

Microsoft joins preemptive patent protection program - grellas
http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2011/06/microsoft-joins-pre-emptive-patent-protection-program.ars

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dodo53
That is such a cool scheme. I'm glad somebody is actively seeking to
invalidate bogus patents. I'm not sure how they're getting money - is they
idea that people that join up donate to the cash pool they use to reward
people who find prior art on existing patents?

Also it doesn't go quite as far as I'd like - it reduces the incentive to
lodge bogus patents (as hopefully they'll stand for less time), but I'd still
like their to some level of penalty to the originator when bogus patents are
overturned (but that's a law change - somebody pointed out on a previous
thread apparently Texas now has a law penalizing people that bring frivolous
suits - not quite the same as filing for frivolous patents, but I still like
it).

Edit: ah, followed links to [http://arstechnica.com/tech-
policy/news/2008/11/startup-crow...](http://arstechnica.com/tech-
policy/news/2008/11/startup-crowdsources-patent-vetting-for-profit.ars)
Apparently they take research requests from clients, presumably for money. Not
quite as cool as I hoped - cost might still be out of realm of startup
defence. Also - Article One Partners applied for a patent for their system of
crowdsourcing patent invalidation :o)

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rlpb
I'm not convinced that a penalty makes sense. It's not really the inventor's
fault for filing an obvious patent or one with prior art; it's the patent
office's fault for approving it.

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bad_user
So it's OK for them to threaten others, but not OK when others come after
them.

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TruthElixirX
The way the game is set up now it encourages people to go after one another,
even if they don't want to. Maybe Microsoft has decided that the best courses
of action rank as follows:

    
    
      Go after no one under a new system.
      Go after everyone under the current system.
      Go after no one under the current system.
    

Currently only options 2 and 3 are available, but they would like to move to
option number one and this is their first step in making that a reality.

I don't know that is what they are doing, just saying...

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bad_user
Considering how they are ripping off Android phone makers, I'd say this is
wishful thinking.

    
    
       The way the game is set up now it encourages 
       people to go after one another
    

In what way are companies encouraged to do this? In what way was HTC a threat
to their "intellectual property"? Was it a threat in the sense that they can't
compete with Android in a free market?

Really, this is outstandingly hypocritical of them.

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lurker19
Remember BountyQuest?

Everything old is new again. Has it been 10 years already?

<http://oreilly.com/news/patent_archive.html>

