4 ms·
Does there exist some organisation which acts as an umbrella treaty against patent abuse. For example a centralised pool of patents held by all member companies
by etherael 16y ago
Does there exist some organisation which acts as an umbrella treaty against patent abuse. For example a centralised pool of patents held by all member companies in the organisation is used as a deterrent against patent abuse, in the event that any member of the organisation is attacked with a patent, all other members attack the aggressor with their patents?
Patents seem to be enough of a thorn in the side of business that it would be beneficial for at least a significant amount of businesses to participate in such an organisation. If this does not exist, why not?
- robrenaud 16y agoIf you don't want to build anything, it doesn't matter. Patent trolls are basically ghosts with guns. There is nothing to really shoot at to kill. You can potentially take their gun away by invalidating their patents, they have no big downside risk. There is no profitable software development portion of the company that you can blow up.
- etherael 16y agoExcept in this particular instance, and in many other instances, it's not just pure patent trolls doing the abuse. Microsoft (and many of the other players in this war) does actually have a profitable software development portion of the company that could be blown up.
- clavalle 16y agoThere are patent defense organizations like Allied Security Trust, RPX and the Open Invention Network but it seems like these are for major players and/or have very limited scopes