4 ms·

> $500/year per patent, will ensure use it (if you think it is valuable) or lose it. Not really. Some patents are fantastically valuable to patent trolls. Som

> $500/year per patent, will ensure use it (if you think it is valuable) or lose it. Not really. Some patents are fantastically valuable to patent trolls. Some are not. A $500/year fee isn't going to deter a "company" of lawyers who are making millions soaking businesses with patents that should never have been granted. If you want a scheme that actually does what you want, you'd need something like: The owner of the patent chooses the fee that they pay per year. And anyone can pay that fee * the remaining years on the patent * some multiplier (probably in the 2-10 range) to prematurely end the patent. So, if someone's got a patent on a hamster powered submarine, they can keep it for $1 per year (or whatever the minimum should be). And that's fine... because it isn't harming any one since no one wants to build such a thing. But a patent that a troll is using to milk the industry with will need to have a pretty stiff fee or people won't play ball, they'll just buy out the troll.

freejazz 3y ago
>making millions soaking businesses with patents that should never have been granted. Invalidity arguments and IPRs suddenly aren't things?
- nordsieck 3y ago
  > Invalidity arguments and IPRs suddenly aren't things? I'm sure that you're aware that when you go to court, the result is never certain. Bad ruling happen all the time.
  - freejazz 3y ago
    The vast majority of these decisions are against the patent owners, which I'm sure you are aware of. Also, I wasn't the one who characterized something as a patent that "should never have been granted."
- brlewis 3y ago
  The troll can price their licenses slightly less than the presumed legal costs. Then most victims won't fight. Presumption of validity is what makes patent trolling more lucrative than other forms of predatory litigation. You're guilty until proven innocent, because the law assumes that the patent office is generally doing the right thing.
  - freejazz 3y ago
    > Presumption of validity It's just an evidentiary presumption that is trivially rebutted with any evidence.
criddell 3y ago
Maybe when you file the patent, you have to submit an anticipated value statement and you are taxed some % / year on that anticipated value. If somebody violates the patent, you can sue them for up to the amount you anticipated, but not more. In the future you can amend the value claim, but you can only adjust it down.
- echelon 3y ago
  That's awful for protecting innovation. You don't know the market value of each individual invention with that level of granularity. Companies and researchers should be free to patent to protect themselves, but patent trolls with no clear technological development (no lab, no product, no licensing+developing) should be stopped. It seems easy to me to draw a bounding box around these behaviors with a simple test. Perhaps like a Howey test [1], but for patent trolling. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SEC_v._W._J._Howey_Co https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SEC_v._W._J._Howey_Co.
- victorbjorklund 3y ago
  So someone inventing something for say mobile phones in the 80s that is still used would have estimated their patentent to not be so useful because the number of mobile phones wasnt that high. And if Apple violated their patent they would just pay pennies because of that? It is extremly hard to estimate the worth of a tech 30 years into the future invented today. Take a tech invented today and tell me what the market value will be in 30 years and how sure you are about that predicition.
  - criddell 3y ago
    Yeah, that’s roughly how it would work, except 30 years feels way too long. If other people are better than you at seeing what some technology could be used for it, then maybe we should lower the barriers for those people. The whole point of the patent system should be to provide the greatest benefit to the greatest number of people.
  - petsfed 3y ago
    If you invented and patented something in the US in 1989, you'd have protections until 2009 at the latest. If it wasn't usable until 2013, then that sucks for you, but it is what it is. Your invention doesn't get 20 guaranteed years of profitability. You get 20 years to figure out how to make it profitable. The two are very different concepts. edit: this is why you don't patent every damned thing, just the things that you believe will be profitable over the next 20 years. Otherwise, the cost of researching and filing the patent, as well as maintaining it, may well exceed whatever profit you actually get from the thing.
mike_d 3y ago
> The owner of the patent chooses the fee that they pay per year. And anyone can pay that fee * the remaining years on the patent * some multiplier (probably in the 2-10 range) to prematurely end the patent. So basically ending patents? If you invent something fantastic, say a way for a self driving car to perfectly sense its surroundings, Ford could just come in and pay whatever amount to invalidate your patent and prevent you from bringing your invention to market?
- efitz 3y ago
  I don't think that the patent should be allowed to be ended early; the fee is paid to keep the patent protection in place.
- cynix 3y ago
  Not having a patent doesn’t _prevent_ you from bringing your invention to market, it just accelerates _someone_ bringing it to market, and that’s a net good for society if the invention is useful, no?
  - mike_d 3y ago
    Patents are vital to bringing things to market. It lessens the risk associated with investors getting returns, which allows funding for development. I get that people don't like patents because they sometimes get abused, but on the whole I think we wouldn't have a lot of the things we take for granted if they didn't exist.
    - chx 3y ago
      Let me add a personal anecdote: my uncle has developed a better sprinkler head. Think of bearded inventor tinkering in his garage for a decade. This was late 80s /early 90s so not much CAD was involved. This is where the patent system shines. Because he got a patent he could shop around, sell it to a company which made a tidy profit on it. He didn't need to raise capital to establish a factory and all that to bring it to market and the company buying it seriously got ahead without spending an inordinate amount of money and time inventing the thing.
bawolff 3y ago
> Some patents are fantastically valuable to patent trolls. Some are not. A $500/year fee Part of the problem is having a huge number of BS patents driving up the cost of going through all of them to figure out what's what. Its not the only problem with patents, but i think a "property tax" solution would solve some of the issues. I'd like it to be incrementing each year - like first year $0/year, and increasing each year so the longer you keep things out of the public domain the more you need to be able to self-jystify its value.
noqc 3y ago
>a scheme that actually does what you want This seems like a pretty bad attempt at such a scheme.

freejazz 3y ago

>making millions soaking businesses with patents that should never have been granted. Invalidity arguments and IPRs suddenly aren't things?

nordsieck 3y ago
> Invalidity arguments and IPRs suddenly aren't things? I'm sure that you're aware that when you go to court, the result is never certain. Bad ruling happen all the time.
- freejazz 3y ago
  The vast majority of these decisions are against the patent owners, which I'm sure you are aware of. Also, I wasn't the one who characterized something as a patent that "should never have been granted."
brlewis 3y ago
The troll can price their licenses slightly less than the presumed legal costs. Then most victims won't fight. Presumption of validity is what makes patent trolling more lucrative than other forms of predatory litigation. You're guilty until proven innocent, because the law assumes that the patent office is generally doing the right thing.
- freejazz 3y ago
  > Presumption of validity It's just an evidentiary presumption that is trivially rebutted with any evidence.

criddell 3y ago

Maybe when you file the patent, you have to submit an anticipated value statement and you are taxed some % / year on that anticipated value. If somebody violates the patent, you can sue them for up to the amount you anticipated, but not more. In the future you can amend the value claim, but you can only adjust it down.

echelon 3y ago
That's awful for protecting innovation. You don't know the market value of each individual invention with that level of granularity. Companies and researchers should be free to patent to protect themselves, but patent trolls with no clear technological development (no lab, no product, no licensing+developing) should be stopped. It seems easy to me to draw a bounding box around these behaviors with a simple test. Perhaps like a Howey test [1], but for patent trolling. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SEC_v._W._J._Howey_Co https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SEC_v._W._J._Howey_Co.
victorbjorklund 3y ago
So someone inventing something for say mobile phones in the 80s that is still used would have estimated their patentent to not be so useful because the number of mobile phones wasnt that high. And if Apple violated their patent they would just pay pennies because of that? It is extremly hard to estimate the worth of a tech 30 years into the future invented today. Take a tech invented today and tell me what the market value will be in 30 years and how sure you are about that predicition.
- criddell 3y ago
  Yeah, that’s roughly how it would work, except 30 years feels way too long. If other people are better than you at seeing what some technology could be used for it, then maybe we should lower the barriers for those people. The whole point of the patent system should be to provide the greatest benefit to the greatest number of people.
- petsfed 3y ago
  If you invented and patented something in the US in 1989, you'd have protections until 2009 at the latest. If it wasn't usable until 2013, then that sucks for you, but it is what it is. Your invention doesn't get 20 guaranteed years of profitability. You get 20 years to figure out how to make it profitable. The two are very different concepts. edit: this is why you don't patent every damned thing, just the things that you believe will be profitable over the next 20 years. Otherwise, the cost of researching and filing the patent, as well as maintaining it, may well exceed whatever profit you actually get from the thing.

mike_d 3y ago

> The owner of the patent chooses the fee that they pay per year. And anyone can pay that fee * the remaining years on the patent * some multiplier (probably in the 2-10 range) to prematurely end the patent. So basically ending patents? If you invent something fantastic, say a way for a self driving car to perfectly sense its surroundings, Ford could just come in and pay whatever amount to invalidate your patent and prevent you from bringing your invention to market?

efitz 3y ago
I don't think that the patent should be allowed to be ended early; the fee is paid to keep the patent protection in place.
cynix 3y ago
Not having a patent doesn’t _prevent_ you from bringing your invention to market, it just accelerates _someone_ bringing it to market, and that’s a net good for society if the invention is useful, no?
- mike_d 3y ago
  Patents are vital to bringing things to market. It lessens the risk associated with investors getting returns, which allows funding for development. I get that people don't like patents because they sometimes get abused, but on the whole I think we wouldn't have a lot of the things we take for granted if they didn't exist.
  - chx 3y ago
    Let me add a personal anecdote: my uncle has developed a better sprinkler head. Think of bearded inventor tinkering in his garage for a decade. This was late 80s /early 90s so not much CAD was involved. This is where the patent system shines. Because he got a patent he could shop around, sell it to a company which made a tidy profit on it. He didn't need to raise capital to establish a factory and all that to bring it to market and the company buying it seriously got ahead without spending an inordinate amount of money and time inventing the thing.

bawolff 3y ago

> Some patents are fantastically valuable to patent trolls. Some are not. A $500/year fee Part of the problem is having a huge number of BS patents driving up the cost of going through all of them to figure out what's what. Its not the only problem with patents, but i think a "property tax" solution would solve some of the issues. I'd like it to be incrementing each year - like first year $0/year, and increasing each year so the longer you keep things out of the public domain the more you need to be able to self-jystify its value.

noqc 3y ago

>a scheme that actually does what you want This seems like a pretty bad attempt at such a scheme.