Phil, you're making a fine case for my central thesis here: There's no way to get the patent ownership concept right, so the next best thing is to get rid of em.
Your example law (have to use it or license it within 2 years, and others can get similar terms) will severely hurt companies that are using patents the way it was intended, and it'll cause a massive spike in patent trolling. For example, this is what I would do if I were a patent troll and this law would happen: I'd found a new company. I'd buy a cow. I'd paint my name on it. I then sell the cow (it's unique, so, its value is what the market is willing to pay for it) to my patent troll company for a biiiiiiilion dollars. I then pay my own patent troll company a biiiiiilion dollars to license the patent. Voila. Someone's licensed it. And if someone else wants to license it they are now entitled to license it under the same terms, so, that would run down a biiiiiilion dollars. If you want to stop this, you'd just be piling law upon law until at some point only the ones looking for loopholes get anything done. Which is exactly the situation where are in already, so your solution would only be making it worse, not better. You also can't retroactively apply it, so all existing patent fights wouldn't be helped by it. If you DID retroactively apply it, you'd be screwing everybody that ISNT a patent troll, because there are plenty of companies that have licensed patents for free or for a very small fee to open source and/or charity projects. Also, I think a company could file against another for doing this, you'd be severely mistaken. First of all you can't sue them for swapping a cow and claiming it costs a biiiilion dollars because you don't have cause in that particular event. The bank might be able to sue them, except nobody lent any money to make it happen, so they don't have cause either. Also, it doesn't take much dressing up of the cow (make it some startup no one's ever heard of. You won't get a judge saying that some startup can't be worth what was paid for it, or that some preposterously large licensing fee is simply some jackass playing games with the law instead of some company truly thinking its worth that much. I just used the example of the cow to make it obvious this is only going to make patent trolling much worse). On Apr 12, 11:46 am, Phil <[email protected]> wrote: > Finally got around to writing a few notes on the whole patent thing. > I've been watching (as I imagine we all have) as software patents in > the US have flourished, as have the patent troll companies. Now it > appears to be turning into all-out war in the mobile space and I think > it is safe to say that it is going to be very difficult to work out > who will come out a winner and who will come out a loser. > > First off I agree with the original idea behind patents - to protect > inventions. If somebody patents something then it should be their > right to keep it to themselves, like it or not. My personal view is > that patents are inappropriate for software, and that patent trolling > needs to be kerbed. > > On the trolling front it might be simple enough to say that a patent > must be exercised in a commercial product, or licenced to a third > party, within a relatively short period of time (for example two > years) otherwise it becomes expired and anyone is allowed to use it. > For genuine companies, large and small, this should not be a problem. > Additionally, if a patent is licensed to a third party then perhaps it > should automatically become available, on similar terms, to other > third parties. > > Software patents are IMHO just plain wrong. I've been trying to work > out what makes a software 'invention' different to a physical one > because I'm conscious this is a very hard argument to defend. I think > in the main it is because of the whole concept of 'copying'. It's easy > to copy a physical object, to pull it apart, steal its secrets and > make your own. With software it is harder to do this (not impossible) > and very time consuming - particularly with the obfuscation tools that > are available. I've worked in software development for over 20 years > and at no time has anybody ever said "you know what, the easiest way > to improve our product is to pull apart our rival's" - it is just too > time consuming and development shops just don't work that way. Only if > you have access to original source code can you get a tangible > benefit. Generally speaking people look at a higher level - what > features does your rival have, how can you support the same. > > My feeling on things like multitouch is that the thing that is > patentable is the mechanism that allows you to detect and track > multiple touch points. The actual gestures themselves are not an > invention per se, they are simply an application of being able to > detect patterns of touch on the surface. > > Phil. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "The Java Posse" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/javaposse?hl=en.
