[BrendaEM]

What are your options on patents?

Are patents invaluable, or are they a curse? Do they they help foster creativity, or hinder it?

What about the length of time for the patent? Is the lifetime of a patent too short, too long, or just right?

Are there things that shouldn't be patented, or should have been patented, but weren't?

Do ideas exist with only one person's intervention, or are the current patents built from the foundation set by others?

[I've tried to make this thread entry provocative, yet neutral.]

[Zumba]

Patents give you the right to sue someone for infringement at the cost of disclosing all your info to the public. That's about it. If you can't defend your patent, then all you've done is paid a ton of money to give away your ideas (which may or may not be brilliant).

Secrets like chemical mixtures and manufacturing procedures that aren't easily uncovered should remain secrets. For everything else, you'll need a pretty hefty legal fund. And keep in mind that China doesn't care about US patents.

I don't like patents.

[Gizmot]

pharmatical industries... think it sums it all

[Geof]

If you have and idea/product that is difficult to develop, but easy to make and has a market demand representing multi-million dollars in profit, then patent it. You will have the money to protect it, or you will find people who have the money who will finance protecting it in return for a share.

If it is a small market forget patents, put your money into getting the product into the market. You will get competition but provided you keep up quality and service it is not likely you will be totally pushed out.

[RICHARD ZASTROW]

A patent is a license for everybody other than you to steal your idea. Unless you yourself are a wealthy patent attorney willing to spend the next many years in court defending your patent.

A victim of the patent system, Dick Z

[jhudler]

Patents are nothing more than high stakes poker.

If your invention can be easily copied and you have the monies to pursue such a process, then by all means do so.
As a patent holder myself, it's a pretty proud moment when it is granted!

But like most things, there's a dark and cynical side to a patents which I have witnessed firsthand.
If you believe someone is infringing on your patent, you better make absolutely sure that you are not infringing or appear to infringe on and patent assigned to them, before you challenge them.

Here's why; you have your lawyers send a patent challenge to their lawyers.
The challenged lawyers immediately do a patent search on you and your company.
If there is a slightest hint of infringing on one of their patents, they fire back a challenge to your lawyers and costs just begin to escalate.

Worse, if they have a competing patent and believe it wasn't disclosed as prior art in your application, then they can challenge the validity of your patent on that basis. If upheld your patent can be withdrawn or truncated to remove the offending claims, thus rendering your patent harmless or useless.

At best, both parties arbitrate something where you both agree in private to not bother each other (or license each other's patent) and in the end only the lawyers made money.

Mind you all of this can happen whether you challenge someone or not.

Of course, here are times when the challenged party will rightly concede the infringement and compensate you. Sometimes provisionally, provided you license the patent to them.

God help you if you go up against a fortune 100 company!

Personally, it will be a cold day in hell before I try that process.

Jack

[ckelloug]

Patents stifle innovation in the U.S. as they are issued for obvious things which have no right to patent protection according to my understanding of how the system was supposed work: software, mathematics, business methods etc.

The lengths of patent terms are so long that the ideas patented are rarely relevant by the time the patent expires. As a result, a patent merely precludes the general use of an invention until after it is relevant. This both stifles innovation in general and all but shuts down small companies and independent inventors.

At this point, my goal on the epoxy granite thread is to put the general use information on the topic into the public domain so that nobody can claim the knowledge in either a patent or a trade secret.

A patent that lasted 5 years which was instantly invalidated if undisputed prior art was found would make the process much more useful. When your dog can patent swinging on a swing for 17 years and it takes something nearing an act of congress to challenge the patent, patents are worthless in my view.

The legal status of an issued patent is to assume it is valid until it loses a challenge. With the utter lack of review associated with issuing a patent, this is untenable IMHO. If the patent could be instantly canceled for prior art, that would even the score.

Regards all,

Cameron

[jjdon]

>as they are issued for obvious things which have no right to patent protection according to my understanding of how the system was supposed work: software, mathematics, business methods etc.

IMHO, Ckelloug put it in a nutshell. I believe it was the guy who held or holds the record for the most patents by an individual - forget his name - who said everything has been invented, and it takes a multimillion dollar lab to push the envelope. That's debatable I'm sure but think about it: We have lights and switches and chairs and pots and pans. What item can you think of in your life that's truly missing, like a razor or a refrigerator? A human need that is unfulfilled... Now, people are working on fusion power and space travel and medicine, but that's the labs.. So you have people patenting the certain WAY their light switch works and such. In my mind the day they opened the door to computer algorithms and business models - and don't get me started about DNA - was the end of the useful life of the patent process. It's a forum, too, so don't take my words too strongly - certainly there is a place for it, and protecting the little guy. The guy who invented the intermittent windshield wiper took 20 years or something to fight the fight, but in the end, he won...

[jhudler]

What item can you think of in your life that's truly missing.

Hmmm.... So little space to write...

Fool proof gene splicing and the ethics to go with it.
Magnetic plasma containment system. (fusion power, clean bombs)
Unlimited cheap Fusion power. (needs magnetic containment)
Direct Neural interfacing. (drive yourself by thinking)
Heisenberg compensator. (would be seminal moment in human history)
Teleport! (needs Heisenberg compensator's)
FTL or Warp Drive.

Hope the unlimited cheap Fusion power waits a few more generations! Can you imagine not caring how much energy you use? Greenhouse would be the last of our worries!

[jjdon]

>Fool proof gene splicing and the ethics to go with it.
Magnetic plasma containment system. (fusion power, clean bombs)

Yeah, but that's the whole point - it's unlikely that an individual in the spare bedroom is going to do that sort of stuff - maybe the theory, yes. But we have cans and can openers, zippers and PC's and vacuum cleaners. Basic human needs - food, shelter, cleanliness, etc. have been met, and mostly it's a matter of design - putting the old product in another package and maybe adding features. Again, I'm not necessarily saying it's true, exactly, but that was the man's point. As I recall, he was the guy who invented the hard drive, among other things...

[jhudler]

Experimenting with plasma is easy, get a plasma torch. Everyone knows how to make magnets. If someone has an idea about magnetic containment, money is only a factor of how big your idea is.
Nice thing about inventing, take plasma; like most things; it scales.

Edit: forgot my point.

Point is; that anyone with an idea can experiment. I doesn't take a multi-million dollar lab however, it would be nice .

Just imagine if Cold Fusion had been real! The setup was childishly simple, as would the patent... there would have been no prior art to research.

The day we stop inventing would also be seminal moment in Human history.

[ckelloug]

Here is a very interesting Amicus Curae Brief Filed by Red hat about the legal reasons that most software patents should not have been issued.
http://www.redhat.com/f/pdf/federal_circuit_brief.pdf

It is true that pencil, paper and a bit of string aren't enough to prototype stuff anymore but it's still possible within the means of a single person to carry out R&D.
--Cameron

[RICHARD ZASTROW]

There are often simple, logical solutions to obvious problems. I was quite impressed with John Vraniks elegant design. Google NASA,s Technology Transfer site for an item called "Gear Bearing". I still slap myself on the forehead (which now extends to the back of my neck) and scream "why didn't I think of that?"

Dick Z

[Gizmot]

Hmmm.... So little space to write...

Fool proof gene splicing and the ethics to go with it.
Magnetic plasma containment system. (fusion power, clean bombs)
Unlimited cheap Fusion power. (needs magnetic containment)
Direct Neural interfacing. (drive yourself by thinking)
Heisenberg compensator. (would be seminal moment in human history)
Teleport! (needs Heisenberg compensator's)
FTL or Warp Drive.

Hope the unlimited cheap Fusion power waits a few more generations! Can you imagine not caring how much energy you use? Greenhouse would be the last of our worries!

http://www.iter.org/
http://www.seeingwithsound.com/etumble.htm
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/physics-04zi.html
http://public.web.cern.ch/Public/Welcome.html

[jjdon]

>Just imagine if Cold Fusion had been real! The setup was childishly simple, as would the patent... there would have been no prior art to research.

The day we stop inventing would also be seminal moment in Human history.

No offense, but if frogs had wings, they wouldn't flop their ass when they landed. I read the cold fusion paper - they were very earnest, just not any good at research.

No, I agree with jhudler, and all, that the human spirit is indominatable, and that's as it should be. But I'm on another forum that is Industrial Design oriented, and mostly they are doing just what I've said - putting existing things, mostly gadgets, into new packaging. This isn't to be negative, just realistic as far as patents are concerned. What are you going to patent? Unlimited cheap fusion power? Direct neural interfacing? And that work is going to be accomplished.........how? It isn't the big boys, it isn't the money, it the fact that most high level things are done by teams - the ME, the EE, the math wiz and the rest all bring their part to the table. I do agree with the "There's still plenty of opportunity, don't limit yourself" attitude, I'd be the first to say it. But the big picture of what patents are about has changed much and the realities are much different. As others have said on this thread, sure you can get a patent, if you have something. That and $2 will buy you a cup of coffee, in many cases - well, it's written earlier in the thread - corporate patent theft and all. I am NOT suggesting anyone should just curl up and die, just that the patent thing has radically changed since the days of Edison and Tesla...

[HeinrichII]

I am an electronic circuit designer and, in an environment where the expected life span of a product or technology is 1-2 years before it becomes obsolete and the competition is fierce i can say the following:
The only valid reason left there for patenting a solution or technology you create and want to implement in a product is to avoid being sued by a) someone who reaches to a similar solution and patents it, or b) someone who steals/copies your solution and patents it.

Now, patent application cost a lot, it takes a huge amount of time to write up the patent and the processing time is so long that it defeats the purpose.
Then, if somebody infringes your patent you have to spend more money and time to sue. In the end you may not even win.
All this is way more than a small-medium company can afford.

Given all this, the best you can do (for free, too) to protect your right to sell your product and cut anybody's chance to bother you is to make your invention public domain.

Just my take..
HeinrichII

[cely]

Lets say that you have a new design that is not patented...and you choose not to get a patent.

How do you record the first time that you produced, sold or otherwise used the idea that will hold up in court?

That is, what does it take to make the guy call off his dogs?

[Mariss Freimanis]

You keep lab notebooks and you have them notarized anytime you enter a worthwhile idea. If your idea is practical, turn out at least a few examples as a product and sell them. Keep invoice records like a business does. That establishes your idea as prior art, immunizing it against other patents.

Mariss

[Geof]

I will add to Mariss' comments, make sure your advertise it, extolling all its unique virtues. What Mariss suggests is very good for establishing precedence but you want to publically disseminate the information so it is unequivocally in the public domain so nobody can patent it.

A big flaw in the patent system is that if the examiners miss prior art and grant a patent it is valid and enforceable unless you prove otherwise. Being able to point to publically available documents describing it makes this easier.

[joejared]

Lets say that you have a new design that is not patented...and you choose not to get a patent.

How do you record the first time that you produced, sold or otherwise used the idea that will hold up in court?

That is, what does it take to make the guy call off his dogs?

Lawyers and money. I actually hold one patent and sometime in the near future will have to defend it. If you're the defendent, your prior art needs to predate theirs, or you need to challenge the merits of the patent. If you're planning to file a patent, you need to apply before actually selling or licensing one unit.

Mine nearly doubles machine performance, meaning it has merit. It was filed in October of 2000, and granted in March of 2005.