

Google's New Patents - grellas
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20110731130800781

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StavrosK
Someone on reddit had an interesting idea: What if Google invited people to
join them in a big pool of patents? Anyone who signed in would gain use of the
pool's patents, but would have to sign all of their patents over to the pool
as well.

If someone in the pool decided to sue someone outside the pool over a patent,
the latter could just join the pool and avoid the lawsuit (since now they own
the patent as well). This would probably lead to an equilibrium point where
_everyone_ is in the pool, and thus make patents meaningless.

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ovi256
What if you genuinely innovate, patent your innovation and hope to exploit
your IP ? One or more likely, several, pool members will sue you, force you to
join the pool and thus destroy your advantage. If they have an established
manufacturing division and supply chain, they can churn out your gadget before
you even come up with a name. If your innovation is in any way disruptive to
their business model, you'll have plenty of legal broadfires thrown your way
just to make you go away.

~~~
dminor
> One or more likely, several, pool members will sue you, force you to join
> the pool and thus destroy your advantage.

What are they suing you over, if your work is truly "innovative"?

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streptomycin
A trivial/obvious detail, which unfortunately describes the majority of
software patents.

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yason
What's the FSF copyleft equivalent of patents? Filing a patent and licensing
it out to anyone who will agree to not use their patents offensively?

