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> Perhaps it's time for the law to adjust to the point where the stakes for the troll are high Take that further. The stakes should be high against all adjac

> Perhaps it's time for the law to adjust to the point where the stakes for the troll are high Take that further. The stakes should be high against all adjacent patent holders. Ultimately if we want to keep a working patent system it's too much work to rely on piecemeal independent cases like this, albeit a great success. The system has to self-police to be fair, and perhaps the best people to keep trolls and mischievous opportunists on a leash are the bigger players with legitimate patents. They must be fiven a motivated interest in eliminating trolls. If you sell a gun to an unstable crazy who shoots up the neighbourhood then some blame lies with you. While the transfer of patents between concerned partner companies and subsidiaries seems okay, the market for trading patents simply as value assets needs destroying. Ultimately its probably better if we move to a world where a lot of "intellectual property" expires with it's holder and passes into the public domain. To apply a leverage point analysis, it's probably time to reexamine and change the rules about the transferability of patents. Does the purchaser have a legitimate justification to hold the patent? If no, it forfeits.

amelius 4y ago
The problem is that the people who determine patent law (mostly patent officers/lawyers/judges) benefit from the current system.
- javajosh 4y ago
  This is at the root of a broader problem with the judicial system, which is that it systematically fails to do its job in a timely manner. But that's okay with the actors, because they bill by the hour. That's not exaggeration or hyperbole; I've never seen a class of people do less for more than attorneys and judges, who go out of their way to be pleasant and accommodating to each other, with total disregard for the matters at hand. And so we have even simple matters drag on for months or years. At the end of the day, "justice" is what we buy with our conformance to society. When nations fight over systems of government, it's really a fight over what justice means. The current system is broken, but it's owned by old, rich, intelligent people who know what power is and how to use it, how to keep it, how to rationalize it. Even the good ones fall, when they see how goodness and self-restraint is rewarded by their peers, lest they lose their power. I do not think there is a realistic path to reform. The US justice system should be replaced, entirely, with something closer to the German system, which is far less concerned with where evidence comes from, for example, and far more concerned with whether its true. Things happen much faster, and most argumentation is done in writing. Attorneys are forbidden from advertising - which used to be the case in the US, too. But of course they got that changed. It's also remarkable how often a German attorney refers to the law - they treat it as a rulebook as for a board game, whereas in the states the judge, in practice, has absolute power over all participants and is free to ignore the law, or invent new law. (Well, they aren't supposed to be, but the process for holding a judge to account is, if you can imagine it, even worse than the rest of the system. Gee whiz, I wonder how that happened?)
  - amelius 4y ago
    I think we need a Department of Anti-Perverse Incentives.
    - munk-a 4y ago
      While I assume this comment was mostly a joke - most of these cases are covered by either the GOA or the Senate/House Ethics Committees - but partisanship has caused these tools to be de-toothed: @see continued insistence by elected officials that the 2020 election was rigged and the lack of consequences.
LosWochosWeek 4y ago
> Ultimately its probably better if we move to a world where a lot of "intellectual property" expires with it's holder and passes into the public domain. I fully agree with you (and it's one of the few strongly held opinions of mine), but I'm not really sure why you would bring this up within the context of patent trolls. Patents do run out, rather quickly even. It's other intellectual property -- namely copyright -- that needs to run out way faster. The trademark system that we have right now is alright imo and doesnt need to be "fixed".
- melony 4y ago
  The marginal cost of writing and creative artwork is even lower than software, not being able to profit from Mickey Mouse doesn't create significant harm to society.
- TimPC 4y ago
  Many authors do some of their best work late in their lives and it would be a sad society if we stopped funding the art projects of those who got ill or aged because of inability to generate profits from them. The right interval for copyrights is larger than the zero years after death that many advocate for. It's certainly less than 75 years after death though, so there is massive room for improvement.
  - gibspaulding 4y ago
    Perhaps "Life, or X years, whichever comes last" would be an appropriate balance. We can, of course, still argue over what the value of X should be.
- nonrandomstring 4y ago
  Understood, please allow me clarify. Not to get off-topic with copyright despite being an "older author", notwithstanding the sibling comments, I'd agree it's too long. Now, it's nice that patents time-out quite quickly, and indeed that motivates for useful development, but what I'm talking about is adding serial (AND) conditions that require they're capable of being used. Alice has a fresh patent on a method for manufacturing a drug. She can sell it to Bob who also runs a pharmaceutical company and is in the process of expanding his portfolio of medicines. If Alice sells it to Charlie who runs a hair salon and fashion company, because Charlie, who is not in the business of making medicines, she cannot sue or leverage using that patent in any way or it's immediately null and void. Charlie doesn't have an "interest" in the patent and so loses the patent by misusing it, without any further need to prove the patent invalid. Crazy as that may sound to some, I think its a reasonable amendment to present law.
munk-a 4y ago
> If you sell a gun to an unstable crazy who shoots up the neighbourhood then some blame lies with you. Aside from everything else in your argument, this is a really bad point to lean on - in America laws are specifically structured to leave the selling party blameless in all but the most extreme circumstances. As a more general response: I also think the thing that makes anti-troll legislation difficult is that making it harder to attack patents, and making it harder to defend patents makes it harder for smaller businesses trying to defend their property from larger businesses. If we start leveraging personal penalties on the attorneys of bad faith suites we need to have confidence that that also won't be turned into a tool to silence legitimate claims from small parties... If we decided, for instance, to fine every bad faith attorney for 1 million dollars we'd need to make sure that large companies can't use the threat of that fine to strong arm small businesses into compliance. This is a really complicated question and, at the end of the day, it's why we need to be really careful about maintaining a high quality in our federal judges - bad judges cause extreme harm by making justice inaccessible.
- nonrandomstring 4y ago
  Just to be clear, my suggestion has absolutely nothing to do with attorneys. But this is more interesting; >> If you sell a gun to an unstable crazy who shoots up the neighbourhood then some blame lies with you. > bad point to lean on - in America laws are specifically structured to leave the selling party blameless True perhaps. But I did not raise a point of law. This is an ethical chestnut that traces back to at least Plato. Perhaps unclear from my wording I'm implying you know the buyer to be a killer, and so it would be irresponsible to sell. Anyway, my suggested legal revision doesn't rely on whether the seller knows or not, but on the buyers legitimacy to hold the patent.
  - munk-a 4y ago
    As depressing as this may be - we're talking about the legal system so ethical standards aren't really relevant. America (and well, everywhere mostly) has historically had a lot of extremely unethical laws. Currently on the ground most weapon sales don't require extensive background checks which frees the seller of any legal liability - it is illegal to sell a gun to a dangerous person, but it's not illegal to clamp your hands over your eyes and ears and never run a background check in the first place... thus, legally, remaining ignorant of the individual's fitness to own a firearm. This is an extremely divisive topic in America so I'd really just suggest avoiding any gun or self-defense related analogies whenever possible.
akira2501 4y ago
> If you sell a gun to an unstable crazy who shoots up the neighbourhood then some blame lies with you. I'm not required, thankfully, when selling something to do deep background on the person purchasing it. Further, you'd have to prove that my knowledge of this person included the fact that they intended to do something bad with the gun I sold them before I sold it to them. Finally.. I may have just sold them the gun. Perhaps it's more important to ask this question of the person who sold him the bullets. In this analogy, I suppose that would be the patent law firm. > Ultimately its probably better if we move to a world where a lot of "intellectual property" expires with it's holder and passes into the public domain. You move from a high premium on participating in a market, which by some arguments, is my right to participate in to having no participation in it at all. I think more harm than good comes from this. > To apply a leverage point analysis, it's probably time to reexamine and change the rules about the transferability of patents. Does the purchaser have a legitimate justification to hold the patent? If no, it forfeits. You'll trade outright patent transfers for shell company transfers, and the small inventor takes a back seat in all of this. This situation is unfortunate, but I don't think improvements come from hamstringing everyone.
rhizome 4y ago
>If you sell a gun to an unstable crazy who shoots up the neighbourhood then some blame lies with you From the context it seems like a more common analogy would be better to illustrate, rather than using an example of something that almost never happens. A "use it or lose it" model to defang patentholders who don't manufacture their patents is a good idea, as well as using them as assets.
- nonrandomstring 4y ago
  "use it or lose it" that's what I was looking for! Thanks. I see that open-carrying firearms analogies around here I'm likely to shoot myself in the foot.

amelius 4y ago

The problem is that the people who determine patent law (mostly patent officers/lawyers/judges) benefit from the current system.

javajosh 4y ago
This is at the root of a broader problem with the judicial system, which is that it systematically fails to do its job in a timely manner. But that's okay with the actors, because they bill by the hour. That's not exaggeration or hyperbole; I've never seen a class of people do less for more than attorneys and judges, who go out of their way to be pleasant and accommodating to each other, with total disregard for the matters at hand. And so we have even simple matters drag on for months or years. At the end of the day, "justice" is what we buy with our conformance to society. When nations fight over systems of government, it's really a fight over what justice means. The current system is broken, but it's owned by old, rich, intelligent people who know what power is and how to use it, how to keep it, how to rationalize it. Even the good ones fall, when they see how goodness and self-restraint is rewarded by their peers, lest they lose their power. I do not think there is a realistic path to reform. The US justice system should be replaced, entirely, with something closer to the German system, which is far less concerned with where evidence comes from, for example, and far more concerned with whether its true. Things happen much faster, and most argumentation is done in writing. Attorneys are forbidden from advertising - which used to be the case in the US, too. But of course they got that changed. It's also remarkable how often a German attorney refers to the law - they treat it as a rulebook as for a board game, whereas in the states the judge, in practice, has absolute power over all participants and is free to ignore the law, or invent new law. (Well, they aren't supposed to be, but the process for holding a judge to account is, if you can imagine it, even worse than the rest of the system. Gee whiz, I wonder how that happened?)
- amelius 4y ago
  I think we need a Department of Anti-Perverse Incentives.
  - munk-a 4y ago
    While I assume this comment was mostly a joke - most of these cases are covered by either the GOA or the Senate/House Ethics Committees - but partisanship has caused these tools to be de-toothed: @see continued insistence by elected officials that the 2020 election was rigged and the lack of consequences.

LosWochosWeek 4y ago

> Ultimately its probably better if we move to a world where a lot of "intellectual property" expires with it's holder and passes into the public domain. I fully agree with you (and it's one of the few strongly held opinions of mine), but I'm not really sure why you would bring this up within the context of patent trolls. Patents do run out, rather quickly even. It's other intellectual property -- namely copyright -- that needs to run out way faster. The trademark system that we have right now is alright imo and doesnt need to be "fixed".

melony 4y ago
The marginal cost of writing and creative artwork is even lower than software, not being able to profit from Mickey Mouse doesn't create significant harm to society.
TimPC 4y ago
Many authors do some of their best work late in their lives and it would be a sad society if we stopped funding the art projects of those who got ill or aged because of inability to generate profits from them. The right interval for copyrights is larger than the zero years after death that many advocate for. It's certainly less than 75 years after death though, so there is massive room for improvement.
- gibspaulding 4y ago
  Perhaps "Life, or X years, whichever comes last" would be an appropriate balance. We can, of course, still argue over what the value of X should be.
nonrandomstring 4y ago
Understood, please allow me clarify. Not to get off-topic with copyright despite being an "older author", notwithstanding the sibling comments, I'd agree it's too long. Now, it's nice that patents time-out quite quickly, and indeed that motivates for useful development, but what I'm talking about is adding serial (AND) conditions that require they're capable of being used. Alice has a fresh patent on a method for manufacturing a drug. She can sell it to Bob who also runs a pharmaceutical company and is in the process of expanding his portfolio of medicines. If Alice sells it to Charlie who runs a hair salon and fashion company, because Charlie, who is not in the business of making medicines, she cannot sue or leverage using that patent in any way or it's immediately null and void. Charlie doesn't have an "interest" in the patent and so loses the patent by misusing it, without any further need to prove the patent invalid. Crazy as that may sound to some, I think its a reasonable amendment to present law.

munk-a 4y ago

> If you sell a gun to an unstable crazy who shoots up the neighbourhood then some blame lies with you. Aside from everything else in your argument, this is a really bad point to lean on - in America laws are specifically structured to leave the selling party blameless in all but the most extreme circumstances. As a more general response: I also think the thing that makes anti-troll legislation difficult is that making it harder to attack patents, and making it harder to defend patents makes it harder for smaller businesses trying to defend their property from larger businesses. If we start leveraging personal penalties on the attorneys of bad faith suites we need to have confidence that that also won't be turned into a tool to silence legitimate claims from small parties... If we decided, for instance, to fine every bad faith attorney for 1 million dollars we'd need to make sure that large companies can't use the threat of that fine to strong arm small businesses into compliance. This is a really complicated question and, at the end of the day, it's why we need to be really careful about maintaining a high quality in our federal judges - bad judges cause extreme harm by making justice inaccessible.

nonrandomstring 4y ago
Just to be clear, my suggestion has absolutely nothing to do with attorneys. But this is more interesting; >> If you sell a gun to an unstable crazy who shoots up the neighbourhood then some blame lies with you. > bad point to lean on - in America laws are specifically structured to leave the selling party blameless True perhaps. But I did not raise a point of law. This is an ethical chestnut that traces back to at least Plato. Perhaps unclear from my wording I'm implying you know the buyer to be a killer, and so it would be irresponsible to sell. Anyway, my suggested legal revision doesn't rely on whether the seller knows or not, but on the buyers legitimacy to hold the patent.
- munk-a 4y ago
  As depressing as this may be - we're talking about the legal system so ethical standards aren't really relevant. America (and well, everywhere mostly) has historically had a lot of extremely unethical laws. Currently on the ground most weapon sales don't require extensive background checks which frees the seller of any legal liability - it is illegal to sell a gun to a dangerous person, but it's not illegal to clamp your hands over your eyes and ears and never run a background check in the first place... thus, legally, remaining ignorant of the individual's fitness to own a firearm. This is an extremely divisive topic in America so I'd really just suggest avoiding any gun or self-defense related analogies whenever possible.

akira2501 4y ago

> If you sell a gun to an unstable crazy who shoots up the neighbourhood then some blame lies with you. I'm not required, thankfully, when selling something to do deep background on the person purchasing it. Further, you'd have to prove that my knowledge of this person included the fact that they intended to do something bad with the gun I sold them before I sold it to them. Finally.. I may have just sold them the gun. Perhaps it's more important to ask this question of the person who sold him the bullets. In this analogy, I suppose that would be the patent law firm. > Ultimately its probably better if we move to a world where a lot of "intellectual property" expires with it's holder and passes into the public domain. You move from a high premium on participating in a market, which by some arguments, is my right to participate in to having no participation in it at all. I think more harm than good comes from this. > To apply a leverage point analysis, it's probably time to reexamine and change the rules about the transferability of patents. Does the purchaser have a legitimate justification to hold the patent? If no, it forfeits. You'll trade outright patent transfers for shell company transfers, and the small inventor takes a back seat in all of this. This situation is unfortunate, but I don't think improvements come from hamstringing everyone.

rhizome 4y ago

>If you sell a gun to an unstable crazy who shoots up the neighbourhood then some blame lies with you From the context it seems like a more common analogy would be better to illustrate, rather than using an example of something that almost never happens. A "use it or lose it" model to defang patentholders who don't manufacture their patents is a good idea, as well as using them as assets.

nonrandomstring 4y ago
"use it or lose it" that's what I was looking for! Thanks. I see that open-carrying firearms analogies around here I'm likely to shoot myself in the foot.