
China’s war chest of rare earth patents - howard941
https://www.scmp.com/business/companies/article/3019290/chinas-war-chest-rare-earth-patents-give-insight-total
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thorwasdfasdf
I don't know about rare earth patents, but in software, I have first hand
experience in seeing just how trivial patents can be. I've seen patents so
trivial, you could write the essence of it in One short line of javascript
code. The patent office doesn't seem to take the "must be non-trivial" part of
the patent requirement seriously at all. Handing out monopolies for trivial
ideas, left and right, isn't going to end well.

Even joel Spolsky said 99.9% of the software patents out there were trivial.

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patentatt
There isn’t a “must be non-trivial” requirement of patents. The broadest
statement in 35 USC 101 can be boiled down to “new” which is interpreted as
“novel and non-obvious.” If these “trivial” patents are “novel and non-
obvious” then they are likely eligible for parenting in the US.

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monocasa
What's the formal distinction between 'trivial' and 'obvious'?

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nine_k
The fast inverse square root calculation is computationally trivial (literally
one line), but highly non-obvious.

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chii
An also not something that I would want patented, nor patentable.

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dmritard96
Without respecting US IP, hard to imagine there will be a lot of respect for
Chinese IP from the US. Maybe it doesn't matter?

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DiogenesKynikos
There are two problems with your statement:

1\. If the United States does not honor Chinese IP, that calls into question
all patents in the United States. It sends a message that American courts will
ignore intellectual property when the US government tells them to. Law becomes
political and arbitrary.

2\. Discussion of Chinese non-respect for IP is hugely overblown. Compared to
other developing countries, Chinese IP enforcement is actually fairly good,
and it's been improving rapidly over the past several years. Nowadays, Western
companies regularly sue over IP in Chinese courts, and they usually win. China
is one of the largest venues for IP litigation in the world now.

Given the huge volume of patent royalties that American companies earn in
China, it would be very foolish for the US to blow up the global patent
system. The US probably has more to lose here, given that it's a more
developed country with more IP.

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sephamorr
Ah yes, this is partially true: in national courts in China, foreign companies
often are successfully able to defend their IP, only to find that enforcement
relies on separate local jurisdictions which have little interest in enforcing
rules against their own.

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x3n0ph3n3
Why should anyone respect China's patents when they flout patent law that puts
them at a disadvantage?

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AnimalMuppet
Because we aspire to the rule of law, even if they don't.

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RobertRoberts
While I completely agree that the US should aspire to hold the law in high
regard, there is plenty of cases where it's disregarded against bad actors.

Consider the sanctions against countries (Iran comes to mind at the moment)
where that country is not allowed to pursue perfectly legal actions because of
3rd party pressure.

Sanctions against China won't work though because their international
political clout.

But since much of the rare earth patents are probably needed for making
defense systems, I think it can easily be set aside as a "national security",
"self defense", etc... I am sure a savvy lawyer could come up with the
argument.

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mullingitover
> But since much of the rare earth patents are probably needed for making
> defense systems, I think it can easily be set aside as a "national
> security", "self defense", etc... I am sure a savvy lawyer could come up
> with the argument.

We can desire to violate the treaties to our hearts' content, but if we don't
actually have the elements the patents are referencing we won't be able to
violate any of the patents.

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RobertRoberts
Rare earth metals are _not_ uncommon, we have tons of them in the US, just not
the processing capacity. Which is already starting to change.

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mullingitover
Indeed, but even for example with a wartime suspension of their patents, we
would be cut off from supplies immediately and it could potentially take years
for our domestic pipeline to start delivering.

Without the wartime excuse I don't foresee it getting any better for the speed
at which we can start mining (pretty sure it would take multiple acts of
congress to allow for the environmental regs to be ignored), and if we start
violating China's rare earth patents willy-nilly I don't picture them helping
us with that by continuing to sell the raw materials to us.

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RobertRoberts
Sure, but until there's war, patents are just a business issue, not a
catastrophic one. So there really is no issues here accept who makes more
money.

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igravious
To get a sense of the severity of the problem check out this graph:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rare-
earth_mineral#/media/File...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rare-
earth_mineral#/media/File:USGS_rare_earth_oxides_production_graph.PNG)

Couple that total production dominance with the upswing in patent applications
and this could spell trouble.

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rrggrr
Rare earths are a key source of foreign currency for China, currency is
presently needs to import all manner of products globally. But China is hard
at work trying to make the RMB a global currency - most recently through a
gold/oil/RMB market. So, understand that once the RMB ascends to a status
similar to the EUR or USD you will rare earth prices skyrocket and patents
enforced.

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jaimex2
What are the chances the US government can put pressure on the patent office
to invalidate said patents?

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H8crilA
Or, maybe, you know, let's keep the world trading peacefully, letting every
corner of the world do and sell what they're best at?

