3 ms·

Perhaps they actually invent and design useful things and then license them.

natch 16y ago
Good answer and I agree with it, but most of the time these ideas are invented and reinvented many times, easily, and they should not be protected by the government. You can describe a problem to a six year old and they can come up with patentable inventions that solve the problem. This says more about our patent system than it does about six year olds.
- kenjackson 16y ago
  If an idea is obvious then it is not patentable (in theory). Additionally, if there is prior art that captures the claims then it should also not be patentable. I feel like patent law covers this pretty well. The big problem to me are patents, common in software, that do the following: 1) They target a new problem that didn't exist before. 2) Have a trivial solution to this new problem. 3) Then one can claim that this patent is non-obvious since no one else has done this before. The interesting thing is not the actual patent, but the problem it is solving. In SW this happens because the industry changes so quickly, but the patented ideas are obvious, its just that the problems are new. I propose that we add a new test to patentability -- prior art that this problem has been attempted or struggled with. Thus if your solution is the first one to ever been attempted on a given problem its defacto non-patentable. A quick example is in order: SMS comes out with 148 character limits. Someone then instantly patents URL shorteners to fit in the 148 character limit. Patent denied as there is no prior attempted solutions or struggles fitting URLs in it. (Note, if the patenter can find articles written by practitioners about how SMS is not useful because of link lengths then that would be applicable as prior attempt).
lkjuhygthyujk 16y ago
Thats what we do - your problem is to get a certain signal level in as small as space on the PCB as possible. We use our 20years each of studying physics, software we spent a lot of time and money writing, and a lot of expensive test gear - to design a clever pattern of copper. That's all we sell - the shape of that patch of copper. ARM sell the shape of some layers of photoresist - same difference.

natch 16y ago

Good answer and I agree with it, but most of the time these ideas are invented and reinvented many times, easily, and they should not be protected by the government. You can describe a problem to a six year old and they can come up with patentable inventions that solve the problem. This says more about our patent system than it does about six year olds.

kenjackson 16y ago
If an idea is obvious then it is not patentable (in theory). Additionally, if there is prior art that captures the claims then it should also not be patentable. I feel like patent law covers this pretty well. The big problem to me are patents, common in software, that do the following: 1) They target a new problem that didn't exist before. 2) Have a trivial solution to this new problem. 3) Then one can claim that this patent is non-obvious since no one else has done this before. The interesting thing is not the actual patent, but the problem it is solving. In SW this happens because the industry changes so quickly, but the patented ideas are obvious, its just that the problems are new. I propose that we add a new test to patentability -- prior art that this problem has been attempted or struggled with. Thus if your solution is the first one to ever been attempted on a given problem its defacto non-patentable. A quick example is in order: SMS comes out with 148 character limits. Someone then instantly patents URL shorteners to fit in the 148 character limit. Patent denied as there is no prior attempted solutions or struggles fitting URLs in it. (Note, if the patenter can find articles written by practitioners about how SMS is not useful because of link lengths then that would be applicable as prior attempt).

lkjuhygthyujk 16y ago

Thats what we do - your problem is to get a certain signal level in as small as space on the PCB as possible. We use our 20years each of studying physics, software we spent a lot of time and money writing, and a lot of expensive test gear - to design a clever pattern of copper. That's all we sell - the shape of that patch of copper. ARM sell the shape of some layers of photoresist - same difference.