be for some time.
I don't think patents should apply to any product only to methods of creating products and internal practices. The original point of patents were to get ideas into public knowledge. If you are selling a product it is public knowledge and we have no reason to offer a patent. If the idea isn't very novel it will be easily reverse engineered if it is novel then it won't be for some time.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
"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 dem…
> not just churn out whitepapers to tax others who actually will implement. An insightful turn of phrase - the relevant congressional committees should hear it.
There's another part to this: enforce the patent, or lose it (in the same way that trademark must be enforced or lost). This stops, say, Fraunhofer Gesselschaft from waiting years as the MP3 community developed using the code it uploaded to ISO with no license attached, then retrospectively demanding $15,000 for every encoding project. Or Unisys failng to enforce the LZW patent while GIF became a standard, then retro…
Suppose I hold a WO(US+JP+EP) worldwide patent on ball-based vacuum cleaners. A Japanese factory produces a copy-cat and starts selling in Japan. I spend 2 years talking and negotiating with manufacturers in the US, whilst at the same time the infringing Japanese production is ramped up.
The US manufacturer spots a Japanese model on sale and tells me they won't license it as I've not protected my patent and so it's now [under your regime] invalid ...?
Even if you limit it by jurisdiction and only look at use of the patent in the specific area, then I'd have to know of the output of all US factories to be able to cease the production in a timely way. How long after a company starts use would I have to notice and send my C&D letter.
What if the patent covers a circuit arrangement in a TFT display, do I as patent holder have to purchase all displays and examine them to determine if one infringes my patent? What if the thing I have a patent on is being produced for business purposes, eg in house use (a rocket engine at NASA that will be used for satellite launches, say), using my patent spec but I can't examine the thing to check if it's infringing? I can't afford to sue NASA immediately, so that means now anyone can use my patent??
Earlier quoted context omitted.
"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 dem…
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. - comme…
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.
Patents should not be a marketing defense strategy.
Patenting things you have no intent of implementing/selling simply to block competition should be outlawed.
Who gets to define what "use" means, or what acceptable "use" is? If a company wants to use its patent, but can't arrange financing for manufacturing goods based on the patent, or can't find anyone to manufacture the goods for it, does the company lose its patent? Is licensing a patent using it? Isn't that what patent trolls already do? If licensing is not considered using a patent, wouldn't that put an incredible de…
"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 dem…
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.