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Delaware judge discovers hidden entity recruiting people to be patent trolls
- heloitsme22 4y agoHi I'm just trying this thing out
- system2 4y agoTry typing something meaningful next time.
- commitpizza 4y agoMaybe patents is a bad idea and should be removed.
- bheadmaster 4y agoSoftware patents, at the very least. https://endsoftwarepatents.org/ https://endsoftwarepatents.org/
- commitpizza 4y agoI don't really see the difference, why just software?
- speeder 4y agoThe purpose of patents, is incentive companies to share their secrets. For example, Coca-Cola never patended their formula. So you might think: I can copy it and sell my own right? Well, yes, legally yes, if you ever found their formula, somehow. They been successful for more than a hundred years now in hiding that formula. Thing is, software patents allowed people to actually patent ideas, concepts, stuff that is obvious and don't need sharing, for example: "ghost racer" is a patented concept, for a while any game that wanted to display to the player his past run by showing a slightly different copy of himself so he can compare, had to pay patent royalty. But the concept is obvious, it is simple, it is there, nobody used a ludicrous amount of money and time to invent it. This is different than the patent for Michael Jackson dance moves that requires specialized devices, he patented physical objects that required time and money to make, they had a non-trivial purpose on his dance and he had to work to create them to make his dance moves possible. And now that he is gone, the awesome stage tricks he invented can keep existing, because he wrote detailed patents explaining how to repeat his feats.
- bryanlarsen 4y ago> stuff that is obvious Stuff that is obvious cannot be patented, according to the law. The problem is the system's implementation of the law. Software shouldn't be patentable because math isn't patentable.
- rhn_mk1 4y agoI think you need a better argument than that. Is physics patentable? Everything in the real world eventually depends on physics. Yet despite the unpatentability of physics, patents built on physical properties of the world exist as well. Why should mathematics and software be different?
- tremon 4y agoSoftware implementations require trade-offs. An implementation of an algorithm can be memory-hard or memory-efficient, single-threaded or multi-threaded, generic or optimized for a particular processor, constant-time or low-latency. But no implementation can be all of those at the same time. To create a solution within the constraints given is what engineering is all about, and requires expert domain knowledge and creative thought. Software isn't just math, it operates on real processors with real limitations. I'm not arguing that software patents should be valid, but the "software is just math" argument is too weak to carry much weight.
- rhn_mk1 4y agoThankfully, the ghost racer patent is expired by now: https://web.archive.org/web/20210824042808/https://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/129914/hard_drivin_hard_bargainin_.php?page=1 https://web.archive.org/web/20210824042808/https://www.gamas... That doesn't make it any more deserving of a patent.
- commitpizza 4y agoSoftware doesn't need to be obvious and could need the sharing aspect of it. I am thinking of all the new ML models that are up and coming for example. Not only do you require some advanced software but also a lot of hardware capabilities. I don't really buy your argument since the same could be said for obvious stuff in the physical world as well. I still think I am leaning towards companies keeping their secrets if patents is the only solution we can bring to the table.
- rocqua 4y agoBecause the bar for 'invention' is even lower in current software patent law than for current physical engineering patent law. In general, the software world sees plenty of innovation, and would continue to see that innovation without patents. Besides, software is much closer to mathematics. The idea that e.g. long-division is patentable is ridiculous, but if you write "long-division, but on a computer" the only thing that prevents a patent is how glaringly obvious the prior-art is.
- jeltz 4y agoFor me the reason is that I cannot say I understand other industries well enough. But I understand software well enough to say that parents there are harmful. Many of them are too generic and trivial and hinders innovation.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- bell-cot 4y agoSoftware patents, "better paperclips", and a lot of other "lawyers get rich, bureaucracies get bigger, little people get screwed patents? - YES. (Some sort of IP protection or reward system is still needed for real inventions - where it takes serious money, expertise, time, etc. to achieve something major.) But maybe a better moral would be that shell corporations (& lawyers playing shell games with them) should be outlawed.
- commitpizza 4y agoBut real inventions can occur in software too? Inventions that takes serious money, expertise and so on. Some examples: - Rust memory management - New models in machine learning that enables amazing results - Protocols
- anonymous_sorry 4y agoBut is there broader benefit to a legal system that enables the inventor to enforce time-limited monopolies on them? Rust's memory management was invented without any such incentive, and the world is richer for it.
- bombolo 4y agoSure they can happen, but in general they require a much lower investment to be done, and are easy to reinvent. Once I had an idea while sitting on the toilet, about how to use past log data to pre-emptively scale up, when the peak hour is about to come. I had the idea just randomly sitting on the toilet for a few minutes… it was already patented.
- asah 4y agoThis cuts both ways: it's also easy to "surround" software patents with new innovations that are required to be competitive in the marketplace. Then both parties cross-license and you're good. Yes the lawyers get paid but the cost is pretty low compared with software engineers, and the societal benefit is that these innovative move into the public domain.
- 4y ago
- ajsnigrutin 4y agoThe idea behind them is solid... the time limits are absurd, especially for trivial stuff. So, to solve the triviality, the patents shouldn't be worth more than it would take for a competitor to reinvent the end result - so if we're talking about a truly advanced chemical process, sure, takes time and reasearch and people and experiments... definitely worth millions. In contrast, pressing pageDown and in result moving one (full) page down (instead of moving a screen-height) should be practically worthless, since it'd take someone just a few hours to reimplement. Valuing would be hard but still better than nothing. The other is the time limits.. especially in software, a year is a lot of time, really a lot... and 20 years is way too much.
- BlueTemplar 4y agoBut that's not how invention works : what about advances that seem trivial after the fact... yet nobody has thought of for centuries, despite all the "ingredients" being available ?
- pixelfarmer 4y agoWhat about patents are non-transferable and only valid, if the issuer actually makes use of them? The moment you let them rot in a drawer, you invalidate the patent. That would disable companies whose sole purpose is to "troll" others with patents they aquired from whomever, and it would also disable companies from inventing something just to block off this path to competitors, while never making use of it itself to press more money out of customers with the "old garbage". I mean the marketing blabla behind patents is always the little inventor who found something incredible but will be eaten by the large corps, right? Which means they should be interested in actually creating a product out of it to make money, and the patent gives them a "safety" period before the big corps stomp the little guy to the curb. Or ... maybe this whole thing was a pure marketing ploy and patents have been misused in all kinds of ways in the 19th century already?
- BlueTemplar 4y agoI give one example of 18th century misuse (or rather, too broad of a patent granted) in a parallel thread : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33505728 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33505728 Some decades later, however the (much less broad ?) patents over steam engines able to produce circular motion, seem to have forced Watt to differentiate and improve his "2nd engine" so much that it could be differentiated enough from the other patents : https://technicshistory.com/2021/10/10/the-steam-revolution/ https://technicshistory.com/2021/10/10/the-steam-revolution/ Note also that Watt was bad at business, and only owned 1/3rd of "his" patents. Our post-modern issues seem to me to instead stem first from : - it being too easy to shelter liability (and tax fraud !) behind complex company trees - a failure of antitrust and lack of goal/duration-limited companies allowing companies to grow waaaay too big to the point where they have enough power to heavily weigh on governments (note though that Watt had already managed to convince the British government to give a 25 year extension on "his" "1rst" steam engine)
- ksidudwbw 4y agoPatents should be coupled to the product. The patent is hidden and considered in draft mode until a working product matching the patent completely is created and submitted to the patent office to check if it matches the patent. If you are working as an inventor it's your own responsibility to market and sell your ideas and create appropriate contracts when selling your inventions to someone. A patent has to go through several layers and areas of concern before finally being approved. The entire approval process must be documented and publically available.
- adql 4y agoThe idea was basically "Let's give some legal protections to investment in research so someone can't just steal it the second you publish it". As it is common, the idea was fine, it even somewhat worked in few places, but applying it everywhere turned out to be silly. We have medical companies changing an atom here in there to make "same" but legally distinct drugs, and software people patenting half a day of work of someone as some "invention" (and my favourite [1], "playing with cat using a laser pointer"). It failed as a system decades ago and if anything it became blockage to innovation (gotta check thousands of patents, they might be too similar!). More than that, it is peanuts in cost for corporation but significant one for a single "inventor" so majority of it lies in hands of corporations that would do that R&D anyway. The protection it provides was also supposed to encourage publishing the science (as opposed to just lock up your trade secrets and never show it to the world) but frankly long patent interval makes it a bit pointless, competition can just invent "same/similar legally distinct process in many situation and only people getting richer by patents are lawyers, not "inventors". I start to think laws should have "best by" date, and be re-evaulated after 10 or 20 years whether they served a purpose well and still serve it... [1] Method of exercising a cat https://patents.google.com/patent/US5443036A/en https://patents.google.com/patent/US5443036A/en
- asdff 4y agoIt's really that the capitalistic patent driven research system is pretty terrible imo. So you have some need to invent some technology for the betterment of humanity and the world. The patent model requires that in order for that technology to exist, someone needs to have the idea out of the blue, and for it to go on to be produced at all it needs to be a convincing enough idea for people to part with their disposable income out of their own will to fund all the overhead of this business plus profit. That seems like a great way to invent a cash cow that the government protects on your behalf, but I'm not sure we would have invented and proliferated the wheel or the bow and arrow if we had this model all through out our human history. You'd have people dealing with really crappy octagonal wheels because someone is squatting on the round wheel patent and might not even have much of an interest to bring it to mass market. There is another model for innovation, however, and that is the government research grant model. The government taxes wealth, the taxes accumulate into massive funds, government experts hired from the field identify compelling research topics that would benefit the collective, funds are made available and other researchers submit proposals of what they would do with that money, government experts choose the most promising proposals, money goes to things based on research merit versus the product or technologies potential to take money from people's pockets.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- CoastalCoder 4y agoCan someone explain the significance of the court's inquiry? I understand how it's interesting to see how one NPE structures it's relationships. But aside from the mail drop / physical location shenanigans, I can't tell if there's any legal significance to this information.
- Andrew_Russell 4y agoI'm the author. It's actually kind of hard to say at this stage, and the judge suggested amicus briefing to help the Court figure out what to make of all this.
- jrmg 4y agoThe article says “All they had to do was become the owners of a patent assertion entity, and accept the "liabilities" that come along with that.” Can you say more what this means? What were the risks these people were (I would guess unknowingly) accepting in return for their 5-10% if things went ‘well’?
- Andrew_Russell 4y agoThey seemed unsure at the hearing of what exactly they had signed up for. Certainly, their LLCs could be subject to attorneys fees if the Court awards fees (which it generally only does in exceptional cases) or for sanctions based on attorney behavior. However, normally, only their LLCs would be liable rather than the owners personally--unless they fail to observe the corporate formalities.
- FireBeyond 4y ago> They seemed unsure at the hearing of what exactly they had signed up for. One even had no idea what the name of the patent "he" owned was, or what it was for.
- ThePowerOfFuet 4y ago> However, normally, only their LLCs would be liable rather than the owners personally--unless they fail to observe the corporate formalities. Failing to observe which formalities in particular would expose them personally to such liability?
- williamcotton 4y agoIt is too easy for people to hide behind corporate entities and to the detriment of public accountability.
- brnt 4y agoThis avatar-like use of Legal persons is undesirable, fully agree. A major component in international money laundering and criminal enterprises is discovering whose avatar $some_co or $my_foundation belong to. Small jurisdictions, mine included unfortunately, are easy targets for friends-of-friends-of-friends to allow such hidden ownership, and the international community should forbid it both at home and abroad.
- tracker1 4y agoUnfortunately, anything short of a constitutional amendment explicitly stating that corporations and other collective entities do not have $list_of_rights that one may possess as an individual would be very difficult to keep in practice. Of course, this also would have to be limited to collective representation, not a group of people in person (such as at a physical protest). It could be very messy at this point. And it all sucks. I think tethering legislation to making corporations exempt from income taxes, and refactoring taxation on profits and loans secured against corporate ownership might be the only way to get it through.
- undersuit 4y agoCorporations were made without a constitutional amendment, they can be regulated without one. Don't like it? Lots of ways to run a company without using the government vehicle/definition.
- disillusioned 4y agoCorporations are people, my friend.
- ldoughty 4y ago
- duxup 4y agoOutside of the liability passed to the smaller entities, what would the advantage of this structure be legally?
- hulitu 4y agoIn some countries this is called organized crime. In this case it is like drug dealers and cartels: they get the drug dealer but the cartel continues to operate.
- tracker1 4y agoA few RICO cases could bring a lot of light to this space, but could be career suicide.
- DannyBee 4y agoI mean, given the cost of litigation, and the inability to get counter-judgement (IE attorneys fees), this is already enough "reason". These are litigation funding exercises, so the goal is protection of the "investors". But you'd also get things like protection against discovery (the smaller entity has nothing to give you), etc. This is the sort of thing where they go too far, and end up in jail despite thinking they're just good at playing the system. (see, e.g., prenda law)
- NotYourLawyer 4y agoPrenda is exactly what this brought to mind for me too. Maybe popehat will do a deep dive on this stuff.
- bombcar 4y agoAt a minimum they’re doing a form of “liability insurance” by foisting 100% of the liability for 5% of the profits on a food truck owner. That changes things beyond just liability - it also makes it appear judgement proof. And the dollar amounts indicate that companies may just settle because there’s nothing to win by a counter suit.
- headsoup 4y agoI like this judge. More of them please. Reminds me of judge Otis T. Wright (https://floridaiptrends.com/2013/03/12/prenda-law-meet-judge-otis-t-wright/ https://floridaiptrends.com/2013/03/12/prenda-law-meet-judge...)
- kochb 4y agoNominated Delaware DA by George W. Bush. Recommended to Delaware District Court by Senators Coons and Carper. Appointed by Trump. Confirmation approved by voice vote (which generally means no Senator expressed the desire to register opposition in a recorded vote). You know officials are doing something right when they can secure broad support like that.
- pc86 4y agoIt's pretty common for judges, especially at lower levels, to have broad bi-partisan support. Lots of politicians are lawyers, and if you're well regarded by the local/state Bar Associations, you're going to have lots of friends and colleagues on both sides of the aisle. Until you start ruling on very high-profile cases, or if you have a lot of partisan scholarship, you're unlikely to alienate the folks confirming you so it largely comes down to what the opinion of you is at the Bar. This is actually why you've started to see people nominated for high level federal posts and even SCOTUS without a lot of divisive scholarship, because they're intentionally staying away from these issues to try to maximize career growth.
- kochb 4y agoI agree that judicial candidates draw bipartisan support more often than most would realize, but you might be overstating how often this happens. In our current political era, Connolly falls into a minority. https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R45622 https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R45622 See pages 30-33: > during the Trump presidency, with 81.0% of district court nominees confirmed by roll call vote > During the Trump presidency, in contrast to the two immediately preceding presidencies, only 15 (10.6%) of 141 district court nominees confirmed by roll call vote received zero nay votes at the time of confirmation. A plurality of nominees (36, or 25.5%, of 141) received more than 40 nay votes when confirmed by the Senate, while another 20 nominees, or 14.2%, received 31 to 40 nay votes at the time of confirmation.
- Andrew_Russell 4y agoSorry all. Apparently I need to put Cloudflare back on the server. Here is the achive.org version: https://web.archive.org/web/20221107120623/https://ipde.com/blog/2022/11/04/a-wild-hearing-chief-judge-connolly-flips-over-rock-finds-mavexar-llc-crawling-around-controlling-patent-litigation-and-giving-hapless-patent-owners-just-5-10/ https://web.archive.org/web/20221107120623/https://ipde.com/... Edit: I discovered the Render.com autoscaler setting. Hopefully it's back now.
- webartisan 4y agoWhat made you remove it?
- Andrew_Russell 4y agoWe have readers at the Delaware courthouse and, incredibly, the courthouse network setup blocks the site for Chrome users if I use Cloudflare. I tried for weeks to find a solution other than removing Cloudflare but nothing seemed to work, and I really want people from the courthouse to be able to read the blog!
- bombcar 4y agoCan you intercept their network and redirect it to a copy hosted elsewhere or on another CDN? Blocking cloudflare blocks half the internet so I presume there’s something else going on somewhere.
- Kalium 4y agoGenerally Cloudflare is integrated as the DNS level. In most configurations that would prevent intercepting their network requests and redirecting them to a copy hosted elsewhere or on another CDN. Pretty much every CDN works the same way or very similarly.
- jason-phillips 4y ago> the courthouse network setup blocks the site for Chrome users if I use Cloudflare Lovely. As my local county attorney told the court, "We will not be using the cloud because it is not secure," this doesn't surprise me. The bane of local governments strikes again.
- whoiscroberts 4y agoThe real question is who hired the entity to do the recruiting. I guess that can be inferred by the patents used in the trolls.
- T3RMINATED 4y ago
- w0mbat 4y agoWhen Scooby-Doo took the mask off the troll, he was just the old caretaker, Nathan Myhrvold.
- btrettel 4y agoCurrent USPTO patent examiner here. The most effective way to eliminate bad patents would be to give examiners more time, say double the time across the board to start. If an examiner can't find prior art in the little time they're given, and they have no other reasons to reject the application, they'll have to grant it. The amount of time was (basically) set in the 1970s based on data from the 1960s. There have been some minor increases since then. Several orders of magnitude more prior art exists now. And while search technology has improved, it hasn't become orders of magnitude better. So I'd argue that the workload has increased dramatically since the 1970s. Simply giving examiners more time would probably greatly reduce the grant rate, and also incidentally reduce examiner stress levels. Patent examination is a tough job, as examiners rarely get enough time to do a quality job, and this leads to the high stress levels. USPTO upper management is taking comments about the "robustness and reliability of patent rights" until February. You can leave your comments here: https://www.regulations.gov/document/PTO-P-2022-0025-0001 https://www.regulations.gov/document/PTO-P-2022-0025-0001 Unfortunately giving examiners more time is only briefly addressed in this request for comments. I think the public should really drive home the point that the procedural changes discussed wouldn't be anywhere near as effective as simply giving examiners more time. Don't believe examiners are overworked? Take a look at this subreddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/patentexaminer/ https://www.reddit.com/r/patentexaminer/ (Note that this comment is only my opinion, not that of the USPTO, US government, etc.)
- joshspankit 4y agoAs someone who seems to have insight: Are the actual workings of the patent system (not the letter of the law, but how it’s used esp by those with money) such that the right AI could be put in place to filter out the majority of bad-faith patents?
- btrettel 4y agoThe main problem is searching for prior art. There are AI search tools but they usually aren't good in my experience. It's rare that an AI search tool will return prior art that can be used in a rejection. Usually the prior art these tools find is related but not good enough. But sometimes (perhaps through random chance), a solid reference can be found. I found a 102 reference (the strongest kind) a few weeks ago for a recent application I worked on by using an AI search tool. I missed that reference earlier due to a text search I did missing some synonyms if I recall correctly. Don't take my word for it... here's r/patentexaminer on the USPTO's latest internal AI search tool: https://www.reddit.com/r/patentexaminer/comments/ybbb60/is_the_new_ai_similarity_search_providing_you/ https://www.reddit.com/r/patentexaminer/comments/ybbb60/is_t...
- pj_mukh 4y ago"Judge Connolly made very clear that, in cases before him, it is not truthful to represent that a post office box is a "principle place of business" of an entity. " "Uh Oh!" - Every Remote business owner.
- brightball 4y agoThat's what UPS Store boxes are for. They can sign for your packages too...
- zippergz 4y agoNo, this is exactly what they are talking about. A UPS store box is not a "principal place of business." Yes, lots of people do it. Yes, you will probably get away with it. But it is not complying with the law, and this is the practice the judge was speaking of.
- brightball 4y agoI know. Ultimately, the reason to use one is if you're largely working out of a house and you're goal is to avoid putting your home address on your business. While I get what the judge is going for here, there's nothing about renting an office space somewhere that makes a patent more valid. If anything, the contracts that allow the parent company to take 90-95% of the income should also entitle them to the same level of liability and that should have nothing to do with the shell company address. As soon as that is addressed, hopefully by law, all of this stuff goes away very quickly.
- delfinom 4y agoSaid remote business owners can declare their home office or whatever as principle place of business. That is different from a mailing address.
- pj_mukh 4y agoBy remote business I don't mean "that one guy who is a contractor LLC", I mean a 50 person team with no office (i.e the new COVID standard). Yes, you could use the "CEO's house", but then he's gotta actually live for a significant amount of time there and receive mail for the company? None of this really makes sense, and the laws (or interpretations) have not been updated.
- drannex 4y agoI'll take a very unlike myself opinion in this - I'll support patent trolls, but only if their exploits are increased by a thousand fold and punishes the entire patent system for being incredibly inept, antiquated, and against any and all forms of innovation. We need serious and far ranging complete patent reform (or revolution) and if deliberate brute-force use of the horrendous laws and regulations that have allowed those entities to proliferate over the last several decades finally forces changes, then bring on more of them. Short term they are horrendous, long term we may need them to force positive changes that benefit and are on the side of small-time inventors and problem solvers, and not the mega-corporations (patent trolls with massive capital). tl;dr: Patent trolls are bad, the patent system that enables them is bad, we need to force massive patent reform.
- AlbertCory 4y ago> we need to force massive patent reform Exactly. How will that happen? My answer: you get some congressman or senator to introduce a bill, and then you apply all the influence you can muster to get it passed. And there will be opposition.
- AlbertCory 4y agoI'm a patent agent and I worked in Google's Patent Litigation department. This is a slight hyperbole, but only slight: I can bust any software patent. I found the prior art that prevented Google Maps from being shut down in Germany: https://www.themarysue.com/google-maps-facing-german-ban/ https://www.themarysue.com/google-maps-facing-german-ban/ @btrettel is right that examiners need more time, but that would mean the PTO would have to hire a lot more of them. A better solution is just to change patentable subject matter to (effectively) exclude computer software. Congress will have to do this since the courts and PTO are unwilling or unable. As for @blobbers below: patents are not a shield against trolls. They're only a shield against your competitors who actually build things. Trolls don't want your patents; they only want your money. Lastly, as for the tools: I was told, 10-12 years ago, that when it was suggested that examiners use Google as well as their mandated tools, the union objected that this would be more work and they'd have to be paid more. Perhaps this is no longer true, and I know that the conscientious ones always did.
- mountainriver 4y agoExactly, patents on software are just insane and anticompetitive. I can’t really think of a single good reason to have them. This is tech, it’s a race, everyone playing already knows that. All parents do is slow innovation or in some cases stop it entirely
- AlexanderTheGr8 4y agoI agree how today's parents slow innovation in their children or in some cases stop it directly \s
- mountainriver 4y agoParticipation trophies! /s
- AlbertCory 4y ago"patents" not "parents"
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- jl2718 4y agoThought: Intellectual property should have nothing to do with payments to register your ideas with the government. Essentially, IP cases should revolve around whether an idea was “stolen”, which is different than coming up with the same thing at a later date. The original intent of the patent system was to promote publication. There are plenty of other ways to publicize work now.
- cycomanic 4y agoI find the framing of the conversation around problems with the patent system to largely be about patent trolls quite disingenuous. This might sound controversial, but patent trolls are pretty much the only way for a "small inventor" to monetize a patent (note not invention). If say IBM violates your patent an individual or even a moderate startup or company has absolutely no chance of defending it, because IBM will either drown you in litigation cost or if you also do business find 10 other patents in their portfolio that you violate and force you to cross licence. By framing the issues to be about patent trolls means that the big companies just want to have their cake and eat it too. They want to keep out newcomers without any risk to their own business. That doesn't mean I am pro patent trolls, but I just am not convinced that the patent system fullfills any value. Patents are written so broad that they are essentially meaningless.
- jmugan 4y agoThe small inventor is supposed to monetize a patent by building something useful for society. That's the whole deal. The patent itself shouldn't have value beyond protecting that path.
- ksidudwbw 4y agoBump
- cycomanic 4y agoWhy? They might be much better at inventing things than starting and running a business. The stated goal behind patents is to advance the sciences not to create businesses.
- jmugan 4y agoMy understanding is that the goal is to advance society (not really the sciences) by enabling someone to produce their invention so society can benefit from it. The patent protects someone from having that invention copied as soon as it is put to use, which provides motivation to spend the time inventing it.
- wellbehaved 4y agoPatents are just inherently bad. There is no way to morally/ethically justify them nor to "fix" the inherently broken system. This is just one of those unquestioned relics from the past that clutches at shackling the youth for the sake of the old entrenched powers, and thus holds back humanity. https://reasonandliberty.com/articles/patents https://reasonandliberty.com/articles/patents
- snarf21 4y agoSerious Question: Do you think that all software should have to be completely and constantly open-sourced? Do you think that all blueprints must be made public? Do you think that all recipes for food must be made public? Creation is hard and should have some potential for rewards. I think we need software patents (especially) to be shorter lived and non-transferable. They can only be licensed and the licensing schedule should have to be public and available for all people at the same price. The employer can get a free license as part of the patent process for company use. This gets rid of trolls and patent farms.
- nu11ptr 4y ago> Serious Question: Do you think that all software should have to be completely and constantly open-sourced? Do you think that all blueprints must be made public? Do you think that all recipes for food must be made public? No, we have copyright and trade secrets to protect those things. There are many forms of IP protection, but patents are the most questionable by far IMO, and are more likely (in most fields) to be a net loss rather than a net gain for humanity. > Creation is hard and should have some potential for rewards. I think we need software patents (especially) to be shorter lived and non-transferable. They can only be licensed and the licensing schedule should have to be public and available for all people at the same price. The employer can get a free license as part of the patent process for company use. This gets rid of trolls and patent farms. Copyright protection is sufficient for software IMO. Very few pieces of software are novel enough to be worthy of a patent, and in the few cases that are, the greater number that aren't outweigh the benefit to the few. When you have to try this hard to salvage the system, it is usually best to not try and salvage it.
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- DueDilligence 4y ago.. I now fear for the judges life.
- system2 4y agoThis is not Brazil. They do not kill judges in the street.
- nu11ptr 4y agoStreet killings are for amateurs. This is the USA. Here they take them out Epstein style...complete with cameras that malfunction and a client list that disappears. After that, they involve the media to ensure it is sold as a "suicide".
- epakai 4y agoThey jail them on trumped-up charges. https://www.dmagazine.com/publications/d-magazine/2022/october/the-most-lawless-county-in-texas/ https://www.dmagazine.com/publications/d-magazine/2022/octob...
- gota 4y agoCurious why you think that is something associated to Brazil. There has been literally - and I mean literally on the literal sense - one case from 11 years ago and none before or after that in my lifetime
- ilamont 4y ago"Passive income" strikes again. Such schemes are not just clogging up courts with patent troll cases, they're responsible for a great deal of the spam, bogus reviews, garbage products, affiliate nonsense, and other online B.S. designed to trick the unwary and make it miserable for legitimate businesses.
- shmerl 4y agoSo some mob decided to make a few shell companies to run patent protection racket. They should end up in jail.
- kazinator 4y ago> Giving Hapless Patent Owners Just 5-10% This seems to refer to the people who got recruited to serve as owners of the patents. They are not "hapless"; they are getting a slice of the patent trolling action. > In short, it looks like both of these witnesses signed up to be the fall guys for the assertion of these patents Unfortunately, the article doesn't hint at what that might mean. Obviously they are inconvenienced by having to appear in court as witnesses. Do they face forfeiture of the LLC income, and penalties? Jail?
- arthurofcharn 4y agoI just want to thank whoever tipped off the judge about these shenanigans. To the mole that I suspect exists within MAVEXAR, you have my thanks. I request that the mole copy all the hard drives that he/she has access to, so that the mole has leverage if caught. It would make a fine letter to your senator. Stay safe out there.
- tiahura 4y agoWhat exactly are the shenanigans? Patents are transferable. Creating LLC’s for a specific transaction is perfectly legal. This judge was getting awfully close to invading the attorney-client relationship. I would have to think hard, and review the law, before answering, or letting my client answer some of those questions.
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- nicolas_t 4y agoCompletely unrelated but because having a patent is a significant plus in a lot of visa scheme what is the easiest and cheapest way to get a patent in the next two years? I wouldn't use it for trolling, wouldn't use it to protect any ip but would just use it to get the points on the visa application when moving to Japan.
- valleyer 4y agoThink of the most intrinsically complicated computer program you ever wrote (that's not owned by someone else like an employer). Then contact a patent attorney and pay them to prosecute it.
- smeagull 4y agoYou can get a patent on practically anything - they only test in court, which is why these trolls have power. The cheapest way to get a patent is to apply, and make the claims very specific and complicated.
- sylware 4y agoIs there anybody still doubting there is a corporate shadow world? You know the "pulling the string in the shadow", and that without fantasy conspiracy theories.