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Supreme Court Should Say No to Patents That Take Old Ideas Away from the Public

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Re: Supreme Court Should Say No to Patents That Take Old Ideas Away from the Public

#51

Post by Waterluvian »

lisper wrote: post #48
cityzen wrote: post #24

I recently watched the documentary The Patent Scam with the XPlane guy... it was disturbing to say the least. My question is this... With "method" patents being an absolute joke, what would stop me from patenting, "A method of acquiring patents for the sole purpose of litigating infringement without actually creating a licensable alternative"? I'm serious, these patents seems so stupid, I don't see why you couldn't j…

> what would stop me from patenting, "A method of acquiring patents for the sole purpose of litigating infringement without actually creating a licensable alternative"? Absolutely nothing other than your willingness to pursue it and pay the fees. As an exercise, I once applied for a patent on a device that would violate the laws of physics (specifically allowing faster-than-light communications) to test the theory th…

That's fascinating because in my talk with a patent lawyer, they have a very special set of rules for "perpetual motion machines" that make them quite easy to reject.

Re: Supreme Court Should Say No to Patents That Take Old Ideas Away from the Public

#52

Post by lisper »

Waterluvian wrote: post #51
lisper wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> what would stop me from patenting, "A method of acquiring patents for the sole purpose of litigating infringement without actually creating a licensable alternative"? Absolutely nothing other than your willingness to pursue it and pay the fees. As an exercise, I once applied for a patent on a device that would violate the laws of physics (specifically allowing faster-than-light communications) to test the theory th…

That's fascinating because in my talk with a patent lawyer, they have a very special set of rules for "perpetual motion machines" that make them quite easy to reject.

Yes, there are a few crackpot ideas for which there are special rules, including perpetual motion. But anything else is fair game, and there is a fairly foolproof process by which you can get a patent on anything. It goes more or less like this:

1. Draft the patent application. You don't even need to do any research. The PTO will do that for you.

2. Wait for the application to be rejected, which it almost certainly will be the first time around. But the rejection is required to contain specific reasons for the rejection, which will almost always be citations of prior patents that already cover what you have claimed (because there is no shortage of stupid patents). In effect, the PTO does your homework for you.

3. Tweak the application to get around the specific objections the PTO cited and re-submit.

4. Iterate if necessary. But I have never had to go more than one round, and I have eight patents.

Re: Supreme Court Should Say No to Patents That Take Old Ideas Away from the Public

#53

Post by quadrangle »

fipple wrote: post #29
pitaj wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a lot of evidence that copyright doesn't actually help most creators, and significantly holds back progress. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3198147 The same arguments generally apply to patents. There are monetization models like live shows, subscriptions, Patreon, advertising, sponsorships, etc that work very well for creators. Especially in the internet age, we shouldn't act like copyri…

I can say with confidence that >90% of new small-molecule pharmaceuticals would not be created in a patent-free world. Now, not every new small molecule drug is important, in fact probably the majority aren’t. But those that are, save a lot of lives.

The economic harm to society that comes from patents is more than enough to fund public research that could employ the same smart people to discover the same medicines.

Re: Supreme Court Should Say No to Patents That Take Old Ideas Away from the Public

#55

Post by rhino369 »

lisper wrote: post #52
Waterluvian wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's fascinating because in my talk with a patent lawyer, they have a very special set of rules for "perpetual motion machines" that make them quite easy to reject.

Yes, there are a few crackpot ideas for which there are special rules, including perpetual motion. But anything else is fair game, and there is a fairly foolproof process by which you can get a patent on anything. It goes more or less like this: 1. Draft the patent application. You don't even need to do any research. The PTO will do that for you. 2. Wait for the application to be rejected, which it almost certainly w…

This is pretty much how it’s done. But if you don’t tweak (or amend in patent terms of art) well you end up with a pretty worthless patent.

You also can only tweak with regard to disclosures already described in your application.

Re: Supreme Court Should Say No to Patents That Take Old Ideas Away from the Public

#56

Post by mrob »

fipple wrote: post #29
pitaj wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a lot of evidence that copyright doesn't actually help most creators, and significantly holds back progress. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3198147 The same arguments generally apply to patents. There are monetization models like live shows, subscriptions, Patreon, advertising, sponsorships, etc that work very well for creators. Especially in the internet age, we shouldn't act like copyri…

I can say with confidence that >90% of new small-molecule pharmaceuticals would not be created in a patent-free world. Now, not every new small molecule drug is important, in fact probably the majority aren’t. But those that are, save a lot of lives.

The market for pharmaceuticals is already very far from being a free market. It's a heavily regulated industry with extremely high compliance costs. In this specific case, further market distortions in the form of patent monopolies might be necessary to make the market work. Most industries do not have this level of regulation.

Re: Supreme Court Should Say No to Patents That Take Old Ideas Away from the Public

#57

Post by cannonedhamster »

jchw wrote: post #13
opportune wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They also benefit from the stability of operating within a pretty known system and the fact that they are able to afford legal expertise. Big businesses may get hurt by patent trolls, but I’d imagine that this is less strategically important to their business than using their patents to prevent competitors from starting up or from taking away their business. Small businesses get hurt the most by the patent system. A…

No doubt it hurts small business the worst, but I'd not agree with the notion that all big businesses net gain from this. Lawyer time isn't cheap, and the bigger you are, the more attention you gather. And of course, patent trolls optimize to use the most lawyer time possible, to make it less efficient to defend (sometimes, it legitimately isn't worth it.) Basically abolishing patents would definitely receive pushbac…

If you're big enough you have teams of lawyers on staff. It costs you literally nothing extra. If you're not big enough to have staff lawyers you're not big. Small businesses are pretty much everyone else. You can't polish a turd, and this system as well as the copyright system are a giant turd that's antithetical to the original intent of the law.

Re: Supreme Court Should Say No to Patents That Take Old Ideas Away from the Public

#58

Post by lisper »

rhino369 wrote: post #55
lisper wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, there are a few crackpot ideas for which there are special rules, including perpetual motion. But anything else is fair game, and there is a fairly foolproof process by which you can get a patent on anything. It goes more or less like this: 1. Draft the patent application. You don't even need to do any research. The PTO will do that for you. 2. Wait for the application to be rejected, which it almost certainly w…

This is pretty much how it’s done. But if you don’t tweak (or amend in patent terms of art) well you end up with a pretty worthless patent. You also can only tweak with regard to disclosures already described in your application.

Yes, that's true. You do have to plan ahead a little bit. But other than that getting a patent is pretty much a no-brainer under the current regime.

Re: Supreme Court Should Say No to Patents That Take Old Ideas Away from the Public

#59

Post by entwife »

cityzen wrote: post #24

I recently watched the documentary The Patent Scam with the XPlane guy... it was disturbing to say the least. My question is this... With "method" patents being an absolute joke, what would stop me from patenting, "A method of acquiring patents for the sole purpose of litigating infringement without actually creating a licensable alternative"? I'm serious, these patents seems so stupid, I don't see why you couldn't j…

Sounds like a "covered business method", not patentable.

Re: Supreme Court Should Say No to Patents That Take Old Ideas Away from the Public

#60

Post by eropple »

quadrangle wrote: post #53
fipple wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can say with confidence that >90% of new small-molecule pharmaceuticals would not be created in a patent-free world. Now, not every new small molecule drug is important, in fact probably the majority aren’t. But those that are, save a lot of lives.

The economic harm to society that comes from patents is more than enough to fund public research that could employ the same smart people to discover the same medicines.

Not saying you're wrong, but the implication that such public research would happen assumes facts not in evidence.
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