10 ms·

The myth of patents is that some inventor working in their garage comes up with a genius invention, patents it, and then can leverage that patent-granted period

by kemayo 3y ago

The myth of patents is that some inventor working in their garage comes up with a genius invention, patents it, and then can leverage that patent-granted period of exclusivity into a thriving business. Hard work and smarts translating directly into rewards! This is, of course, a myth. It's not impossible for that to happen, theoretically, but the way the patent system actually works these days is that large companies patent anything they ever think of regardless of actual novelty, holding on to vast piles of patents as weapons of strategic deterrence. The megacorps exist in a state of patent detente -- unless someone is particularly blatant about a violation, it's better not to sue another corp because they'll just countersue with their own patent hoard. Then you'll both be stuck in years of litigation, working to get each other's patents invalidated, unsure of who is going to come out of it with a remaining claim. When the tiny independent inventor appears, however, they don't have any of that patent-hoard protection. So it's easy for a big company in a vaguely related industry to squash them if they want to. Or wait until there's enough money being made that it's worth showing up and demanding fees. Sure, the company's patents may well be bogus and unrelated, but the tiny inventor can't afford to spend the next five years litigating that.

shagie 3y ago
Board game rules fall under patents. It has an example of the garage process, patent, infringement, and win. https://www.insurancejournal.com/news/west/2012/11/26/271633.htm https://www.insurancejournal.com/news/west/2012/11/26/271633... > A company headed by a Colorado professor who invented a strategy board game has won a $1.6 million patent infringement verdict. > ... > Innovention prevailed in a patent infringement against MGA, Wal-Mart Stores and Toys R Us. A federal court in New Orleans found that MGA’s Laser Battle game, sold through the two retailers, infringed on Innovention’s patent for Khet. https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/16991/khet-laser-game https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/16991/khet-laser-game https://patents.google.com/patent/US7264242 https://patents.google.com/patent/US7264242 --- Note the rarity of this happening that it makes the news compared to how often patents are thrown around in courts.
- brlewis 3y ago
  > Board game rules fall under patents Please supply evidence. All links in your comment relate to a patent to an invention where lasers are an essential part of the claims. I'm not convinced that rules alone would be patentable subject matter.
  - shagie 3y ago
    https://www.upcounsel.com/board-game-patents https://www.upcounsel.com/board-game-patents https://patentpc.com/blog/example-of-how-a-board-game-is-patented https://patentpc.com/blog/example-of-how-a-board-game-is-pat... https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/493249/mythbusting-game-design-and-copyright-trademarks-a https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/493249/mythbusting-game-des... https://www.theiplawblog.com/2019/04/articles/intellectual-property-litigation/are-rules-for-playing-a-game-patentable/ https://www.theiplawblog.com/2019/04/articles/intellectual-p... http://www.gamecabinet.com/info/PatentSearch.html http://www.gamecabinet.com/info/PatentSearch.html https://boardgamegeek.com/filepage/93654/blue-and-gray-patent-info-pdf https://boardgamegeek.com/filepage/93654/blue-and-gray-paten... (Blue and Gray) - this particular one is well known because Sid Sackson went trawling through patents and found it and wrote about it. From https://archive.org/details/gamutofgames0000sack/page/9/mode/1up https://archive.org/details/gamutofgames0000sack/page/9/mode... > THE FILES OF PATENTS that have been granted are a fruitful hunting ground for forgotten games, although going through these files, as anyone who has ever been involved in a patent search well knows, is a time consuming job. Often the patented games are downright silly, such as a set of dominos made of rubber so that they can double as ink erasers (No. 729,489) or a sliding block puzzle with edible pieces so that a player who despairs of a solution can find consolation in gratifying his stomach (No. 1,274,294). Often the patents are repetitious: There are over a hundred variations of the well-known checkerboard and over a thousand different baseball games. > But often the patented games are a fascinating reflection of their time: races to the North Pole, war games to capture the Kaiser, automobile games, in the infancy of the automobile, and radio games for the crystal-set fanatic. https://patents.google.com/patent/US2026082A/en https://patents.google.com/patent/US2026082A/en (Monopoly) https://patents.google.com/patent/US5662332A/en https://patents.google.com/patent/US5662332A/en (Magic The Gathering) https://patents.google.com/patent/US6352262B1/en https://patents.google.com/patent/US6352262B1/en (Icehouse)
kentonv 3y ago
It's not a myth! My uncle is such a garage inventor, and has made a comfortable living for himself by licensing a number of different inventions. One of the things he invented was the Zipit drain cleaner. It's a long piece of plastic with barbs on it. You shove it down your drain, pull it back out, and it pulls out a gigantic disgusting hairball that you had no idea was down there! It's really quite remarkable, it works so much better than what people were using to unclog their drains before. It seems obvious in retrospect, so why weren't such products already on the market? Unfortunately after seeing the success a competitor decided to copy it and, when my uncle tried to sue, the competitor got the patent invalided. Meanwhile my uncle lost much of his savings in legal fees. https://usinventor.org/portfolio-items/34660/ https://usinventor.org/portfolio-items/34660/ In my (biased) opinion, this was a case of a legitimate, deserving patent. But all the junk patents and patent trolls, and the arms race you describe, have shifted expectations so much that the patent review board now tends to invalidate everything brought before them. So now the patent system doesn't even work for the people it's supposed to work for, since when a small inventor makes something actually worth patenting, a big company can just invalidate the patent. With all that said, I do agree that software patents are pretty broken. If nothing else, the 20-year time limit is way too long, as technology moves much faster than that. We are constantly building the next layer on top of whatever was invented last decade, so last decade's inventions have either become foundational or have been discarded. Patenting an idea means it has to end up in the later category, as a proprietary idea cannot be made foundational; the industry must work around it. Meanwhile, the upfront investment cost in software ideas is much lower than other kinds of inventions, so there's no need for 20 years of royalties to incentivize it. I think software patents could make a lot more sense with something like a 3-year time limit. But I'm not really sure it's needed at all, as first-mover advantage seems sufficient to reward many software inventions. (Disclosure/disclaimer: I work for Cloudflare, but obviously the above is personal opinions. I am proud of what Cloudflare has done with Project Jengo -- which I had no personal role in, I'm just an enigneer.)
- kiba 3y ago
  Lawyers are expensive. If your business model required suing someone to enforce your claim, you better hope you have money, and you better hope you win your case fast. Otherwise, you will spend more time and energy on that lawsuit than your work on invention. It's what economists termed "deadweight loss". It has at time proven to be a business mirage, especially if inventors start suing other inventors and pioneers rather than getting on with copying and improving upon each other's work. Invention and engineering is a collaborative process, even if at time, adversarial. Can't really let a few folks has their monopolies at the expense of everyone else.

by kemayo 3y ago

shagie 3y ago

Board game rules fall under patents. It has an example of the garage process, patent, infringement, and win. https://www.insurancejournal.com/news/west/2012/11/26/271633.htm https://www.insurancejournal.com/news/west/2012/11/26/271633... > A company headed by a Colorado professor who invented a strategy board game has won a $1.6 million patent infringement verdict. > ... > Innovention prevailed in a patent infringement against MGA, Wal-Mart Stores and Toys R Us. A federal court in New Orleans found that MGA’s Laser Battle game, sold through the two retailers, infringed on Innovention’s patent for Khet. https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/16991/khet-laser-game https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/16991/khet-laser-game https://patents.google.com/patent/US7264242 https://patents.google.com/patent/US7264242 --- Note the rarity of this happening that it makes the news compared to how often patents are thrown around in courts.

brlewis 3y ago
> Board game rules fall under patents Please supply evidence. All links in your comment relate to a patent to an invention where lasers are an essential part of the claims. I'm not convinced that rules alone would be patentable subject matter.
- shagie 3y ago
  https://www.upcounsel.com/board-game-patents https://www.upcounsel.com/board-game-patents https://patentpc.com/blog/example-of-how-a-board-game-is-patented https://patentpc.com/blog/example-of-how-a-board-game-is-pat... https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/493249/mythbusting-game-design-and-copyright-trademarks-a https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/493249/mythbusting-game-des... https://www.theiplawblog.com/2019/04/articles/intellectual-property-litigation/are-rules-for-playing-a-game-patentable/ https://www.theiplawblog.com/2019/04/articles/intellectual-p... http://www.gamecabinet.com/info/PatentSearch.html http://www.gamecabinet.com/info/PatentSearch.html https://boardgamegeek.com/filepage/93654/blue-and-gray-patent-info-pdf https://boardgamegeek.com/filepage/93654/blue-and-gray-paten... (Blue and Gray) - this particular one is well known because Sid Sackson went trawling through patents and found it and wrote about it. From https://archive.org/details/gamutofgames0000sack/page/9/mode/1up https://archive.org/details/gamutofgames0000sack/page/9/mode... > THE FILES OF PATENTS that have been granted are a fruitful hunting ground for forgotten games, although going through these files, as anyone who has ever been involved in a patent search well knows, is a time consuming job. Often the patented games are downright silly, such as a set of dominos made of rubber so that they can double as ink erasers (No. 729,489) or a sliding block puzzle with edible pieces so that a player who despairs of a solution can find consolation in gratifying his stomach (No. 1,274,294). Often the patents are repetitious: There are over a hundred variations of the well-known checkerboard and over a thousand different baseball games. > But often the patented games are a fascinating reflection of their time: races to the North Pole, war games to capture the Kaiser, automobile games, in the infancy of the automobile, and radio games for the crystal-set fanatic. https://patents.google.com/patent/US2026082A/en https://patents.google.com/patent/US2026082A/en (Monopoly) https://patents.google.com/patent/US5662332A/en https://patents.google.com/patent/US5662332A/en (Magic The Gathering) https://patents.google.com/patent/US6352262B1/en https://patents.google.com/patent/US6352262B1/en (Icehouse)

kentonv 3y ago

It's not a myth! My uncle is such a garage inventor, and has made a comfortable living for himself by licensing a number of different inventions. One of the things he invented was the Zipit drain cleaner. It's a long piece of plastic with barbs on it. You shove it down your drain, pull it back out, and it pulls out a gigantic disgusting hairball that you had no idea was down there! It's really quite remarkable, it works so much better than what people were using to unclog their drains before. It seems obvious in retrospect, so why weren't such products already on the market? Unfortunately after seeing the success a competitor decided to copy it and, when my uncle tried to sue, the competitor got the patent invalided. Meanwhile my uncle lost much of his savings in legal fees. https://usinventor.org/portfolio-items/34660/ https://usinventor.org/portfolio-items/34660/ In my (biased) opinion, this was a case of a legitimate, deserving patent. But all the junk patents and patent trolls, and the arms race you describe, have shifted expectations so much that the patent review board now tends to invalidate everything brought before them. So now the patent system doesn't even work for the people it's supposed to work for, since when a small inventor makes something actually worth patenting, a big company can just invalidate the patent. With all that said, I do agree that software patents are pretty broken. If nothing else, the 20-year time limit is way too long, as technology moves much faster than that. We are constantly building the next layer on top of whatever was invented last decade, so last decade's inventions have either become foundational or have been discarded. Patenting an idea means it has to end up in the later category, as a proprietary idea cannot be made foundational; the industry must work around it. Meanwhile, the upfront investment cost in software ideas is much lower than other kinds of inventions, so there's no need for 20 years of royalties to incentivize it. I think software patents could make a lot more sense with something like a 3-year time limit. But I'm not really sure it's needed at all, as first-mover advantage seems sufficient to reward many software inventions. (Disclosure/disclaimer: I work for Cloudflare, but obviously the above is personal opinions. I am proud of what Cloudflare has done with Project Jengo -- which I had no personal role in, I'm just an enigneer.)

kiba 3y ago
Lawyers are expensive. If your business model required suing someone to enforce your claim, you better hope you have money, and you better hope you win your case fast. Otherwise, you will spend more time and energy on that lawsuit than your work on invention. It's what economists termed "deadweight loss". It has at time proven to be a business mirage, especially if inventors start suing other inventors and pioneers rather than getting on with copying and improving upon each other's work. Invention and engineering is a collaborative process, even if at time, adversarial. Can't really let a few folks has their monopolies at the expense of everyone else.