Comment Re:A Modest Proposal ... (Score 0) 282
Yes we all pay due to higher costs, but in many cases this all could have been avoided. I'm assuming the patent is valid and innovative.
Yes we all pay due to higher costs, but in many cases this all could have been avoided. I'm assuming the patent is valid and innovative.
Just follow the EU's software patent battle and you'll see who it is who simply LOVE them, and it's not small inventors or small businesses. It's the big corporations that spend more time patenting the color blue than anything else (even the corporation I work for has a team of patent lawyers that rival some entire business' staff, and the company frequently begs us for "patentable stuff" if we've seen it or made it).
1) Large corporations get patents as a protection racket to throw mud back at. Most of those patents aren't innovative. Show me some that are (...and Google patents don't really count - they innovated and just happen to have grown so fast (actually due to innovating)).
2) Explain to me why the small inventors or businesses dont' see the use in them again?
If a person or small business wants to patent something and then negotiate with a larger company to do the muscle work beyond a prototype, I have no problem with that
ahh but herein lies one of the problems - without patent protection a medium-large corporation will almost always tell the inventor to buzz off, and then depending on the usefulness of the innovation - copy&paste the idea. You'd be surprised. Remember, these are soulless corporations who's sole purpose is to maximize profits for investors - and that means reduce expenses (e.g. technology license fee's).
but I can say that if a person sits on a patent waiting for someone else to come up with it so they can sue in East Texas, that person needs shot in the eye
I believe the problem lies in that the system too heavily favors the bigger guy. To start an infringement suit you need many things - one is due diligence - big time proof that they are infringing. This is intense and can take years to collect the evidence. Remember our law - defendent is innocent. So the larger corporation will make a business decision whether its more cost-effective to negotiate and buy a license or let him drag you through court. An infringement suit is easily over $1million. Now of course, the little guy should recognize this and not be too greedy - but in this case we're talking about innovating AV software here - no trivial innovation and so probably felt it worthwhile to pursue for higher amounts.
Corporatism is to blame for small business' lack of leverage
Interesting, but how so? Corporatism is one of the factors behind Western civilization that isnt going to be easy to get rid of, how is it to blame for small business lack of leverage? Corporations can be small - even one man (owner+employee) and provides certain advantages.
this sort of patent we're discussing here is a poor example of the "little guy" trying to get leverage to bring something to market. (It reeks of troll.)
I disagree. I suspect that what happened in this case was:
all I really want is for it to be equitable, less prone to moronic patents of obvious prior art
On Slashdot we never see proper analysis of the patent claims. Others claimed things like chmod and VMS were prior art - I'm sorry but those aren't antivirus products that stop virus.
Rather than encourage development of new technologies, patents have become a way to choke the application of novel technologies in industry. So-called "patent holding companies" have become little more than extortion gangs, demanding their share of the money to which they have no right at all.
Or is it due to the fact that the large corporations completely ignore the little guy when he shows up with his innovation (e.g. years ago)?
It is common practice for these large corporations to get letters from the small inventor showing their innovations and asking for a royalty, the corporations patent counsel then thinks it over whether to
#3 has all sorts of nice tricks (like pretend to be interested and stall him, counter-sue, etc...).
In today's world the large companies have big-time advantages (leverage, afford $better lawyers,
arguments against Software Patents and their detrimental effect on innovation within software
Untrue unless you drink Slashdot koolaid.
Small inventors/businesses come up with a disproportionately large number of innovations. Now assume a world without software patents - large corporations could work most efficiently if they leverage their resources, brand, experience in just scanning their competitors and re-implementing whatever looks most profitable. In other words, why would a large company innovate and not just monitor competitors + copy-paste their code. You see large corporations do not need to innovate - they just leverage their strengths (brand, position, existing customer base,
When someone comes up with a way to protect small inventors from larger companies that copy-paste the results of their hard work and innovation THEN AND ONLY THEN we can abandon the current patent system. Sorry copyright doesnt cut it - large companies just re-implement.
You are confusing bringing something to market vs recognizing the actual innovation or improvement. The market can be more efficient for smaller companies to do the actual innovation and selling their innovations to the larger corporations. Software folks miss this point (so far). Really the problem is the small inventor or business does not have enough leverage - companies like the 20 in this suit just dismiss them and expect the small guy to disappear or to run them over in court with their lawyers.
"Been through Hell? Whaddya bring back for me?" -- A. Brilliant