2 ms·
Wasn’t there a time when you had to actually present a prototype of the thing you wanted to patent to the patent office? I think the patent system needs a litt
by dcow 8y ago
Wasn’t there a time when you had to actually present a prototype of the thing you wanted to patent to the patent office?
I think the patent system needs a little work, yes, but I think it’s often conflated with the bass ackwards copyright law in the US. Used together, the two give you the ability to perpetually remain the proprietor of your “invention” because your invention is only ever distributed as a licensed work. This is directly at odds with the purpose of the patent system in the first place.
Patents are supposed to 1) reward inventors, during a limited, exclusive, window, for their inventions, and 2) reward society for curating good inventors by giving everyone access to the details of the invention immediately so our collective knowledge increases. It’s not meant to be used to build your corporate fortress. However, the patent into copyright strategy is how purely digital content behemoths survive. So good luck.
- thrmsforbfast 8y agoShipping & Transit LLC had not only a prototype, but also a product: Jones developed this into a service called BusCall, which had some modest success. I think the actual solution is simply improved patent review. The patent system is broken because there are so many bad patents; if only truly innovative stuff was patented, I think a lot of the reasonable criticism would become a lot less reasonable. But without additional funding, improved scrutiny at filing time would also dramatically increase the cost of acquiring a patent, which is already expensive for individual inventors.
- conistonwater 8y agoThe FDA charges pharma companies for drug reviews (https://www.nature.com/articles/nrd1774 https://www.nature.com/articles/nrd1774), and it works but leads to an appearance of a conflict of interest. They could just make the filing fee equal to what it costs to do a review.
- thrmsforbfast 8y agoSteko's comment might be a good place to continue that particular conversation. Such an approach would require careful design of incentive structures so that patents remain accessible without making the status quo of bullshit patents even worse.