4 ms·
I do have to say, I have seen some really trash patents approved that were only submitted because the company in question had a patent bounty system. I have a
by buildsjets 3y ago
I do have to say, I have seen some really trash patents approved that were only submitted because the company in question had a patent bounty system. I have a colleague who has racked up about 50 so far and none of them have been used in a product.
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/20782/boeings-been-granted-a-patent-for-turning-the-b-1b-into-a-gunship-bristling-with-cannons https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/20782/boeings-been-gra...
pew pew pew
- baq 3y agoThe point isn’t to use the patents in products, the point is to give lawyers ammo to countersue when an infringement suit arrives.
- AlbertCory 3y agoThat very rarely happens, despite what the lawyers tell you. You don't countersue a troll, because they have no assets. You might countersue a rival, except they probably won't sue you. Mutually Assured Destruction is the more common defense among competitors.
- baq 3y agoSo it works as intended! (at least by lawyers)
- AlbertCory 3y agoYou said "give lawyers ammo to countersue" so no. Most infringement suits are from trolls. A countersuit against a rival would need at least some basis in reality, so they'd have to be selling something that infringed your patent (unlikely).
- baq 3y agoYou’re just making my point but somehow disagreeing with me. The are no suits because MAD works. MAD only works if both sides have enough ammo to glass the other. So you need all the patents you can get to have a reasonable chance of finding a few your opponent infringes upon.
- AlbertCory 3y agoI'm not making your point. You had a small part of the truth. It's much more complicated than you think. Sometimes MAD works, but sometimes the rivals do cross-licensing. "Getting more patents just in case we need them" is maybe one of the reasons, but there are so many others: 1) To protect the things we're already doing 2) To protect things we MIGHT do 3) Because that's what big companies do. Herd-following. 4) To keep someone else from horning in on our space 5) To use for cross-licensing or counter-suits 6) To sell in case we never want to commercialize Don't underestimate #3. Every business "analyst" looks at your patent production.
- yellow_lead 3y agoThat's pretty funny. At the risk of giving someone the idea to poison the well further, I think you could do a lot of this with AI these days.
- fwungy 3y agoSimilar pattern in academia. The more you publish the better your CV, so there's a lot of pressure to publish, and a lot of garbage research.