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I worked in patents about 15-20 years ago. What I remember in this golden era of patent proliferation was that the US patent office, if in doubt or just by def

I worked in patents about 15-20 years ago. What I remember in this golden era of patent proliferation was that the US patent office, if in doubt or just by default, just issued the patent and waited for people with prior art to object. Not sure of the numbers, but I remember IBM would file by the thousands every year for every little thing. Including one for the work that the company I worked for actually did that they caught wind of and decided to beat us to the punch and file. We eventually were granted it, but it was a high legal cost to show we had the idea first.

kevin_thibedeau 5y ago
This is the root of the problem. The examiners have to meet a throughput quota and that creates a perverse incentive to approve garbage. The USPTO is also dependent on filing fees which adds another perverse incentive to help the trolls with their patent spam.
- harikb 5y ago
  Trolls usually don't file patents. They usually acquire them, usually from a company close to going bankrupt. Then they sue other "medium-size" company in a jurisdiction with a friendly and corrupt judge. Even if we stopped issuing new patents today, trolls have enough fodder to survive for the next 100 years.
  - NortySpock 5y ago
    I thought patents expired 20 years from the file date? So you could only troll for ~20 years + anything manufactured using an infringing process. (so "you owe me royalties on the widget you made 10 years ago" is valid.)
psyc 5y ago
I once worked at a company that paid $1K to employees who got patents. Most employees (that I knew) never bothered, or only when they actually invented something. But this one manager and one of his reports formed a 2-person patent brainstorming club. They'd book a conference room regularly and spend the meeting thinking up worthless patents. As an example, one that I remember was something like "spellcheck in a context that usually doesn't have spellcheck." Others were nothing other than descriptions of products we were working on, such as "A web based interface for communicating such information from such a person to another type of person." If you looked in the meeting room, you would see these two giggling like kids, slapping the table, falling out of their chairs. They each had stacks of patent awards in their offices. Most of us had none. I am happy that they had so much fun, but that is what patents are in practice.

kevin_thibedeau 5y ago

This is the root of the problem. The examiners have to meet a throughput quota and that creates a perverse incentive to approve garbage. The USPTO is also dependent on filing fees which adds another perverse incentive to help the trolls with their patent spam.

harikb 5y ago
Trolls usually don't file patents. They usually acquire them, usually from a company close to going bankrupt. Then they sue other "medium-size" company in a jurisdiction with a friendly and corrupt judge. Even if we stopped issuing new patents today, trolls have enough fodder to survive for the next 100 years.
- NortySpock 5y ago
  I thought patents expired 20 years from the file date? So you could only troll for ~20 years + anything manufactured using an infringing process. (so "you owe me royalties on the widget you made 10 years ago" is valid.)

psyc 5y ago

I once worked at a company that paid $1K to employees who got patents. Most employees (that I knew) never bothered, or only when they actually invented something. But this one manager and one of his reports formed a 2-person patent brainstorming club. They'd book a conference room regularly and spend the meeting thinking up worthless patents. As an example, one that I remember was something like "spellcheck in a context that usually doesn't have spellcheck." Others were nothing other than descriptions of products we were working on, such as "A web based interface for communicating such information from such a person to another type of person." If you looked in the meeting room, you would see these two giggling like kids, slapping the table, falling out of their chairs. They each had stacks of patent awards in their offices. Most of us had none. I am happy that they had so much fun, but that is what patents are in practice.