
Why isn't there a Kickstarter for killing patents? - EAKoester
http://galenward.com/post/57896321656/why-isnt-there-a-kickstarter-for-killing-patents
======
chasing
The flaw, here, I think, is that's it's still prohibitively expensive. If it
takes hundreds of thousands of dollars to invalidate a patent, we're probably
talking hundreds of millions of dollars to invalidate _all_ of the patents
that could be used for trolling.

That's part of the problem, right? For each patent we hear about being killed,
there are ten, twenty, or a hundred more waiting in the wings to take over.
And why wouldn't there be, since there appears to be little financial downside
for the trolls.

Anyway: Having the community spend millions upon millions upon millions to fix
this problem would just be another financial drain on the industry. This is a
situation where the government needs to step in and do its job, because
there's a busted system and the players involved are simply not capable of
fixing it without the government's help.

~~~
burntsushi
> This is a situation where the government needs to step in and do its job

That's what they're doing _right now_. And that's the problem.

~~~
chasing
No. The job of the government is to use patents "to promote the progress of
science and useful arts." Says so right in the owner's manual. Patent trolls
are exploiting legal loopholes to do the opposite of "promoting progress," so
the laws need to be adjusted to fix this. As far as I'm aware, private
entities cannot pass laws. So. The government needs to be involved. And they
need to do a better job.

~~~
burntsushi
I think we'll just have to disagree. It is my opinion that answers of the
form, "well the only problem is that the laws are just a little off and it can
all be fixed with a few tweaks," are incredibly naive. They've been repeated
over and over as government has grown in size. It ignores the fundamental
problem: at the end of the day, it's just humans making and enforcing the
laws, and they are under extreme pressure by the system to become corrupt and
bend the laws in their favor.

If you want a system of IP run by elected representatives, then you've got to
accept the corruption that comes with it.

~~~
chasing
You're disagreeing with something I'm not saying.

~~~
burntsushi
I disagreed with your proposed solution. Which you said was to just tweak the
laws.

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srgseg
Tim O'Reilly created a site called BountyQuest in 2000, where he posted a
$10,000 bounty to invalidate Amazon's 1-click patent.

"The way the system works is that a company or individual, remaining anonymous
to the public, must pay BountyQuest $2,500 to post a bounty on the site.
BountyQuest, which is to receive a 40 percent commission on bounties paid,
will monitor the process and will be liable to pay the bounty if the posting
group cannot or will not pay it to a deserving party."

[http://www.nytimes.com/2000/10/23/technology/23PATE.html](http://www.nytimes.com/2000/10/23/technology/23PATE.html)

However Tim then shut the site down, saying "I had high hopes for BountyQuest,
too; it seemed like a great idea. But while I still believe that the failure
to search for prior art remains a major problem for the patent system, the
company was not able to make a successful business bridging the gap. Of
course, this could simply have been an execution issue, or market timing. But
it could also have been the fact that the patent mess is a thorny thicket that
doesn't lend itself well to penetration by amateurs."

[http://oreilly.com/pub/a/oreilly/ask_tim/2003/bountyquest_10...](http://oreilly.com/pub/a/oreilly/ask_tim/2003/bountyquest_1003.html)

------
VandyILL
I really don't understand what you're advocating or what mechanism you hope to
develop.

You basically want to put out bounties for law firms to take cases against
patents? What patents would they target? What adversarial setting would they
defend / attack patents in? Couldn't this result in a race to the bottom about
what things people want in the public domain - ie. a bunch of people
petitioning to have a law firm attack Amazon's One-Click patent? Basically if
someone made something desirable enough, then an efficient market would funnel
enough money into trumping their patent through your concept, destroying
whatever incentive the company had to make something valuable.

I could be off on what your suggesting, so i apologize.

While there are lots of flaws & advantages in the patent system, one major
opinion I have is that there should be some sort of use/active-pursue
requirement. Ie. you can't claim property ownership over an idea unless you're
actively putting it into product / trying to figure out how. Or maybe a
shorter length of the patent (ie. 5/10 years), unless you're actively pursuing
it.

This would be similar to adjustments in other types of property law. Ie. a lot
of property law is based on incentives to define ownership / acquisition in a
means that most benefits society. For example in the old property case
Brazelton, they didn't award ownership to the person who found a sunk ship &
squatted on it, but rather awarded ownership to the person who came later but
actually had the technology to lift it.

~~~
RyanZAG
_" Couldn't this result in a race to the bottom about what things people want
in the public domain - ie. a bunch of people petitioning to have a law firm
attack Amazon's One-Click patent? Basically if someone made something
desirable enough, then an efficient market would funnel enough money into
trumping their patent through your concept, destroying whatever incentive the
company had to make something valuable._"

I see absolutely no problem with this. If the patent is defensible, then no
amount of law firm action or monetary incentive should make any difference in
removing the patent. Most software patents are probably indefensible which
does already say a lot about software patents.

Calling for changes to patent law is where I don't understand what you're
hoping to accomplish. If there was going to be any change, it would already
have happened.

~~~
jontas
> Calling for changes to patent law is where I don't understand what you're
> hoping to accomplish. If there was going to be any change, it would already
> have happened.

If true, that's a pretty depressing statement, however, it sounds like
fallacious reasoning to me. Just because the law hasn't changed yet doesn't
mean that things are doomed to stay this way forever.

~~~
jasonwatkinspdx
The problem is that everyone with enough economic or political power to do
something about the patent situation has a strong incentive to preserve the
status quo, because they benefit from the competitive barrier large patent
arsenals create just as much.

So no one wants to touch on meaningful reform, because that would blow up just
as many of their own patents. Even companies that claim to amass patents
purely for defensive purposes have this incentive.

There's also an agency problem. To fight patents you need patent lawyers, but
patent lawyers have a strong incentive to expand the volume of patent
litigation. It's like asking why the NYSE doesn't implement one of the simple
solutions that would stop HFT: they're getting a cut on the volume of trades,
so they don't care at all how decoupled from economic reality trading becomes.

------
blueblob
I think Ask Patents is supposed to be like this. HN already posted an article
about this a few weeks ago.

[http://patents.stackexchange.com/](http://patents.stackexchange.com/)

~~~
galenward
Ask Patents is for stopping patents from being granted. I'm suggesting a way
to kill patents that are already granted + monetary incentives for the worst /
most expensive offenders.

~~~
rorrr2
Not true, I've seen requests for granted patents.

~~~
galenward
Interesting!

Granted patents aren't re-reviewed, so someone would have to cough up a few
tens of thousands of dollars to do anything with submissions on granted
patents.

Is the concept that people are contributing evidence to be used should someone
challenge the patent?

~~~
zenocon
Indeed, as stated, askpatents is not just for new patent applications. It's
got a bit of head-wind right now, and the more people that get involved the
better.

------
JohnHaugeland
I mean, (disclaimer: I'm an engineer there) you could use Crowdtilt for
something like that. "Put together $x to fund lawyers to defeat patent Y" or
"I know how to undermine Patent Z and I need to raise $x to make it work" or
whatever.

I don't actually know enough about patent law to understand how this would
need to be done, but if it's just a question of putting together money to fund
professional counsel or research, you don't need something specific to this;
there are several things in the existing crowdfunding ecosystem that can cover
your needs.

And I am suspiciously going to neglect to mention the other ones.

But seriously, you can do this on a bunch of existing platforms, if it's just
about putting money together, and if what you need is some kind of white label
solution, so that it's focused around specifically that topic, you can do that
on CrowdHoster (disclaimer: still crowdtilt.)

------
galenward
The EFF is probably the closest to doing something like this, but they picked
the patents and there isn't a way to support killing just one:
[https://www.eff.org/patent-busting](https://www.eff.org/patent-busting)

------
notahacker
The simplest market-based solution for killing troll patents I can think of
involves anti-troll entities effectively using the troll's tactics against
them: mass mailing people whose product might be accused of violating a
dubious patent with a no-win no-fee offer to strike down the patent.
Contributing to a pool to fight a patent is potentially even cheaper than
settling it, especially if the quality of the patent and the NPE's incentive
to defend it is low.

(of course the less good side of this solution is that the entity best placed
to play the role of white knight is one actually linked to the troll who knows
exactly who has received the litigation threats. That's probably where trusted
bodies like the EFF should get involved)

------
mdsteph
I don't agree that killing patents is the right approach, how about this as an
alternative: The site's admin team could identify patents of particularly
useful or disruptive potential and users could pledge a value to bring this
patent into the public domain, and their pledge could remain valid for some
reasonable period of time, the site could then put forward the aggregate
pledge and buy the patent with the view to releasing it. Perhaps a price could
be agreed upon up front. The same could be done to bring creative works like
books into the public domain.

~~~
stbtrax
I am not sure if patent trolls will want to part with their main source of
income for any reasonable amount.

~~~
AnthonyMouse
I would worry about the opposite problem: Troll gets crap patent for $X, sells
it to community for $10X and then goes out and gets ten more crap patents.

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apapli
What I know of patents is that they need to be sufficiently novel in order to
be valid.

The challenge the patent office has is being able to effectively ensure that a
patent is novel - it is simply not possible for them to determine if an
innovation is truly unique and sufficiently novel, so they grant patents on
the basis that they can be disputed if the idea is proven to be not
sufficiently original in the future, after doing as many checks as reasonably
possible internally via their examination staff.

We need a crowd-scale community who can tap into its broader knowledge to
prove these patents are invalid before they are granted, ie at the patent
pending stage. This isn't an easy task, but I would imagine that once it is
working effectively it would be sufficient dis-incentive for trolls to bother
lodging dubious applications in the future.

~~~
alcari
We have a crowd-scale community checking patent applications now:
[http://patents.stackexchange.com/](http://patents.stackexchange.com/)

The problem is the sheer number of bad patents that have been granted already,
and the cost of successfully challenging them.

------
mindviews
There is already some crowdsourcing of patent research being done like at
[http://www.articleonepartners.com/](http://www.articleonepartners.com/) which
essentially offers monetary rewards for the top contributions of prior-art or
whatever the particular study asks for. Granted, you don't get to pick which
patents are listed to research, but I suspect this sort of bounty program
greatly lowers the cost and increases the breadth of material available to
patent researchers for any number of purposes. And if patents can be
challenged for a reasonably small cost, that should mean more silly patents
actually get challenged.

------
jm3
RPX[1] is doing some interesting things with Patent Troll Insurance, but it's
really only a viable option for huge corporations who want to buy into the
troll-defense patent pool.

[1]
[http://www.crowell.com/NewsEvents/AlertsNewsletters/all/Cour...](http://www.crowell.com/NewsEvents/AlertsNewsletters/all/Court-
Dismisses-Patent-Troll-Attack-on-Patent-Aggregator-RPX-For-Now)

~~~
RyanZAG
Actively harmful to the industry. You'll just end up creating similar market
forces such as the MPEGLA that is currently making advancement in video
compression close to impossible. Troll-defense patent pool simply creates a
large artificial barrier to entry into the market.

It's probably better than nothing, but actually removing the patents and
allowing open competition is more beneficial for the public and economy
overall.

------
microcolonel
Sounds like (+ AskPatents money), I'm up for it. Also potentially creates
market for patent lawyers to clear their consciences.

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shurcooL
It's costly to kill patents, but the trolls can create more for nearly free.
It'd be a losing battle.

~~~
jacques_chester
You and I have very different concepts of "free". Patents cost thousands,
sometimes tens of thousands, each.

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marincounty
1\. Agree 2\. Though about this a long time. 3\. Believe their should be three
tiered fee system for patents. 4\. Low income entities--first two patents
free. 5\. High income entities--pay 2x current fees. 6\. Anyone abusing the
patent system would be barred for a certain amount if time, or life.

~~~
icebraining
Regarding different tiers, what would prevent a large entity from creating
smaller ones to hold their patents? In fact, they already do so, for others
reasons.

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milesf
Did anyone else read that as "Kickstarter for killing patients"? :) I need to
read slower.

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i00m
If you want to get rid of software patents, move to Europe. US is not so great
after all with all the idiocracies related to software laws, patents and
security.

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pearjuice
Why isn't there a Kickstarter for curing cancer?

~~~
michaelpinto
I realize this question is in jest, but it may not be a bad idea. I could
envision a Kickstarter fund for individuals to fund research projects to help
scientists who can use the help. Granted that may not lead to a cure, but it
might help. In fact I'd rather do that than the usual marketing driven thing
of wearing a ribbon. I also think this would make funding research a bit less
abstract.

~~~
nemof
the amount of money and lack of tangible immediate results would make this
untenable. This is way outside the scope of normal crowd funding. This is why
large companies with deep pockets and wealthy philanthropic concerns exist.

~~~
zanny
Large companies with deep pockets existed because there was no way to
internationally organize around a monetary research fund cause and get live
information about the progress in both a transparent and not prohitively
expensive way for the organization to operate.

Ten years ago, you would have to mail dvds because internet speeds weren't
fast enough to live-stream the office surveilance camera. Twenty years ago you
would have had to snail mail a bulletin every month about status updates.

Today you make a wordpress site with a $3 a year .com address and $50 a month
hosting (or host it on the various media sites interlinked like a Tumblr),
post live updates, and stream / upload video and audio about progress at a
whim.

The middle men of a lot of things (movie production, r&d) did not exist
because people wouldn't fund those on their own. They existed because it was
infeasible to organize millions of funders and to properly broadcast progress
to millions the way such organizations could to a boardroom. That has since
changed.

~~~
nemof
Do you really think that people can afford to crowdfund multi-year complex
research into illnesses and diseases?

[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1551949/](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1551949/)

> It often takes more than 10 years to deliver a final, licensed vaccine,5 and
> requires not only excellence during research and product development but
> also managerial and funding commitment throughout the endeavor. The cost of
> developing a vaccine—from research and discovery to product registration—is
> estimated to be between US $200 million and US $500 million per vaccine.6
> This figure includes vaccines that are abandoned during the development
> process. In short, vaccine research and product development is lengthy,
> complex, and loaded with binary outcome risks.

just because the complexity of a process is abstracted away doesn't mean it's
ceased to exist.

~~~
icebraining
_Do you really think that people can afford to crowdfund multi-year complex
research into illnesses and diseases?_

Of course they can. Where do companies get their money from? Thin air?

~~~
nemof
from the sale of products they've invested years of research in. From angel
funding and capital from the market, wealthy backers and philanthropists.

I find it hard to imagine that you could keep asking for more and more funding
on a promise for a cure for something in 5-10 years down the road, and
continue to have the same private individuals with very little personal wealth
continue to throw their earnings at it.

I imagine that individual smaller projects may well benefit from it, but
crowd-sourcing cancer or something equally grand, people would lose interest
in it. Not because they don't care, but because human beings have human
timescales attached to expectations. Something that has a hard to quantify
immediate success or reward attached to it is less likely to attract attention
and investment.

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hcarvalhoalves
I don´t think the solution to patents is creating yet another business on top
of it. That only benefits the lawyers.

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Kliment
The boring, frustrating answer is that Kickstarter forbids it.

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VandyILL
Why not Eminent Domain for patents then?

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malkia
wow, I dunno why but I've read that as parents first...

