Victory Lap for Ask Patents • Hacker News Board

Re: Victory Lap for Ask Patents

#151

Post by zanny » Wed, Jul 24, 2013, 2:40 AM UTC

busyant wrote: post #141

bandushrew wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

doesn't that mean that if nobody owned the drug, drug companies would be free to work on a wider range of research?

Put yourself in their shoes. It's going to cost you $50MM-500MM just to test if a drug is effective and safe for treating a disease. You sink all of that money in, with the hopes that your drug gets approved. And then, once you've done the heavy lifting, every generic manufacturer can come along and sell the drug because you don't have it patented? No rational person/company will do that.

You must consider though how the massive test run costs associated only exist because the FDA believed drug companies could foot the bill since they got monopoly distribution.

In a patent-free world, those regulations wouldn't hold weight. What would happen (I imagine) is independently sponsored r&d produces drugs for trial that the FDA itself puts through clinical trials on taxpayer money. You can't sell a drug without FDA approval still, but since drug companies aren't operating as super-for-profit businesses on chemical compounds to help people live, they would foot the bill to make sure its safe.

Re: Victory Lap for Ask Patents

#152

Post by busyant » Fri, Jul 26, 2013, 6:00 PM UTC

zanny wrote: post #151

busyant wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Put yourself in their shoes. It's going to cost you $50MM-500MM just to test if a drug is effective and safe for treating a disease. You sink all of that money in, with the hopes that your drug gets approved. And then, once you've done the heavy lifting, every generic manufacturer can come along and sell the drug because you don't have it patented? No rational person/company will do that.

You must consider though how the massive test run costs associated only exist because the FDA believed drug companies could foot the bill since they got monopoly distribution. In a patent-free world, those regulations wouldn't hold weight. What would happen (I imagine) is independently sponsored r&d produces drugs for trial that the FDA itself puts through clinical trials on taxpayer money. You can't sell a drug with…

Your scenario would be a helluva shakeup on how things are done now.

It would be interesting to see if your scenario would end up doing a better or worse job with respect to drug development.

Re: Victory Lap for Ask Patents

#153

Post by throwawaykf » Mon, Jul 29, 2013, 11:09 PM UTC

sutro wrote: post #147

throwawaykf wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another frequently repeated myth. Actually: 1) Pretty much each and every action has a fee attached [1]. 2) Each rejection has a 3 - 6 month time limit to be responded to. 3) Most applicants will fight every rejection to preserve their rights. 4) Granted patents have (admittedly higher [3]) fees due only every 3, 7 and 11 years, whereas patents in prosecution typically have fees due every 3 - 6 months . However, gran…

This myopic myth-busting of yours assumes that the number of patent applications remains unchanged regardless of how many are granted when in reality more granted patents fuels the fire of more applications. If the USPTO did the right thing and severely limited or even eliminated software patents there's no question that the number of applications, and thus the USPTO's overall budget and staffing levels, would decrea…

Apologies for the late response. I don't check regularly.

1. There is no evidence to back your thesis that "more granted patents fuels the fire of more applications". See this graph [1] of allowance rates in 2000 - 2005 (for an explanation, ask a patent attorney or agent about "Dudas") and this table [2] for number of applications over that time period. There is zero correlation with the steep drop in allowance rates and the rate of new patent applications over the relevant time periods.

2. Why do you think your idea of "the right thing" is actually the right thing, if any such thing exists? Just because the HN echo chamber agrees with you? As I have shown time and time again, the Internet, especially tech media, has no real knowledge of how patents work.

3. The Supreme Court, let alone the CAFC, the PTO and various courts, cannot even define what "software patents" are. How would you begin to limit or eliminate them?

4. None of the above entities have found sufficient rationale to exclude business method patents, let alone software patents. Contrary to popular belief, it's not because they are stupid or technically illiterate, it's because they are very careful thinkers and make the best of what they can given their boundaries.

5. The budget and staffing of the USPTO is, unfortunately, mostly independent of the number of patent applications they receive. Currently, they generate more fees than they are allocated a budget for, and the federal government siphons away the rest.

[1] http://www.patentlyo.com/patent/PatentlyO2006059.jpg [2] http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/ac/ido/oeip/taf/us_stat.htm

Re: Victory Lap for Ask Patents

#154

Post by axman6 » Wed, Jul 31, 2013, 6:56 AM UTC

mr_luc wrote: post #119

zmmmmm wrote: post #104

There was an extremely depressing AMA on reddit a while ago where a patent examiner explained that what all of us consider "prior art" will be completely ignored by a patent examiner: http://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/ww982/iama_patent_e... The bar for prior art is very high - it has to be published in a recognized medium. Most specifically, unless it has a date that the patent officer can verify and cite (and…

Wait. What about the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine?[0] And how can making a physical product not count -- surely any physical product sold in the United States has some kind of qualifying documentation associated with it which counts as publishing, even a manual? [0] http://archive.org/web/web.php

The wayback bachine is used routinely, at least in Australia, to show that a web document was publicly available before the priority date of an application. One problem is that if the document happens to be from the domain of the applicant (more common than you'd think, some applicants are dumb like that), they can have it removed by archive.org. This is why examiners will make copies of the page from a date before the priority date when using documents accessed through the wayback machine.

Re: Victory Lap for Ask Patents

#155

Post by sutro » Wed, Jul 31, 2013, 12:34 PM UTC

throwawaykf wrote: post #153

sutro wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This myopic myth-busting of yours assumes that the number of patent applications remains unchanged regardless of how many are granted when in reality more granted patents fuels the fire of more applications. If the USPTO did the right thing and severely limited or even eliminated software patents there's no question that the number of applications, and thus the USPTO's overall budget and staffing levels, would decrea…

Apologies for the late response. I don't check regularly. 1. There is no evidence to back your thesis that "more granted patents fuels the fire of more applications". See this graph [1] of allowance rates in 2000 - 2005 (for an explanation, ask a patent attorney or agent about "Dudas") and this table [2] for number of applications over that time period. There is zero correlation with the steep drop in allowance rates…

1. Thanks for the second link - both "Total Patent Applications" and "Total Patent Grants" show a similar upward trajectory, both roughly doubling since the late nineties. The first link is uninteresting - acceptance rate fluctuations don't matter much in the face of steadily rising numbers of both applications and grants.

2.3.4. I come to my opinions as a veteran professional programmer, a named inventor on three US software patents (which I now regret signing off on), a software business owner, and a long-time avid follower of this issue. I'm sure that others, perhaps yourself included, may know more about the ins and outs of the patent legal system than I do, but I submit that you and your patent-defending ilk can't see the forest for the trees. The forest is that the vast majority of software-related patents are total bullshit. Given your role here as patent apologist, I don't think I will try to make a case to you why that is; I don't think that would be time well spent.

5. Find me a chart like your second link which shows the staffing levels of the USPTO over time. I'll bet it shows the same upward trend as patent applications and grants.