

A simplistic proposal for patent reform - jacquesm

If your patent ever gets overturned in the future then you will have to pay back all the fees that you have collected under your patent + a 50% fine.<p>The reason why I think this would work is because it puts the onus of really good prior art searches on the patent taker.<p>Now it is basically 'whatever you got away with', and if your patent gets voided after years of litigation there is no retroactive punishment for patenting something non-novel in the first place.<p>So there is lots of sloppy searching and lots of blustering with bogus patents.<p>If that change were adopted you'd <i>gladly</i> pay for a bogus patent because you'd get it back with a nice interest after you finish killing the patent.
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grellas
This is an intriguing approach but you need to watch out for unintended
consequences.

If patent licensing carries with it x risk in addition to the benefits, and
suddenly that risk becomes 2x or 5x or 10x (depending on how one quantifies
the risk of forfeiture of the cumulative royalties, plus associated penalty),
I would think this have an adverse effect on the patent licensing market in
causing the licensing parties to increase the royalty rates to help offset the
heightened risks.

Don't know how this might affect the troll market for licensing but it might
have this unintended impact on legitimate licensing deals of all types (ones
that have nothing to do with the dubious patents found at the margins).

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jacquesm
I said it was simplistic :)

Think of this as a step in 'release early, release often', first approximation
of something that with a lot of pushing and pulling might be used as a step
towards a healthier set of tools around intellectual property.

I share your concerns regarding the actuarial effects of this, but the funny
bit is if the licensing costs would be raised on the 'solid' patents then
those patents would find no takers.

After all patents are to be granted for a reasonable fee, if that fee were to
be exorbitantly high then you could make a good case against the licensor.

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Nwallins
Related: I think that for software patents (if allowed at all) source code,
build scripts, and a comprehensive test suite demonstrating functionality must
be provided. This must be done in a non-obfuscated way, such that the patent
officer(s) assigned to the patent application can build and demo the software.

