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US patent laws sensibly state that only individuals, not corporations, may be awarded patents. Unfortunately, most companies require that any patent awarded to
by kindall 6y ago
US patent laws sensibly state that only individuals, not corporations, may be awarded patents.
Unfortunately, most companies require that any patent awarded to an engineer in their employ is automatically assigned to the company.
Get rid of that loophole and employees will be able to license their patents as they see fit. Of course this is fraught with practical difficulties, but some kind of compromise could be reached.
Never happen, obviously.
- amluto 6y agoDo you really want to try to get individual licenses from every single person who worked on video codecs from in the last 20 years so you can legally compress video?
- grishka 6y agoWhile that would be somewhat harder, I bet most engineers are much less greedy than companies that employ them.
- lolc 6y agoI see you are unfamiliar with the Wright brothers patent war: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wright_brothers_patent_war https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wright_brothers_patent_war