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Hostile Environment For Inventors Harms Our Economy

Posted by khalling 10 years, 4 months ago to Politics
121 comments | Share | Flag

"Whether we continue to lead the world in software, or we are displaced by China is now uncertain. In
stark contrast to the U.S., China and the rest of the world have been strengthening the Exclusive Right
and the Presumption of Validity for patents in their respective countries. 46
These positive changes are
stimulating innovation in those countries and growing their economies. The U.S., unfortunately, is going
in the opposite direction. We are weakening patent protection. Today, we have more companies going
out of business than starting up for the first time in our history. If we continue down this anti-patent
road, the U.S. will no longer lead. China will.
Congress, the administration and the courts all see that the patent system as broken. They are right. It
is broken. But not for the reasons they think it is broken. The facts have been hijacked by the loud
impermeable voices of those who benefit from weak patent rights. Those negatively affected, the
inventors and the American public, cannot get a word in edgewise. If we continue to enact broad
changes under the misguided “patent troll” arguments, we can expect even greater damage to our
economy and our standing in the world.
We must go the other way. We must stop the further weakening of the U.S. patent system. Congress
must pass laws negating the effects of eBay vs. MercExchange so that a patent is again an Exclusive
Right. The Presumption of Validity must also be restored by eliminating PGO’s and other provisions of
the AIA. The misguided “abstract idea” category of patentable subject matter must be eliminated
altogether. Lastly, the PTO must be fully funded and better managed.
Without these changes – setting it back to what it was just a decade ago – we will become like all other
countries – unexceptional. Someone else will lead future technology revolutions. Perhaps that country
will be China and our generation will be known for the greatest blunder in history."


All Comments


Previous comments...   You are currently on page 4.
  • Posted by dbhalling 10 years, 4 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Right and we should stop using property rights to squelch competition. Your competitors should be able to use your facilities, or your employees, or your inventions in the name of competition. That is a nonsensical statement. Either you have property rights or not.
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  • Posted by dbhalling 10 years, 4 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Sad but true, patent rights should be a real property right.

    On the other hand (lawyer) a purpose of patents is to create alternative ways to skin the cat.
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  • Posted by JCLanier 10 years, 4 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Khalling: Thank you for your efforts on this most important subject. It is appreciated. Your and db's insight into this grievous situation is alarming... Again, it is the tip of the iceberg, because so few are aware of this subterfuge implemented by the system be that courts and/or government that blatantly allows for the possession and distribution of stolen property!!!
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  • Posted by $ allosaur 10 years, 4 months ago
    Calling an inventor a "patent troll" because he won't share his creation like some socialist serf sounds like the words of an antagonist in an Ayn Rand novel.
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  • Posted by term2 10 years, 4 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Publishing your invention in a patent just educates another inventor on how to get around your design. I do this all the time. There are many ways to skin a cat, as the saying goes. (who skins cats though...)
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  • Posted by term2 10 years, 4 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Courts are really useless when it comes to patents. It costs so much to educate the judges/juries to come up with a reasonable judgment that whether you win or lose isnt really important. You have spend so much to litigate, it would have been better to just innovate again.
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  • Posted by term2 10 years, 4 months ago in reply to this comment.
    We should stop trying to use patents to squelch competition. When you really innovate, you get a few years to get your money back without competition. We need to use that time to secure a market position and get our costs down so we can compete. Otherwise, in one way or another, we will lose.
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  • Posted by 10 years, 4 months ago in reply to this comment.
    1. you have not read the article
    2. you ignore Rand on the subject
    3.you emote
    4. intellectual property is based on the ideas of Locke on property and common law, and our Constitution
    since you do not promote any of these important philosophical pillars, I am hiding your comments.
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  • Posted by term2 10 years, 4 months ago in reply to this comment.
    So what good did it do apple to patent the hell out of the iphone. Samsung just found ways to get around most of the patents, and even though they lost in court, I really doubt that Apple will ever see the billion dollar judgement.
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  • Posted by term2 10 years, 4 months ago
    I am not so sure that patents are really worth a lot. Its so easy to get around them, and then to protect them it takes $$$$$ in court. Chinese stuff is cheaper than ours because they work faster and cheaper then we do. Our entitled american workers are just outclassed by the Chinese, and we need to up our game and reduce our entitled expectations so we can compete in the world.
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  • Posted by dbhalling 10 years, 4 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Your history is nonsense, it is a straightforward application Locke's ideas on property and implemented in US law under the Constitution and common law through Sir William Blackstone.

    Learn a little about a subject before you spout off such nonsense.
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  • Posted by $ jlogajan 10 years, 4 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Of course you are constrained. Intellectual property is a claim on all minds, all hands, all physical property everywhere in the world, and barring an escape clause not mentioned by Rand, in perpetuity.

    You say it is the stealing of thoughts, but the flip side is the stealing of the property rights of others.

    Intellectual property and physical property are mutually contradictory. The supremacy of one implies the violation of the other.

    The early advocates of intellectual property saw it as a compromise, strictly for the collective benefit of society. The people would surrender some of their freedom for the benefits of rewarding inventors and writers as an encouragement to produce new works.

    I believe rational people must keep in mind the conflict between intellectual property and real property.
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  • Posted by LetsShrug 10 years, 4 months ago in reply to this comment.
    How is it winning if they don't pursue the injunction? So long as they're getting paid from the infringements they don't care about the law? Apparently morality has a price to some.. most..nearly all I guess. No big wonder why we are where we are. gag
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  • Posted by dbhalling 10 years, 4 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Inventions are defined by the claims, prove that there are numerous patents on so called trivial inventions.

    There is no such thing as a trivial invention. Something either is an invention or it is not and under the Constitution and logic any invention is entitled to property rights - a patent.
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  • Posted by 10 years, 4 months ago in reply to this comment.
    thank you owl. It is my mission to promote invention and lift up the importance of inventors in our country, like our founders did and knew.
    Reply | Permalink  
  • Posted by 10 years, 4 months ago
    Here's the deal on this post. I will vigorously use voting, flagging and hiding with individuals who propagate mis-information about the patent process, litigation and infringement. It should be pretty uncomfortable for Austrians and anarchos to make statements on this site which are anti-inventor, anti-capitalist. Here is Db's talk at the Atlas Society from last summer: Why is John Galt an Inventor? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQppLW4e...
    Reply | Permalink  
  • Posted by davidmcnab 10 years, 4 months ago in reply to this comment.
    I'll give this my best initial shot:

    An invention is a mental formulation by a party of:
    (a) a process for manipulation of physical material or objects, and/or
    (b) a physical material or object, which is:
    (i) previously unknown to the party itself, and
    (ii) is expressed in working demonstrable physical form (either directly by the party itself, or by another party or parties directly behalf of the first party), and
    (iii) can be applied to meet needs or desires, or solve problems, for at least one party.

    IANAL - I'm aware that a trained lawyer would find enough holes in this to fly an A380 Airbus through, but that's how I personally relate to 'invention'.

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  • Posted by 10 years, 4 months ago in reply to this comment.
    you are not constrained. do what you want, however you may not initiate force. selling someone else's invention is stealing. That's initiating force. You need to start asking questions as you are unknowledgable in the subject. If you mis-state Rand again, I will hide your comments, even though you appear to be a big fan of the movies.
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  • Posted by Owlsrayne 10 years, 4 months ago
    Home inventors that you see on You Tube have videos there to put the information in the public domain because the cost, time and theft of patents is very high for these inventors. It is sad that there will no longer an Age of Invention that was seen in this country since the late 1800's and early 1900's.
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  • Posted by 10 years, 4 months ago in reply to this comment.
    1. wrong. The author of the article explains it in great detail. Inventors are considered "trolls." I can give you specific examples. Logan, who sued Adam Corolla, the head of Data Treasury. It is a pejorative term used to label anybody who attempts to enforce their rights. It is MOSTLY used against firms that do not manufacture, but it has been used against manufacturers too.
    2. Intellectual Ventures and the value judgment of "notorious." where did this value judgement come from. The article talks at length about this. Did you read it? It was an opportunity to gain insight into how patents work, how licensing companies work, and how small inventors rely on companies like Intellectual Ventures to monetize their inventions so they can keep inventing. Inventing deserves to be a profession.
    3. "The victim company just thinks:" This is also a value judgment. Why is the patent holder the bad guy in this scenario and the infringer (thief) considered a victim?
    4." it's possible for one company to wheedle out of a whole industry sector a sum of money which is many times larger than the legal cost of defeating their claims. " this is exactly what large corporations depend on. For you to see paying a license for what you are stealing as a cartel demanding hush money. Inventors have a right to be paid for their production. You are anti-patent. Protecting intellectual property is an essential part of capitalism and supported by Objectivism as moral. Are you an Austrian or anarcho?
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  • Posted by dbhalling 10 years, 4 months ago in reply to this comment.
    You have a number of overlapping points there. Let me try to take them one at a time.

    1) Any prior public use (sale in US) by another of the technology makes it unpatentable to a patent applicant. A patent applicant has to define (the claims) a novel invention. So in your example above Company A would have the patent invalidated.

    2) If the inventor, A, decides to keep their invention a trade secret and a company B comes along and applies for a patent. Before the AIA (2013) A could be found to infringe a patent that issued to B. Under the present law things are bit more complicated, but roughly if A made substantial preparation to commercialize (prior use) a product incorporating the invention, he will have a limited right to practice the invention.
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  • Posted by davidmcnab 10 years, 4 months ago in reply to this comment.
    In the end, it largely depends on who has the larger legal budget.

    The article gets it wrong from the start by claiming that inventors themselves are labelled as "patent trolls", where the term much more often refers to non-inventing patent hoarding corporations such as Intellectual Ventures Inc whose business model contains zero invention and huge amounts of actively searching for (potentially) infringing behaviours.

    Intellectual Ventures is notorious for litigating against companies who are using technology which could even vaguely be perceived as infringing. The process involves a cease and desist letter with threats, offering option to settle by paying a license fee. The license fee is carefully calculated to be significantly less than the legal cost the defending company would have to pay to defeat the infringement allegation in court.

    The victim company just thinks: "It's cheaper to pay up than to fight for justice". They open their wallet and the problem goes away. Sadly, by this means, it's possible for one company to wheedle out of a whole industry sector a sum of money which is many times larger than the legal cost of defeating their claims.

    THAT - is a patent troll.
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  • Posted by 10 years, 4 months ago in reply to this comment.
    "Rand admits that a claim of intellectual property infringes the mind, hands and physical property of all other individuals." This is a purposeful mis-statement of Rand. I see that you are a producer, but I'm not familiar with you on this site. If you are an anarcho, you will find lots of challenges from Gulchers. Rand was against anarchy which is anti-capitalism. As Locke pointed out, in a state of Nature, you spend all your efforts protecting your property.
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  • Posted by $ jlogajan 10 years, 4 months ago in reply to this comment.
    It is implicit in what she said. If intellectual property is to be enforced, it must constrain the mind, hands and physical property of all other individuals.
    Reply | Permalink  

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