On Thu, Aug 11, 2011 at 11:56 PM, Ralph Goers <[email protected]> wrote:
> A patent troll couldn't, but if the life of the patent is only 3 years then > probably no one will bother to file for one. > Fine, make it 5 years, or 7, or whatever. It's a detail, don't get too focused on it, the point was to reduce the current duration (which everybody agrees is way too long for the software field) to make it impractical for patent trolls while preserving the positive effect of software patents, which I'll call "The Goal". > Since damages would also be limited to the 3 year period they would be > significantly reduced, which would significantly reduce interest from > attorneys. The short lifetime alone would probably kill off the patent > trolls, even with transfer rights. I doubt Oracle could have sued Google as > I believe all the patents involved are older than that. In your scenario > they couldn't have anyway since they transferred from Sun to Oracle. > Okay, so I offered a solution in two parts and you're telling me one of these parts alone would be enough to deter the patent trolls. Now it's a matter of tuning to find if there is a position for the needle so that we reach The Goal. Note: maybe The Goal is not reachable: again, I'm just trying to be methodical in solving this problem. > However, companies already play the game of modifying the patent slightly > before it expires to keep it alive a bit longer. I suspect we would just see > more of that kind of game playing. > Yes, that might happen, but surely it's conceivable to be able to close that loophole with some work, right? To be honest, we can continue to argue this endlessly, but since this > Congress can barely even vote to increase a debt limit that they have > already passed a budget to exceed I have no confidence patent reform of any > kind will be coming along soon. > Who cares? It's interesting to have the discussion anyway, that's how progress is made. -- Cédric -- 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.
