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"BioFire shouldn't need a license for Theranos' bullshit patents that never worked anyway" There seems to be a lot of hate for the patent system. The idea of p

by redm 7y ago

"BioFire shouldn't need a license for Theranos' bullshit patents that never worked anyway" There seems to be a lot of hate for the patent system. The idea of protecting investment in innovation and allowing for public disclosure through a patent is a good thing. Patent Trolls and, sometimes, corporations weaponize these by twisting the language or intent of the patent, but that doesn't mean all patents are BS, even if a company flounders. The patent office also grants its fair share of questionable patents. Theranos raised more than US$700 million in funding. That's a lot of money and research, regardless of the execution or product failures. My honest questions are, have you looked at the patents in the lawsuit? Are they really "bullshit," or did Theranos innovate in a way that BioFire is now using?

neaden 7y ago
I can assure you, Theranos made no meaningful innovation in anything besides fraud. All of their researchers were either being fed bullshit data, so their conclusions are worthless, or were generating bullshit data, in which case they were a scam.
Haga 7y ago
Holding patents should get exponentially more expensive..
zentiggr 7y ago
> The patent office also grants its fair share of questionable patents. I truly wonder how many patents issued in the past twenty-thirty years, would stand up to _any_ amount of actual scrutiny. I'd say there's a LOT of justified hate for the way the USPTO is operating.
- Silhouette 7y ago
  As someone who was involved with the patent process for a "legitimate" invention -- meaning one that really was useful and did take considerable thought, time and money to design -- I was somehow both happy and disappointed with the patent lawyer's initial reaction. He said it was a pleasant change to be writing up something where there it a technical person supplying the information and the disclosure really was a genuine advance in the state of the art that might later benefit others. I think there was a recognition and perhaps even a little professional pride there that this was how things were always supposed to work. He also said that a lot of the time they just get handed some sort of vague write-up with little if any help to understand it nor much access to any technical expert involved in creating it. They have to turn it into the right format to describe something and try and extract the key words or phrases that look interesting in order to build up the hierarchy of claims, but there's little real understanding there and the results probably reflect that. Most saddening of all, he said that often works anyway, because ultimately a patent enforcement action is going to take place in a court, and it's likely to be a non-expert jury you have to convince of your case. Rather like a complex fraud trial, the issues involved may well be beyond the understanding of some of those jurors, and so to a regrettable degree. What wins cases can be who had the prettiest illustrations or had managed to coin the most intuitively relevant but still distinctive terminology.
  - zentiggr 7y ago
    Thank you for the real world perspective on at least some of this... I honestly have no involvement but just see the stream of trolls and blanket patent grants and I have to assume things are rotten.
    - Silhouette 7y ago
      I'm an optimist on this in principle. From my experience, both filing and researching, there are good patents out there that do disclose useful things that did require some real investment to come up with them. The disclosure and the potential to licence things for mutual benefit with the inventors are beneficial in these cases. And as mentioned before, the patent lawyer I worked with seemed to be appreciate being able to use the system as intended and was keen to make sure we did get things right. I think it's just that, like almost any government-run system almost anywhere, the relevant authorities are often under-resourced and under-qualified. There aren't enough patent examiners to keep things running at a reasonable speed, and the ones there are can't all be experts on everything or even most areas where they examine. That means the system as a whole primarily benefits large organisations that can churn out applications and get lots of them granted almost like throwing darts at a wall. Then you get the cross-licensing cabals that are weaponising their patents to prevent small-scale competition from gaining a foothold, which is the opposite of the intended effect, and the patent trolls, and other negative actors in the system. I do have very mixed feelings on what should or should not be patentable and whether different types of invention should all be treated the same way, and indeed this very discussion is a good demonstration of why that is. But the basic principle, applied in fields where it really does promote research and disclosure, has its merits.
adev_ 7y ago
> The idea of protecting investment in innovation and allowing for public disclosure through a patent is a good thing. That's theory and an outdated dream. Practice is that patents are nowadays just their to defend monopolies. They are there to be sure to atomise the concurrence which is too weak to afford an army of lawyers. Patents are the legal version of the nuclear bomb. Nothing good get out of it, it costs to everybody a shit tons of money and you never use it for anything serious or MAD is guarantee
danmg 7y ago
The system was changed a few years ago to first to file, not first to invent. There's no reason to believe that anything has actually been invented behind that patent.
pdonis 7y ago
There is a lot of hate for the patent system because it is obviously broken. First, as noted in the Ars Technica article, you don't actually have to show that your invention works to get a patent. Second, you don't actually have to be the one producing your invention and making it available to those who can benefit from it to claim patent rights. Third, independent invention doesn't defend you against a patent lawsuit. And fourth, the patent office does not even try to apply the actual standards required for an invention to be patentable: that it must be original, non-obvious, and an enhancement over prior art. If those things were fixed, I think there would be a lot less hate for the patent system. Also, of course, this particular patent lawsuit would never have been possible.

by redm 7y ago

neaden 7y ago

I can assure you, Theranos made no meaningful innovation in anything besides fraud. All of their researchers were either being fed bullshit data, so their conclusions are worthless, or were generating bullshit data, in which case they were a scam.

Haga 7y ago

Holding patents should get exponentially more expensive..

zentiggr 7y ago

> The patent office also grants its fair share of questionable patents. I truly wonder how many patents issued in the past twenty-thirty years, would stand up to _any_ amount of actual scrutiny. I'd say there's a LOT of justified hate for the way the USPTO is operating.

Silhouette 7y ago
As someone who was involved with the patent process for a "legitimate" invention -- meaning one that really was useful and did take considerable thought, time and money to design -- I was somehow both happy and disappointed with the patent lawyer's initial reaction. He said it was a pleasant change to be writing up something where there it a technical person supplying the information and the disclosure really was a genuine advance in the state of the art that might later benefit others. I think there was a recognition and perhaps even a little professional pride there that this was how things were always supposed to work. He also said that a lot of the time they just get handed some sort of vague write-up with little if any help to understand it nor much access to any technical expert involved in creating it. They have to turn it into the right format to describe something and try and extract the key words or phrases that look interesting in order to build up the hierarchy of claims, but there's little real understanding there and the results probably reflect that. Most saddening of all, he said that often works anyway, because ultimately a patent enforcement action is going to take place in a court, and it's likely to be a non-expert jury you have to convince of your case. Rather like a complex fraud trial, the issues involved may well be beyond the understanding of some of those jurors, and so to a regrettable degree. What wins cases can be who had the prettiest illustrations or had managed to coin the most intuitively relevant but still distinctive terminology.
- zentiggr 7y ago
  Thank you for the real world perspective on at least some of this... I honestly have no involvement but just see the stream of trolls and blanket patent grants and I have to assume things are rotten.
  - Silhouette 7y ago
    I'm an optimist on this in principle. From my experience, both filing and researching, there are good patents out there that do disclose useful things that did require some real investment to come up with them. The disclosure and the potential to licence things for mutual benefit with the inventors are beneficial in these cases. And as mentioned before, the patent lawyer I worked with seemed to be appreciate being able to use the system as intended and was keen to make sure we did get things right. I think it's just that, like almost any government-run system almost anywhere, the relevant authorities are often under-resourced and under-qualified. There aren't enough patent examiners to keep things running at a reasonable speed, and the ones there are can't all be experts on everything or even most areas where they examine. That means the system as a whole primarily benefits large organisations that can churn out applications and get lots of them granted almost like throwing darts at a wall. Then you get the cross-licensing cabals that are weaponising their patents to prevent small-scale competition from gaining a foothold, which is the opposite of the intended effect, and the patent trolls, and other negative actors in the system. I do have very mixed feelings on what should or should not be patentable and whether different types of invention should all be treated the same way, and indeed this very discussion is a good demonstration of why that is. But the basic principle, applied in fields where it really does promote research and disclosure, has its merits.

adev_ 7y ago

> The idea of protecting investment in innovation and allowing for public disclosure through a patent is a good thing. That's theory and an outdated dream. Practice is that patents are nowadays just their to defend monopolies. They are there to be sure to atomise the concurrence which is too weak to afford an army of lawyers. Patents are the legal version of the nuclear bomb. Nothing good get out of it, it costs to everybody a shit tons of money and you never use it for anything serious or MAD is guarantee

danmg 7y ago

The system was changed a few years ago to first to file, not first to invent. There's no reason to believe that anything has actually been invented behind that patent.

pdonis 7y ago

There is a lot of hate for the patent system because it is obviously broken. First, as noted in the Ars Technica article, you don't actually have to show that your invention works to get a patent. Second, you don't actually have to be the one producing your invention and making it available to those who can benefit from it to claim patent rights. Third, independent invention doesn't defend you against a patent lawsuit. And fourth, the patent office does not even try to apply the actual standards required for an invention to be patentable: that it must be original, non-obvious, and an enhancement over prior art. If those things were fixed, I think there would be a lot less hate for the patent system. Also, of course, this particular patent lawsuit would never have been possible.