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Trolls Are Real
- mjevans 8y agoRe Patents (Just get rid of them entirely!) Please prove me wrong that they aren't effective and are a myth. Processes of how to do things often come down to engineering and math; if given the same goal a solution is likely to be similar at it's core as for any given problem there is probably an ideal bound and variations of effort will produce similar results or results optimized slightly to different circumstances. (Yes, this is copied from a different post I made last night with respect to all sorts of intellectual property issues.)
- onlyrealcuzzo 8y agoWithout patents, there's zero incentive to innovate. Let someone else spend the money innovating, and then copy them exactly when their done. You don't get rewarded for innovation. You get rewarded for execution.
- danaur 8y agoHow would you incentivize drug research without patents?
- ndnxhs 8y agoGovernment funded. Drug research is an obvious benefit to every single person.
- gviperrr 8y agoHaven’t been affected by this issue but I’m dreading the future where a lot of hard work building my company is wiped out by people like this. Fairly demotivating as an individual and terrible for innovation based economies.
- bluejekyll 8y ago100% this. It’s exactly one of the biggest of my concerns at the idea of starting a software company.
- edoo 8y agoPatents going back to 7 years instead of multi generational would fix most everything.
- antpls 8y agoCan't even access the article with javascript turned off.
- wataruspeedo 8y agoTurn JavaScript on.
- eruci 8y agoTrue. I recently got an email from someone claiming they had reason to believe I was infringing on... I wrote back "I believe you have no reason"
- everybodyknows 8y ago> ... patent number 10 million and celebrated that milestone with a signing ceremony at the White House with President Trump ... Aha! Now we know why it was extra-important to pluck #10,000,000 out of normal order. https://patentlyo.com/patent/2018/06/patent-no-10000000.html https://patentlyo.com/patent/2018/06/patent-no-10000000.html https://patentlyo.com/patent/2018/06/patent-no-10000000.html#comment-410229 https://patentlyo.com/patent/2018/06/patent-no-10000000.html...
- amelius 8y agoThe patent system was broken from the start. The incentives are all wrong, as USPTO officers get paid more, the more patents they approve. It's like paying fishermen for the fish they didn't catch.
- pnw_hazor 8y agoThe are paid on the GS salary scale. Examiners have a quota of "counts" where each count corresponds to some action they take during examination. It doesn't make any difference to them if they allow or reject patents. The more rounds of prosecution it takes means more counts for the examiner. Each round after the first requires additional fees from the applicant.
- bsbechtel 8y agoEach additional round only requires additional fees if the examiner’s actions were proper. If the applicant can argue they weren’t, then they don’t pay.
- monochromatic 8y agoThat’s not even close to true.
- skrebbel 8y ago> paying fishermen for the fish they didn't catch. TBH that doesn't sound like an awful bad idea.
- badfrog 8y agoWhat do you mean? Why?
- sacheendra 8y agoThe parent might be refering to the overfishing that happens in many parts of the world. That leads to destruction of the local ecosystem, and also the future livelihoods of the fishermen themselves. The US government already does something similar for corn. Farmers are paid to not plant it to control market price.
- komalkshp 8y agoWtf
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- nanokilo 8y agoOf course lobbyists are behind the weakening of patent laws. Something really has to be done about the lobbying problem we have in this country.
- blazespin 8y agoPatent trolls would be OK if they couldn’t go after small companies. What’s worse is they prioritize small companies. In fact, buying patents and then suing makes IP from fundamentally valuable. I am generally OK with that, but not when it discourages startup ecosystems which are a huge source of real innovation. What I’d love to see would be the democrat party to refocus their policies to shift towards small business against large corporations. Re-invent the American Dream. This could tie in well with the green new deal. Rather than talk about jobs, talk about the tens of thousands of small businesses.
- leesalminen 8y agoI don’t think the Democrat party will be going anywhere but to the extreme left of socialist ideals for the next few election cycles. Conversely, the Republicans will continue moving further to the right with extreme capitalist ideals. I’ve pondered if Newton’s laws of physics applies to our 2 party political system. There seems to be an equal yet opposite reaction (see Trump and AOC). I think we need a 3rd party in our country. Maybe it could be coined “the middle party”?
- nestorD 8y agoNot equal apparently : https://youtu.be/mICxKmCjF-4 https://youtu.be/mICxKmCjF-4
- leesalminen 8y agoA title of “Admit it. The Republicans have broken politics” and being published by Vox fills me with confidence that this will be an unbiased report based solely in fact. Definitely. This is clearly an opinion and not news nor fact. The real fact is that Republicans are American, just like Democrats. We are all responsible for breaking our country. Every. Single. One. Of. Us.
- jessaustin 8y agoRepublicans and Democrats most of all. If voters would stop voting for them, we'd have better people in office.
- z3t4 8y agoPatents are meant to protect you from bigger companies muscling you out. They have however found a loophole by acquiring as many patents as possible hoping that will scare you. That strategy however doesnt help against trolls. So they lobby to weaken the patent system to make it easier to steal ideas from small startups.
- greglindahl 8y agoPatents aren't "meant to protect you from bigger companies muscling you out". That's a common story told to justify them, but US patents are meant to do what the US Constitution says about them: “To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries.” Many people who do small startups think patents are a net negative for small startups.
- pnw_hazor 8y agoTheir investors sure like them though. Patents are business assets that can be very important for valuation during exits or funding rounds. In most cases, due diligence auditors are going to want to see a company's patent portfolio. A bad or weak portfolio may not tank the deal, but it certainly impacts valuation. I have seen this first hand, if BigCo is choosing between two or more companies to acquire, they are more likely to select the one with the stronger patent portfolio. edit-to-add: trademarks are very important too -- and often overlooked by startups until it is too late. Trademark trolls are real too.
- greglindahl 8y agoInvestors like patents and trademarks in the "better to have some than have none" sense. That can be still be true even when the patent system is a net minus for small startups. Source: filed a lot of patents and trademarks in my small startups, they were useful at exit, still hate patents with a passion.
- hownottowrite 8y agoReference: Speech given by USPTO Director Andre Iancu to the Eastern District of Texas Bar Association https://www.ipwatchdog.com/2018/10/19/iancu-risk-takers-patent-troll-narrative-orwellian-doublespeak/id=102474/ https://www.ipwatchdog.com/2018/10/19/iancu-risk-takers-pate...
- mirimir 8y agoI guess that he's playing to the audience. Maybe some of those attorneys are major Trump supporters. Or maybe it's just generic hate for plaintiffs' firms. Which primarily support Democrats.
- mirimir 8y agoEdit: OK, I'm wrong about plaintiffs' firms. I see that it's trial lawyers, who have traditionally supported Democrats, who have pressed Senate Democrats to oppose legislation to control patent trolls. And that it's Republicans who have spearheaded such legislation. So why, then, is a Trump appointee playing to patent trolls in the audience in East Texas?
- rayiner 8y agoThe thing about plaintiffs’ firms is over simplistic. Republicans oppose plaintiffs firms that file consumer lawsuits. Patents by contrast are B2B litigation, and the factions there are different. The anti-patent folks are largely Internet tech companies, who usually support Democrats. Many more “establishment” companies, by contrast, are not so strongly Democrat aligned, are relatively pro-patent. Apple, DuPont, Ford, General Electric, IBM, Microsoft, and Pfizer all opposed further watering down of the patent system after the AIA was passed in 2013.
- mirimir 8y agoThanks. I'm mostly familiar with plaintiffs firms doing public-interest class tort and antitrust. And there, memorial photos with Clinton and Obama were the norm.
- ddspider 8y agoWe've been targeted by a patent troll and as a small business (less than 5 employees) it absolutely shook us to our core. Thankfully a lawyer took us up pro bono and the trolls backed off. I'm saddened to think of all the businesses that weren't as lucky. This needs to be fixed.
- novaleaf 8y agowhy not provide some details? at least how you got in touch with the nice lawyer, that might help others.
- ddspider 8y agoSure. All I can recommend is to contact the EFF. They had some lawyers willing to work with us. The lawyer who did end up working with us was from California and specialized in patent trolls. I'm outside the office right now so I can't tell you specifically who it was You may also be able to strike a deal with the patent trolls. We were able to take them down to 40k from 100k. That was still ridiculous for us but if you're paying a lawyer or paying the troll it's all the same to a business working on thin margins. We heard stories that they would accept as little as 10k. For what it's worth the patent troll that targeted us is no longer operating under their original name. They were taken down by the EFF representing a vape company if I remember right.
- lstodd 8y ago> but if you're paying a lawyer or paying the troll it's all the same to a business working on thin margins and this is why patent trolls exist
- jka 8y agoThis may mean it's a good time to re-read the history of SCO and their patent claims on Linux: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCO%E2%80%93Linux_disputes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCO%E2%80%93Linux_disputes
- rayiner 8y agoTrolls are definitely real, and we need reforms, particularly at the PTO, to cut down on the number of bad patents. At the same time, there are companies who make lots of money free riding on other peoples’ IP. And that’s also a huge problem. For example, YouTube became a multi-billion business ripping off content companies. YouTube doesn’t create a product-it’s just a middle man for content produced by other people. YouTube makes more money by weakening the protections available to content producers (and unsurprisingly Google is at the forefront for watering down copyright law). Huawei built a business ripping off the designs of Cisco and Juniper, and now are using their leverage to try and compete with those companies in the US. That problem becomes particularly acute as the US switches more to producing IP. The EFF’s myopia is to fail to realize that a balance needs to be struck. A world where you can release a chip or a drug or a jet engine and have a Chinese company immediately copy it and sell a competitor at a fraction of the price with no consequences is one that’s not good for Silicon Valley in the long run. Our competitors overseas can recreate YouTube much more easily than they can recreate Hollywood. India still hasn’t been able to create a jet engine domestically, even though HUL has been able to design and manufacture most of the rest of a jet fighter.
- jMyles 8y ago> A world where you can release a chip or a drug or a jet engine and have a Chinese company immediately copy it and sell a competitor at a fraction of the price with no consequences is one that’s not good for Silicon Valley in the long run. I have no problem living in a world where the government is unable to exact violence against people for copying data. This seems to me to be an entirely artificial crime whose existence has been important for humanity so far, but which is now a human rights affront.
- monochromatic 8y agoWhat changed it from being important to being a human rights affront?
- jMyles 8y agoThe evolution of the internet and remix culture. Things are different now with respect to IP than they were when Tesla was filing patents. Don't you think?