I disagree about patents always being bad. When functioning properly, patents move inventions from trade secrets to patented public knowledge to public domain. The objective test of whether patents are working properly is whether companies search patents to avoid reinventing the wheel, or avoid searching patents to avoid triple damages (because the patent disclosures are useless junk, like with software patents).
Software patents do not belong in general discussion of patents, because they are specifically prohibited but then allowed again through mathematically ignorant case law. And software is already appropriately protected under copyright. Software patents are an abuse of the legal system.
The next thing you know, someone will patent a business method that discloses a marketing strategy for stories about boy wizards, it will be challenged because you can't (yet) patent story genres, the patent will be upheld because the story genre isn't the sole basis of the patent, and this will then be used to make story genres patentable through case law.
My hair brained solution to patent abuse, is to grant patents *only* at the request of a 3rd party, rather than the inventor. Until then, the invention must remain a trade secret to be protected. So Stradovarious invents his trade secret violin construction method. When competitors see how effective it is, they (not the Stradovarious company) file a patent request on the method. Stradovarious must then disclose the method, but gets 17 years patent protection, and can charge licensing fees to competitors using it.
This would completely eliminate the patent troll, as only actually useful methods would ever get patented, but would of course have many other side effects compared to the current system. One variation is to give Stradovarious the choice of patenting, or continuing to keep it as a trade secret (and competitors would sweeten the pot with ever higher licensing fees offered). This would eliminate the troubling aspect of making them disclose their secret. What do you think?
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I disagree about patents always being bad. When functioning properly, patents move inventions from trade secrets to patented public knowledge to public domain. The objective test of whether patents are working properly is whether companies search patents to avoid reinventing the wheel, or avoid searching patents to avoid triple damages (because the patent disclosures are useless junk, like with software patents).
Software patents do not belong in general discussion of patents, because they are specifically prohibited but then allowed again through mathematically ignorant case law. And software is already appropriately protected under copyright. Software patents are an abuse of the legal system.
The next thing you know, someone will patent a business method that discloses a marketing strategy for stories about boy wizards, it will be challenged because you can't (yet) patent story genres, the patent will be upheld because the story genre isn't the sole basis of the patent, and this will then be used to make story genres patentable through case law.
My hair brained solution to patent abuse, is to grant patents *only* at the request of a 3rd party, rather than the inventor. Until then, the invention must remain a trade secret to be protected. So Stradovarious invents his trade secret violin construction method. When competitors see how effective it is, they (not the Stradovarious company) file a patent request on the method. Stradovarious must then disclose the method, but gets 17 years patent protection, and can charge licensing fees to competitors using it.
This would completely eliminate the patent troll, as only actually useful methods would ever get patented, but would of course have many other side effects compared to the current system. One variation is to give Stradovarious the choice of patenting, or continuing to keep it as a trade secret (and competitors would sweeten the pot with ever higher licensing fees offered). This would eliminate the troubling aspect of making them disclose their secret. What do you think?