Patent Reform Act Proposes Sweeping Changes 336
Geccie writes "CNet is reporting that Senators Patrick Leahy and Orin Hatch have proposed sweeping changes in the patent system in the form of the Patent Reform Act of 2006. Key features are the ability to challenge (postgrant opposition) with the Senate version being somewhat broader and better than the house version." From the article: "Specifically, it would shift to a 'first to file' method of awarding patents, which is already used in most foreign countries, instead of the existing 'first to invent' standard, which has been criticized as complicated to prove. Such a change has already earned backing from Jon Dudas, chief of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office."
How about eliminating patents (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:How about eliminating patents (Score:5, Insightful)
No, he'll just go broke when trying to compete with the large companies who wait for him to build something cool and then use their huge existing resources to cheaply mass produce his invention before he has a chance to make a dime off it. Not that either the existing or proposed system is "good", but yours would suck pretty bad, too.
Re:How about eliminating patents (Score:3, Insightful)
And how is this in any way substantially different from someone who sets up a new kind of shop or service or method of selling product only to have their competitors, yes, compete and emulate their ideas? Capitalism rewards enterprise, not inventiveness. I have no sympathy
Re:How about eliminating patents (Score:3, Informative)
Patents do work, especially in the medical area. Pharmace
Re:How about eliminating patents (Score:3, Interesting)
I hear this a lot. Is this really true? Drug researchers often research native cultures and find what traditional remedies they have used. Then the drug company finds a way to mass produce or synthesize it. And don't forget decommoditizing it so they can guarantee profits. So what they are doing is patenting little known prior art and marketing th
Re:How about eliminating patents (Score:5, Insightful)
Is it all just a farce, then? Or perhaps they've just been going about it the wrong way, and we should handle diseases the same way we did when people had the lifespan of a fruitfly in a blender? It wasn't all that long ago.
Re:How about eliminating patents (Score:2)
Family works in the drug industry and does a LOT of travel. What better lab can you get for your dollar than setting up shop in a different culture and observing? No clinical trials, no regulations, no red tape. Its like pleasure, but its all business. Bring your c
Re:How about eliminating patents (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm REALLY tired of all of the people bashing corporations and acting as if it's a sin to for anyone to make money. Shareholders, huh? Okay, do you have a pension plan? 401K? Interest-bearing bank account? Car loan? Mortgage? Life, car, home, or health insurance? Student-loan? SBL?
Where do you think that money comes from? Did you know that half the stocks in the US are owned by... us, in the form of pension and retirement funds? Or that business and corporate taxes on pro
Re:How about eliminating patents (Score:4, Informative)
Of Pills and Profits [commentarymagazine.com]
Re:How about eliminating patents (Score:5, Insightful)
There are litterally hundreds of people who work on a product at any given point in its many testing phases, and all of these people draw salaries. Testing for products can take 10 or more years, and all of this gives no guarantee the product will succeed at the end.
If all of that work and expense could be done by one company, and any other company could snap it up w/o having to invest in that research, then who in their right mind would invest 10's or 100's of millions of dollars into producing a product when that basically means they're giving it to their competetors for free? Sometimes when the product is sufficiently narrow in scope, even with patents, on a successful drug, drug companies fail to recover their investment during the patent's lifetime.
There are many areas that the patent system is abused. It may even be abused to some extent in the pharmaceutical industry (there certainly are products that are less expensive than other products to research and produce, depending on the product's origin, intended use, and how smoothly it runs through trials), but it is absolutely necessary in order that companies like these (which are in the end for-profit companies with a legal obligation to their share holders; feel free to start your own not-for-profit pharmaceutical) can research and produce life saving drugs and treatments while remaining financially salient.
Re:How about eliminating patents (Score:2)
Re:How about eliminating patents (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:How about eliminating patents (Score:3, Interesting)
In order to sell a drug, a company must have proved that their product is effective and safe (as the original researcher has to now) - whether they researched it or not. With just that, every company has to perform all the safety tests for what they want to sell themselves, making it cost them larger amounts straight off. The cost for the safety tests will be less than the total development costs, but with enough others buying the certification they should be able
Re: How about eliminating patents (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:How about eliminating patents (Score:2)
Yes absolutely true. The average cost to get a drug approved and onto the market is around $880bn and takes about 7-12 years. That includes costs for attrition rates, but even so gives you some idea. No company in their right mind could justify a 10 year development costing almost $1bn just so someone else can copy it as soon as it's on the market.
Re:How about eliminating patents (Score:2)
Re:How about eliminating patents (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, well, the pharmaceutical industry likes to repeat it a lot.
"Is this really true?"
No it isnt. The vast bulk of pharmaceutical spending is on administration, marketing and comparatively inefficient production. Not even a fifth of the average pharmcorp's spending is on R&D (take a look at their public filings some time).
That isnt to say pharmaceutical research is free, but it does mean this: we'd get _five times_ the current R&D if we paid for it outright. Or we could pay a fif
Re:How about eliminating patents (Score:2)
Pharmaceutical patents are a fairly recent development. Drugs were developed before they could be patented, and they will still be developed after patents are a sad chapter in our history.
Anyway, much of the research involved is actually paid for with your tax dollars, and by rights should belong to everyone, not be the private holding of a massive pharmaceutical company.
Patents don't work.
Re:How about eliminating patents (Score:2)
Unfortionatly, becouse of this protection, it also gives companies insentive to sell as much of a developed product as possible, at whatever cost they so choose, which, quite often, is at an EXTREMELY handsome profit, even taking into consideration R&D efforts.
Re:How about eliminating patents (Score:2)
Well, this is why the Founding Fathers didn't make the US a pure capitalist society and provided for things like patents in the Constitution. They *wanted* invent
Re:How about eliminating patents (Score:2)
There's just a problem with that, their trying to get this stuff to last well beyond the lifespan of the person who patented it (just like with copyrights).
Also look at how many patents are out there, I'm willing to bet there are more patents held by corperations who won't EVER let that patent run out cause they know there is someone out there who can easily
Re:How about eliminating patents (Score:2)
Re:How about eliminating patents (Score:2)
The inventions that transform the world are more likely to come from men like Lee De Forest than idealists like Thomas Jefferson.
Re:How about eliminating patents (Score:5, Insightful)
There would still be more small inventors making products than there are now; the current patent system stifles the small inventor, who can't afford a huge patent search and who doesn't have a huge patent portfolio to cross-license with competitors.
Even if small inventors were worse off, society as a whole would be better off, which is the point of the patent system to begin with. If an invention really is useful, then it won't be lost.
Re:How about eliminating patents (Score:2)
Yes. Which is why I said the current system isn't good. But there are a few babies in the bathwater that aren't floating face-down, so fixing the problem would be preferable to just throwing them out.
Re:How about eliminating patents (Score:2)
Something odd. I have been thinking about Hatch sponsiring this. This is a guy who protects those that supports patents and copyrights. My guess is that patent reform is being done in the USA to say that we are adopting parts of our system (first to invent vs. first to file) and we now expect others to adopt the other half of what we ha
Re:How about eliminating patents (Score:3, Informative)
They just need better patent experts (Score:2)
Re:How about eliminating patents (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:How about eliminating patents (Score:2)
WTF, if I loose a production monopoly on my $50K idea, but I get access to $100,000,000,000 worth of patentes to research and innovate - then that INCREASES my chance to make
Re:How about eliminating patents (Score:2)
Time Machine (Score:2, Funny)
Prior Art? (Score:2)
Re:Prior Art? (Score:2)
Re:Prior Art? (Score:3, Insightful)
Suppose first to file allows prior art. In the case of the person filing the claim not being the inventor, there would be prior art from whomever was the inventor.
Re:Prior Art? (Score:4, Informative)
For opensource it's probably slightly better, as it becomes slightly more difficult to submarine patents or futz the invention dates.
However, it doesnt affect the more real issues of overly broad claims, etc. Or the economic validity and usefullness of IP at all.
Re:Prior Art? (Score:4, Insightful)
There is always a complication that man can inject. To assume that going with first to file is going to fix the problems of the first to invent is pretending that the grass is greener on the other side of the fence.
Software is a big issue in this, as it is actually fraudelent to allow software patents. But to allow it also means that first to file will cause a land grab of patenting all sorts of things that originate in human thought but evolved little past writting it down.
There is a great deal that has been created in software which has never had a patent application filled out and sent in because the creator or writter of the work didn't want it patented. And maybe even if only to assure it stay free in use, they couldn't afford the
With software the issue of fraud is in application, otherwise software would be disallowed patentability. The proof that software is not patentable is only being avoided and by both sides of the software development industry, the proprietary and OSS, each having their own individual motives or incentives or vested interest to blind themselves of the provable facts of the nature of software.
To use an analogy or metaphor, mathmatics was complicated at one time thru the use of the roman numeral system. You could not do advanced math with it. Then came along the hindu arabic decimal system with its zero place holder that after 300 years of resistance and denial by the elite accountants , the general poopulation adopted the easier and more powerful tools of the decimal system, and has since gone on to go way way beyond the limitations of the roman numeral tools, to create whole new industries and economies that the roman numeral system simple was not capable of even conceiving.
Programming is the act of automating complexity, typically made of complexity automations that someone else did earlier. The human characteristic that set us above all other known creatures, which makes it our natural right to do, to build upon the works of those before us. The purpose of programming to to simplify the use of a complexity, to make it have an easier to use interface. and thru the use of easier to use interfaces more of use can put things together for ourselves.
But enters the fraud of software patents and the incentive to say "No you cannot use" (which is really all they patents are intended to be).
Add to this the first to file and what you have is a growing man made constraint as to your ability to apply your natural rights to create and improve you own ability and productivity which in turn contributes to an improved environment for us all. For even if you came up with something to help your dfaily tasks then someone else copuld file it and prevent you from using it via man made laws. Laws where all things are now no longer possible.
Abstraction Physics proves software is not patentable. But in a corrupt world, who wants to acknowledge that?
Re:Prior Art? (Score:2)
I don't believe so... you can make anything in your house or garden *entirely* from patented information, and use it. What you can't do is make loads or make money from it, but I don't think anything can stop you from using it yourself, unless the parts needed to make it are controlled.
Re:Prior Art? (Score:2)
FTA:
"The Senate version appears to give broader leeway for such challenges, offering up to 12 months--as opposed to the House's nine-month window--after the patent is awarded for challengers to file a 'petition for cancellation.' That time period could then be widened even further, with a second window available if the petitioner 'establishes a substantial reason to believe that the continued existence of the challenged claim causes or is likely to cause the petitioner significant
A prediction... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:A prediction... (Score:5, Interesting)
> Specifically, it would shift to a 'first to file' method of awarding patents,
> which is already used in most foreign countries, instead of the existing 'first
> to invent' standard, which has been criticized as complicated to prove.
Basically, they're saying that since the useful solution that is easy to justify (if you believe in patent theory) is too hard to implement (and causes too many problems), then the obvious thing to do is to pick a useless solution that is impossible to justify (through patent theory) because it's easier and will allow the patent office to process new patents quicker (and cause even more problems).
This reminds me of the old joke. It was midnight at the parking lot and a policeman saw a drunk looking for something near a lamp post. The policeman asked what what the drunk was looking for. The drunk said "I lost my car keys in the dark alley a half a block away, so I'm searching for them here." The police said it didn't make sense. The drunk replied, "It makes perfect sense. It's too hard to find my car keys in the dark, so I'm looking for them where there's some light".
The key difference between the drunk and Congress is that the drunk didn't make the problem worse through his useless solution.
Re:A prediction... (Score:2)
Re:A prediction... (Score:2)
Re:A prediction... (Score:5, Insightful)
Where it gets interesting when you bring up the theory under which patents are granted is that, at least in my opinion, the situation these different methods are meant to resolve shouldn't exist.
Patents supposedly reward invention, and a key aspect that distinguishes an invention from a mere design is non-obviousness. But what does it mean to be "non-obvious"? It's a subjective measure: what is obvious to an experienced designer is not at all obvious to a novice, or to a lawyer or to a patent examiner. We are basically granting government sanctioned monopolies on ideas based on the subjective opinions of non-qualified people.
What we need is an objective standard. Let me propose one:
If an idea is arrived at independently by two parties working on the same problem, the idea is, ipso facto, an obvious one.
Under that standard, it doesn't matter who "invented" first or who filed first: if two parties came up with the same thing without knowledge of relevant details of each others' work, then the idea is not worthy of a patent.
This would (a) invalidate most patents and (b) greatly increase (according to the law of supply and demand) the value of truly orginal ideas, which now compete with merely patentable ideas. In my view that'd amount to an unquestionably superior patent system.
Re:A prediction... (Score:3, Interesting)
So by your standard, Calculus is obvious?
Yes. If you travelled back in a time machine and shot Newton and Leibnitz before they revealed any of their discoveries, it is my belief the Calculus would have been "discovered" almost "on schedule".
The subsequent pissing match over priority tended to obscure rather than enlighten. Not to diminish the accomplishments of Newton or Leibnitz, but the basic concepts underlying differential and integral calculus were known to the Greeks as early as Euclid. What was
Re:A prediction... (Score:4, Interesting)
In which case, nobody gets the patent. Which is unfair to one inventor. However when an obvious patent is created, it is unfair to every engineer who plans to work in the field for the next two decades.
Under the current system, you still have the incentive to spy and lie, but the payoff is bigger: you not only get to use the inventor's idea, you deny him the use of his own idea.
I think I see the noble ideal you're driving at, unfortunately, I do not believe it to be an achievable one.
On the contrary, I think it is the only practical one. We live under an impractical system now, that only works because people avoid researching prior art: with so many bad patents being issued, you're bound to violate something. It also works because there are so many fish in the pond, hopefully you can grow to a defendable size before a parasite leaches onto you.
The only reason the current system seems "practical" is because we don't know what practical would feel like.
To my way of thinking, having a simple, objective challenge for "obviousness" is the most practical solution conceivable. Sure, people may perjure themselves. That's true under any patent system. But the game itself is much tougher, and therefore less attractive to unscrupulous people out to make a quick buck.
Re:A prediction... (Score:2)
So What (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:So What (Score:2)
I consider this bad (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm the first to say if another country does something better than the US, but just because other countries do it differently doesn't mean it is better. I consider "first to file" just promoting patent trolls even further, as they just keep an eye out for what everyone else is doing and patent what the other guy didn't really consider worth patenting. This provision is useless - yes, first to invent is hard to prove, but that is why keeping some type of traceable records is a good thing and you can't be locked out of the market just because patent troll X decided to file paperwork before you did.
Re:I consider this bad (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:I consider this bad (Score:2)
Whatever happened to the idea that you can't patent something without a working example of the thing you are trying to
Re:I consider this bad (Score:4, Informative)
Re:I consider this bad (Score:2)
You have to be very careful with this, though, because often as soon as you disclose your invention, clocks start ticking.
Re:I consider this bad (Score:4, Interesting)
Technically, that shouldn't work. Anything they can keep an eye out for would have to have been published, and would therefore be unpatentable under first-to-file.
"you can't be locked out of the market just because patent troll X decided to file paperwork before you did."
As long as you're publishing everything you do you cant be out-patented and locked out. Only if you're keeping your work secret and someone else files for a patent on the same thing before you do.
Re:It's exactly what happens (Score:2)
Actually, even if there is only one copy sitting in a library somewhere, it is still considered publicly available for prior art purposes as soon as it is officially shelved and catalogued (at least in the US). The real problem is someone being able to find it in the first place.
Re:I consider this bad (Score:2)
News At Eleven: World Trader Adopts The Legal Standards of Its Major Trading Parters.
Better or worse is subjective. The game is simply easier to play and to win if everyone agrees on the rules.
Orin Hatch - his son is a SCO lawyer (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Orin Hatch - his son is a SCO lawyer (Score:3, Informative)
Brent O. Hatch is one of SCOs many lawyers. One wonders if any part of the new law would be of any help to SCO grabbing the work on many Linux programmers?
If Wikipedia is right: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orrin_Hatch [wikipedia.org]
Mod parent UP as the post is on to something.
I guess the SCO group realizes it has no case so it is now influencing a change in law to change its case. Where is the SEC when you need them? Maybe this explains why SCO gets away with so much.
IBM/Linux should patent 0/1 (binary) since prio
"first to file" issues (Score:5, Informative)
As usual, follow the money trail. (Score:5, Interesting)
As usual, follow the money....
Orrin Hatch received $126,918 from the entertainment industry [opensecrets.org] in this last cycle. Not to be outdone, Leahy received $251,970 [opensecrets.org]
By my calculations that means that congressmen can be bought for less than $400K. My, my, my what an insanely great ROI.
America, the best government money can buy®
Ad hominem (Score:2)
The entertainment industry, apart from isolated cases such as Knight & Associates [plotpatents.com], is nearly inactive in filing patents. Mr. Hatch's record on copyright law can only be an attack ad hominem without a link to the bill. I'd give one, but all the bills on thomas.loc.gov containing the phrase "patent reform" are months too old to be the bill that this article discusses.
Re:As usual, follow the money trail. (Score:2)
First to file? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:First to file? (Score:2)
I thought this bill was supposed to change the patent system.
Re:First to file? (Score:3, Informative)
So you do not want to patent, we got you ! (Score:4, Insightful)
Even people that uterly despise software patents will have no choice in the US.
On the other hand all countries that heavelly invest in public education under the idea that education should not be only for rich kids and insannely smart, but also for smart creative poor or just not so rich kids, should be happy to see anything happen that makes the US less interesting for creative minds.
And helps the ROI stay in the country that made the investment.
Re:So you do not want to patent, we got you ! (Score:5, Informative)
It's not a problem for open source; if you've released code as open source that means it's been published, and no patent application filed on a later date could be granted covering any supposed invention in that code.
It's not first to file for a particular invention, it's first to file for a particular _previously undisclosed_ invention.
Re:So you do not want to patent, we got you ! (Score:2)
Re:So you do not want to patent, we got you ! (Score:2)
Really? It seems I missed the part of the bill that would allow you patent already published inventions.
Actually a first to file system improves the situation for OSS, just put your ideas out there. No longer do you have to worry that some scumbag takes your idea, st
First to File (Score:4, Insightful)
If other countries want to do that, then that's up to them. I'm not going to tell them what to do. But not only is it a bad idea here, it is one that would be entirely unlawful. It's only in here due to a combination of laziness on the part of the PTO, since they could avoid having to run interference proceedings, and greed on the part of large, corporate inventors, since they can act more quickly than smaller inventors.
I haven't had a chance to look at the latest bill, but I doubt there's much good in it, if anything, if this is any indication.
The constitution also says may other things.. (Score:3, Insightful)
It also called for limited terms to copyright, but we all know who won in eldred vs ashcroft (so instead of infinity, it's infinity - 1.. which only those educated in calculus or higher know is still infinity)
I learned through my history classes and especially current events not to count on
Re:The constitution also says may other things.. (Score:2)
let's not forget the souter eminent domain ruling, or the fact that the court has been majority republican for decades. This means that republicans have been issuing those rulings, you need a lesson in history son.
Re:The constitution also says may other things.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:The constitution also says may other things.. (Score:2)
Re:The constitution also says may other things.. (Score:4, Insightful)
What, you mean like Scalia, Thomas, and Alito did in Rumsfield vs. Hamdan in their dissent?
No, thanks! I'll take unconstitutional rulings over property rights over unconstitutional rules over whether or not the government can kidnap people, torture them, and then try them in unaccountable military tribunals where not only they and their attorney aren't allowed to see evidence against them. I'd rather lose my house to a scummy developer and a crooked city than my life and liberty to an unaccountable unitary executive (aka dictator).
I'm sorry, but as much as I hate, hate, hate the Kelo decision, it's nothing compared to the Constitutional mangling that conservative/authoritarian justices are in favor of.
Re:The constitution also says may other things.. (Score:3, Insightful)
You mean, the same party that complains endlessly about "activist judges" who strike down unconstitutional laws that Republicans like? There are plenty of Republicans actually considering taking awa
Re:No definition section in the US constitution (Score:2)
There's no way this bill is constitutional.
hatch and leahy are right there with stevens... (Score:5, Interesting)
Anyway, this is designed to "reform" the system by clearing the courts of many cases by simply awarding the sneakiest party. This law would result in the legitimizing of those "patent parasite" firms who snag patents, then ambush companies just as theyre going to market. It would reverse the apple v creative case too. This is definitely at the expense of the inventor, and would also make invalidation of obvious patents much harder, since prior art would no longer apply. In that way it is playing to moneyed interests, but even moneyed interests would incur great expense to these parasites mentioned above.
The hatch/leahy duo are the perfect illustration of how partisan grandstanding only serves as a red herring, and that corruption extends beyond party lines.
In addition to the horizontal axis of left and right, there is a vertical axis nobody in the media or politics wants the public to pay attentin to, moneyed elitists vs populists.
voting one party or the other does not guarantee the politician's position along this vertical axis, and that axis in this nation is the one which is more important.
Re:hatch and leahy are right there with stevens... (Score:2)
Leahy's major constituent who has a dog in this fight is IBM. (IBM is the largest employer in Vermont -- by a lot). I'm not sure what IBM's concerns are, but as long as they are taken care of, I doubt Leahy much cares about anything other than doing the right thing. Leahy probably doesn't need large contributions to get
Re:hatch and leahy are right there with stevens... (Score:2)
I was under the impression that pising Dick Cheney off was easier than pissing Rush Limbaugh or Ralph Nader off... when they're in the same room.
Re:hatch and leahy are right there with stevens... (Score:2)
this law sucks, but not for this reason. no, it wouldn't. prior art is only applicable today if it's disclosed and available: otherwise, the PTO can't reliably tell whether the claim of prior art is on the level or not ("i had a one-click system in 1985, i just didn't show it to anyone! honest!"). how disclosed or available is open to interpretation, but t
First to file questions (Score:2, Funny)
Or fire, the wheel, the screw, the inclined plane and the wing.
Hey, how about a patent on stealing the election through Diebold voting machines?
Re:First to file questions (Score:2)
Replay from 2005 (Score:4, Informative)
http://patentlaw.typepad.com/patent/2005/06/paten
Not sure what the difference is between the two, because I'm still looking for the bill's number. It's almost as if people like to use the fluffy name and never really look at the bill - only reference it from other articles.
"First to file" is a horrible idea... (Score:2)
Re:"First to file" is a horrible idea... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:"First to file" is a horrible idea... (Score:2)
AFAIK, the fee is $100-300 and you may need an attorney, so it'll cost more if you don't want to do the leg work yourself. I'm saying that you should be able to send in a detailed d
Re:"First to file" is a horrible idea... (Score:2)
First to file: who cares? (Score:5, Insightful)
it gets worse (Score:3, Interesting)
The Senate version appears to give broader leeway for such challenges, offering up to 12 months--as opposed to the House's nine-month window--after the patent is awarded for challengers to file a "petition for cancellation." That time period could then be widened even further, with a second window available if the petitioner "establishes a substantial reason to believe that the continued existence of the challenged claim causes or is likely to cause the petitioner significant economic harm." Challengers would be limited, however, in the issues they could raise after that first year expires." from the article
Economic harm, seems to be potentially a way of blocking a large number of interested parties even the original inventor. seems that gpled software could be vunerable to this, it's free therefore no economic harm and no standing to challenge the patent. who can fight back in this situation ?
I will leave it upto someone else to explore the pitfalls of that little idea
Re:it gets worse (Score:2)
I renember when they decided to create a seperate patent court. The side effect was that the judges in that system were now only patent judges, so they had a biased interest in expanding the scope, influence, and imposition of the patent system to expand their own scope and influence. Putting this kind of power into the patnet off will make this problem even worse.
PatentStorm... (Score:2)
First to file gets it, right?
Let's patent the process of electing government officials in a democratic method utilizing an electorial college, and sue the pants off the government.
First to file afterall..
I havent read TFA OR anything about this bill... (Score:3, Informative)
Patent economics 101 (Score:3, Insightful)
a) Inventions are usefull, they are beneficial that's why there will always be a need for them with or without patents. The choice is not between patents and no innovation, the choice is between wether invention revenue will derive from a service model vs an invention control model.
b) When you have patnets that forces the market to center around invention controlls, when you don't have patnets that forces the market to center around invnetion services. So the notion that patents help small inventors, and incentivize invention is complete fraud.
c) Inventors are good at inventing things, big-business and government and lawyers are good at controlling things - patents do not help inventors. Patents help some large businesses, lawyers, governments, and anyone else who likes to control and deny other peoples liberties. They hurt inventors and do not promote innovation.
d) Patents are not a property right. Property rights exist because of natural scarcity, not because of human made scarsity. Slaves on the plantation were not a property right either. All the argument about incentive, business, commerce, and the wealth of America was crap back then and is now too.
e) Patents are a pure evil, and even genocidial. Those millions Africans who suffered and died of AIDS while pharmacuticals sued in the world court to forbid African nations from making generics - they suffered and died in the name of patetns. Those millions of people who died in auto accidents while patents held back air-bags and anti-lock breaks for 20 years - they suffered and died in the name of patents.
In sum, patents are a fraud, they are a lie, they harm inventors, they stiffle innovation, they are not property, they are anti free market, and they are evil to the point of genocide. We shouldn't be trying to reform them, we should be trying to kill them and hammer anyone else who dares try to impose them on us.
Re:Patent economics 101 (Score:2)
To bring a pharmacutical to market costs millions if not BILLIONS in research, experimentation, lobbying, and even FDA fees.
A friend of mine has been working on a drug that has an 80% success rate of clearing out childhood lukemia.
80%
she has been working on this for over five years.
and its still not though the FDA.
So
Re:Patent economics 101 (Score:2)
f) In a non patent world, people and companies don't mind collaberating and sharing research because if another uses that research to make a killer breakthru, every body gets to produce and profit off of it. However, when patents are in place, then people and companies need to be very secretive and isola
Re:How will this affect public dislosure of ideas? (Score:2)
good idea (Score:2, Insightful)
The reason they want patents on intangibles is because they have delibarately gone about destroying the tangibles manufacturing base inside the US. so they need something else to replace it to sell. They aren't finis
Re:Most specific patents granted? (Score:2)
Currently, it's easy to understand...just imagine a big tent with three rings in the middle. In one ring, they do things that are intended to convince you that things are other than what they seem, using magic and slight-of-hand. In another ring, they try to distract you with humor to obscure what's going on in the other two rings. In the third ring, they occasionally throw you a bone with a performance that may actually require skill and talent. As you sit, mesmerized