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Do software patents only exist for rich players to build a moat against poorer players? At this point with patents of this quality only reason for them to exist seems to be to cross-license them for extra revenue and to possibly block anyone too poor to fight for themselves...
Do software patents only exist for rich players to build a moat against poorer players? At this point with patents of this quality only reason for them to exist seems to be to cross-license them for extra revenue and to possibly block anyone too poor to fight for themselves...
I have prior art, there's a ton of prior art GitHub, good luck with that patent.
Plenty of things with prior art are successfully patentend. And are successfully enforced, because it is cheaper to pay the troll to cross the bridge than to take it to court. It isn't until the sue the wrong person who has the backbone and the resources to contest it that the patent gets revoked.
Do software patents only exist for rich players to build a moat against poorer players? At this point with patents of this quality only reason for them to exist seems to be to cross-license them for extra revenue and to possibly block anyone too poor to fight for themselves...
That is why all patents exist. It's ridiculously time consuming and expensive to get a utility patent for anything. I invented something at my old company 5 years ago and the patent process is still ongoing, should hopefully get awarded this year. It costs tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees and you need to actively litigate infringements if you want to keep it. 99% of patents exist just for legal bullying and…
Do software patents only exist for rich players to build a moat against poorer players? At this point with patents of this quality only reason for them to exist seems to be to cross-license them for extra revenue and to possibly block anyone too poor to fight for themselves...
Software patents are probably unenforceable in most cases, at least in the US and Europe, are essentially unenforceable. The European Patent Office, very sensibly, denies software patents. The USPTO has a strange insistence on granting them even though they aren't legally valid. Therefore, if you have a lot of money, you might file a software patent for one of four reasons: 1) You hope that the US courts might one da…
I recently learned [0] that the USPTO makes it money from patents, its not government funded. Not only that but checking patents loses them net money while maintenance fees are the real cash cow.
The whole system is similar to the revenue model of a shitty journal that just publishes whatever research as long as the author pays. Except the office doesn't even need to care about their reputation in granting dubious patents because they have legal backing.
[0] It was a comment on hacker news, that I checked.
Do software patents only exist for rich players to build a moat against poorer players? At this point with patents of this quality only reason for them to exist seems to be to cross-license them for extra revenue and to possibly block anyone too poor to fight for themselves...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Software patents are probably unenforceable in most cases, at least in the US and Europe, are essentially unenforceable. The European Patent Office, very sensibly, denies software patents. The USPTO has a strange insistence on granting them even though they aren't legally valid. Therefore, if you have a lot of money, you might file a software patent for one of four reasons: 1) You hope that the US courts might one da…
> The USPTO has a strange insistence on granting them even though they aren't legally valid I recently learned [0] that the USPTO makes it money from patents, its not government funded. Not only that but checking patents loses them net money while maintenance fees are the real cash cow. The whole system is similar to the revenue model of a shitty journal that just publishes whatever research as long as the author pay…
It's not the user fee model that's broken, it's the revenue basis. Maybe it would be more effective if they tripled the filing cost and if you successfully obtain the patent (it's rejected by the patent officers), you get half back.
Software patent are a scourge of the software industry. Patents are designed to protect costly research; simply having an idea is not costly (but it makes in medical research for example). All that software patents do is creating a minefield that hinders competition.
For software Copyright is a far better instrument. Let the one with best implementation win... That's where the cost is: Implementing, testing, shipping, maintaining. Protect that.
Sorry for the rant.
Edit: Spelling
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think you do not need to register a patent, you can just publish the idea with a verifiable date, that could be considered as a "prior art". I would suggest to make a free website where anyone can publish any ideas although I do not understand how one can prove the publish date. And then the community could publish everything that might be potentially invented in near future to prevent others from getting a patent.…
The problem is that it doesn't work as such. We all know that Meucci invented the telephone but Bell patented it. The patent office rarely care about it, they register whatever you want, and then lawyers of companies can sue you for using it without permission. Of course you can fight it in court and affirm it's prior art, if you have enough money to pay your lawyer, and do you have more money than OpenAI, Meta, Goog…
It requires a yearly payment and can get quite expensive [1]. There are application, examination, issuing and publishing fees for each patent. In contrast, publishing ideas online is free.
[1] https://www.uspto.gov/learning-and-resources/fees-and-paymen...