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Gnome patent troll stripped of patent rights

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Re: Gnome patent troll stripped of patent rights

#111

Post by theobeers »

TimPC wrote: post #56
gjsman-1000 wrote: post #11

How about we make "non-practicing entity" a defense in a patent lawsuit? That, if you can prove that the owner of the patent is an NPE (and doesn't reasonably license or innovate or even try to innovate, only sue or unreasonably license), case tossed...

Many for example Universities invent something patentable that's broadly useful but don't want to start a company to make the thing. You're throwing out the baby with the bathwater in this proposal. It also doesn't solve the entire problem as many companies are practicing entities that also use bullshit patents against other practicing entities.

Egregious cases of patent trolling often involve NPEs that are also not the original applicants. i.e., they buy patents just to use them for trolling. It might be possible, and would make a real difference, to target such actors. Once a patent is in the secondary market, an NPE shouldn't be allowed to attempt enforcement.

Re: Gnome patent troll stripped of patent rights

#112

Post by michaelbrave »

dpacmittal wrote: post #85
thechao wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If IP is real property, it should be taxed. The tax system I like for IP works for hire is this: each year you owe 1/4% * N (where N is the age of the IP) in taxes on the IP. Whatever you pay, the "public" (anyone/everyone else) can pay the balance to the USPTO (or LoC) to move that IP in to the public domain. Non-works-for-hire last for some fixed time, or until all the authors/inventors are dead, whichever comes fi…

That's how you get lead inventors dying mysteriously

Or best case the large company waits it out like RCA did for the TV with Philo Farnsworth

Re: Gnome patent troll stripped of patent rights

#113

Post by thechao »

gerdesj wrote: post #108
thechao wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If IP is real property, it should be taxed. The tax system I like for IP works for hire is this: each year you owe 1/4% * N (where N is the age of the IP) in taxes on the IP. Whatever you pay, the "public" (anyone/everyone else) can pay the balance to the USPTO (or LoC) to move that IP in to the public domain. Non-works-for-hire last for some fixed time, or until all the authors/inventors are dead, whichever comes fi…

"If IP is real property, it should be taxed." Surely it is taxed already by profit related taxation eg corporation tax in the UK and I'm sure most other countries have a similar one. Also any sales tax or VAT will capture some loot back to your friendly local Exchequer or equivalent. OK let's get down to brass tacks: What you seem to be asking for is that if someone can be allowed exclusive rights to something then t…

In the US, IP rights are not a natural right. Instead, they are a limited monopoly granted by the people through their agent (the US government) to inventors and authors. The problem is that there are bad actors "patent trolls" (formally: NPEs: non-practicing entities) who use the court system to make money by suing real companies. There is no income that can be taxed by the government: there's only legal settlements.

The problem is that the monopoly is "very cheap" — think of it as analogous to email being free? By adding a very modest tax to the IP we force NPEs to pony up (make a product) or drop the patent into the public domain.

Notice that it is the owner who determines the IP's value.

Re: Gnome patent troll stripped of patent rights

#114

Post by [deleted] »

tepitoperrito wrote: post #98
jmyeet wrote: post #57

> Perhaps it's time for the law to adjust to the point where the stakes for the troll are high enough to make it less appealing as a business? No, that's just polishing the brass on the Titanic. Patents on software just shouldn't exist. At all. We already have established laws where you can't patent maths. An algorithm is just a function. It should be covered by the maths disqualifier. The fact that a smartphone coul…

I need to investigate this "maths disqualifier" because it completely blows my mind that companies are actively patenting the application of statistical machine learning models to their domain. For example Xometry has successfully patented "METHODS AND APPARATUS FOR MACHINE LEARNING PREDICTIONS OF MANUFACTURING PROCESSES"[0]. To me there is literally nothing novel here, they are just describing the results of using a…

[deleted]

Re: Gnome patent troll stripped of patent rights

#115

Post by chmod775 »

btrettel wrote: post #21
coolhoody wrote: post #4

> “offers a number of ways to wirelessly share photos online such as through social media.” How was it possible to patent this in 2018? https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/01/50/f8/a8e7c12...

> How was it possible to patent this in 2018? Easy. I'm a former patent examiner and in my view, the root cause of most bad patents is obviously the lack of time patent examiners get. Most people here don't understand how patents are granted. Patent examiners don't get a lot of time. If I'm an examiner, and I can't find it in the time provided, and the application doesn't have some other issues (101, 112, etc.), the…

That's ridiculous.

Having lots of such work is no excuse to do it worse. It is however an excuse to have a growing backlog.

When it takes 10 years to have a patent granted governments will do something about it, but they won't if you "make do".

Appointments for certain government offices in my municipality are booked for 3 months in advance right now. It made the news and the local government is increasing staff.

This would have looked very differently if someone just decided to cut the allotted time for appointments in half.

Degraded service will be tolerated for a long long time. Broken or nonexistent service less so. Imagine the outcry if people and companies can't get patents anymore.

Thinking of it, patents should probably only be given to natural people and at most one every ten years per person (unless replacing an earlier patent), and who can only sign away up to 50% to a non-natural entity. That'll cut down on the bullshit as well. The notion that one person among billions can come up with multiple patentable ideas in such a timespan is patently ridiculous and need not be entertained. Patentable ideas should take research or domain knowledge accumulated over years and not be a five minute shower-thought.

Re: Gnome patent troll stripped of patent rights

#116

Post by rubyist5eva »

thechao wrote: post #64
jmyeet wrote: post #57

> Perhaps it's time for the law to adjust to the point where the stakes for the troll are high enough to make it less appealing as a business? No, that's just polishing the brass on the Titanic. Patents on software just shouldn't exist. At all. We already have established laws where you can't patent maths. An algorithm is just a function. It should be covered by the maths disqualifier. The fact that a smartphone coul…

If IP is real property, it should be taxed. The tax system I like for IP works for hire is this: each year you owe 1/4% * N (where N is the age of the IP) in taxes on the IP. Whatever you pay, the "public" (anyone/everyone else) can pay the balance to the USPTO (or LoC) to move that IP in to the public domain. Non-works-for-hire last for some fixed time, or until all the authors/inventors are dead, whichever comes fi…

This is insane, and we should just not tax property instead :)

Re: Gnome patent troll stripped of patent rights

#117

Post by linuxhansl »

Software patents and patents on business processes should not be allowed. Period. An idea has no cost and society does not benefit from granting monopolies on ideas.

Note that I am referring specifically to patents, not Copyright. Copyright protects a specific _expression_ of an idea and is an important concept. This is true for both proprietary and open source software.

Also other areas where research is an enormous cost factor (for example medical research) patents are essential to protect the cost of such research (or nobody would do it).

Edit: Spelling

Re: Gnome patent troll stripped of patent rights

#118

Post by munk-a »

nonrandomstring wrote: post #76
munk-a wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you sell a gun to an unstable crazy who shoots up the neighbourhood then some blame lies with you. Aside from everything else in your argument, this is a really bad point to lean on - in America laws are specifically structured to leave the selling party blameless in all but the most extreme circumstances. As a more general response: I also think the thing that makes anti-troll legislation difficult is that maki…

Just to be clear, my suggestion has absolutely nothing to do with attorneys. But this is more interesting; >> If you sell a gun to an unstable crazy who shoots up the neighbourhood then some blame lies with you. > bad point to lean on - in America laws are specifically structured to leave the selling party blameless True perhaps. But I did not raise a point of law. This is an ethical chestnut that traces back to at l…

As depressing as this may be - we're talking about the legal system so ethical standards aren't really relevant. America (and well, everywhere mostly) has historically had a lot of extremely unethical laws. Currently on the ground most weapon sales don't require extensive background checks which frees the seller of any legal liability - it is illegal to sell a gun to a dangerous person, but it's not illegal to clamp your hands over your eyes and ears and never run a background check in the first place... thus, legally, remaining ignorant of the individual's fitness to own a firearm.

This is an extremely divisive topic in America so I'd really just suggest avoiding any gun or self-defense related analogies whenever possible.

Re: Gnome patent troll stripped of patent rights

#119

Post by Gigachad »

TimTheTinker wrote: post #110
pitaj wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Patents shouldn't exist at all.

Patents have served society significantly. Without them, companies would develop new technology and keep it secret, forcing others to guess or reverse-engineer the process -- at which point they would likely keep it secret as well. So many governments give people a limited (usually If you look through the US patent archives, there are instructions for all sorts of manufacturing and construction technologies that woul…

They still keep it secret though. The patent system didn't allow us to work out how all the proprietary microcontrollers and SoCs work so we have projects like the one trying to reverse engineer the M1. And the publish this reverse engineering for free without the help of the patent system.

Half of the patents are on absolutely trivial stuff that reverse engineering means looking at it for 1 minute.

Re: Gnome patent troll stripped of patent rights

#120

Post by kstrauser »

thechao wrote: post #64
jmyeet wrote: post #57

> Perhaps it's time for the law to adjust to the point where the stakes for the troll are high enough to make it less appealing as a business? No, that's just polishing the brass on the Titanic. Patents on software just shouldn't exist. At all. We already have established laws where you can't patent maths. An algorithm is just a function. It should be covered by the maths disqualifier. The fact that a smartphone coul…

If IP is real property, it should be taxed. The tax system I like for IP works for hire is this: each year you owe 1/4% * N (where N is the age of the IP) in taxes on the IP. Whatever you pay, the "public" (anyone/everyone else) can pay the balance to the USPTO (or LoC) to move that IP in to the public domain. Non-works-for-hire last for some fixed time, or until all the authors/inventors are dead, whichever comes fi…

Darn straight. IP values could be self-assessed: you tell the IRS (or equivalent) how much they're worth. However, if you're suing over a violation, that's the official value of the asset. You can't claim $100M in damages on an asset if you're only paying taxes on $30,000 worth of property.
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