

Felix Salmon: The Cost of Patent Trolls - chalst
http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2011/07/25/the-cost-of-patent-trolls/

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chalst
Felix Salmon omits a point that makes Microsoft's participation in the patent
cartel especially absurd: they had already licensed all of the patents from
Nortel in perpetuity. Microsoft claimed, without legal basis, that it was
concerned about the risk of this license being ignored by the acquirer.

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shareme
Google's bid terms was that it would have right to modify terms of previous
licenses once buy deal went through..

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chalst
Could you source that claim? Nortel should not have the power to unilaterally
change the terms of license contracts.

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loup-vaillant
> _We need to make it easier and quicker to get good patents, and much harder
> or impossible to get bad patents._

The question is, what is a good patent? The way I see it (i) there are too few
good patents to outweigh the bad ones, and (ii) it is too difficult to
distinguish them at application time. In other words, the patent system just
doesn't work, and is basically unfixable. Looks like we should do away with
it.

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Symmetry
I'd say a good patent is one where its very obvious what is covered by that
patent, and whether a given thing constitutes prior art. Since chemistry is by
its nature very discrete (atoms come integer numbers and set types) most
patents in that field tend to be good ones.

~~~
loup-vaillant
Chemistry causes another, specific problem: I was told that in the
pharmaceutical industry, one would patent one molecule at a time. If someone
else found a slightly different molecule with the same effect, the patent
offers no protection. It may sometimes forces laboratories to waste their time
searching for similar molecules so they can patent them all (or at least a
good deal).

So, while such patents wouldn't be bad, the system is still suboptimal
(depending on the time needed to search for the similar molecules).

Plus, even if in this particular domain a patent system is better than
nothing, it may be difficult to discriminate the domain. For instance,
software patents don't apply in Europe. But if you care enough to specify that
the whole shenanigan takes place on some sort of processing device, then you
can sometimes pretend it is _not_ a software patent. GPS devices for instance
are subject to patents, though it is quite obvious that the core of the idea
lies in the program, not in the general purpose ARM chip (I don't know about
the GPS receiver). But if you turn the GPS device into a general purpose
computer that happen to have a GPS program, you may be safe.

I'm not a lawyer, but it looks like any partial ban of patents is bound to be
a headache.

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iwwr
Software patents should be a good enough reason to think patents in general
stifle innovation. Patent trolls have moved beyond mere monopolistic
enforcement and into mafia-style shakedown operations.

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watmough
This is why I refuse to participate in patenting software.

I've written code for people who wanted to patent it as part of a device, and
whilst I can't necessarily stop them, I can definitely refuse to assist in
salting the ground for those that come after me.

Obviously, like nuclear weapons, if you don't have patents, then you are
vulnerable, and the World is a harsh place. It's difficult to see how the
process of patenting, then squatting on code that anyone could write, can be
resolved.

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rjd
I'm no expert in American patents so forgive me if I don't fully understand
things, my country doesn't even have software patents :O

But it seems from my readings that applying a reasonable expiry date to them
would solve so many issues.

So say an assumption would apply that after say 5-10 years a technology would
be common place and hence no longer unique, and that a company that couldn't
capitalise after that period shouldn't be able to be in a position to hold up
an economy.

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chalst
All kinds of patents expire after 17 years.

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rjd
But if I'm not mistaken they can get indefinite patents as well which seems
more like abuse than privilege.

17 years as well...seems like to long a time frame to me., but again I'm not
expert. I'd have gone 10 years max.

~~~
watmough
Is it possible you're thinking about Disney, and their extending copyrights?

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tluyben2
It would already help a lot if patents would invalidate if the company
exploiting them does not market (actively; meaning you have to spend a fixed %
of your income on marketing, sales and development of said product) a product
/ service using the patent. That would hamper the trolls. But of course
software patents should die.

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saturdaysaint
The excellent NPR story that Salmon mentions in the first paragraph is where a
lot of the insight lies -
[http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2011/07/22/138576167/when-
pat...](http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2011/07/22/138576167/when-patents-
attack)

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wharryman
Hopefully this question will still find an answer even though this article has
fallen off the front page:

Is there a company structure, or is it possible to design one, that would
allow a startup to operate free from the threat of patent trolls? What comes
to mind is a network of shell holding companies that is used to hide ownership
of copyright IP - Charles Stross describes this in the first part of
Accelerando. Simply, it may have reached a point where it is safer for
startups to operate as a subsidiary of a foreign company not subject to U.S.
patent law.

