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Well, in my opinion, a patent like this is well deserved. I could be wrong, but the researchers have spent significant time on it and have discovered/invented s
by zapdrive 13y ago
Well, in my opinion, a patent like this is well deserved. I could be wrong, but the researchers have spent significant time on it and have discovered/invented something really unique.
- fulafel 13y agothat's the tragedy of it. something cool is invented and now it'll be fenced off and buried for 25 years in all likelihood, and/or becomes part of a big patent portfolio.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- riquito 13y agodoesn't a patent imply that you must let other people use your idea in exchange of a fair price?
- shabble 13y agoICBW, but no, I don't think it does, except it perhaps a narrow set of circumstances. Compulsory Licensing[1] is maybe what you're thinking of, but from what I can tell seems to apply mostly to drug patents, or things {the,a} government wants from you. It has a wider applicability in copyrighted forms of IP, I believe. Patents that are part of some organised standard are often required to be placed under 'FRAND[2] (Fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory)' compulsory licences to allow for interoperability whilst still allowing the patent holder to receive (reasonable) royalties if they wish. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compulsory_licensing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compulsory_licensing [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reasonable_and_non-discriminatory_licensing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reasonable_and_non-discriminat...
- DannyBee 13y agoIt would be more correct to say that "patents that their owners contribute to some organised standard ..." If I add a patented process to an important standard, but I don't own the patents, you still don't get those patents just because they are part of some important standard.
- mikeash 13y agoNope.
- lloeki 13y agoNo, a patent implies that you publicly disclose the knowledge behind your discovery immediately, in exchange for the property of this knowledge being guaranteed† to be yours for a limited time, and its use guaranteed to become free when this time runs out. The alternative is not to disclose it, with the risk for you that nobody will reverse engineer or discover by themselves, or the risk for everyone else that this knowledge could be lost forever. † pending approval, and unless successfully challenged in court (where the patent applies).
- DannyBee 13y agoNo. In fact, patents are exactly the opposite. They only grant the right to exclude others from doing something. So if i own a patent on X, it gives me the right to prevent others from doing X. Even if i license my patent on X to you, it does not necessarily mean you can do X, because doing X may also require other patents that my patent is an extension of. In other words: Imagine we have patented processes, each building on the last. Patent A covers doing thing one Patent B covers doing thing one, then thing two Patent C covers doing thing one, then thing two, then thing three. Granting you only the right to perform patent C does not enable you to perform the process described by patent C, you'd still need licenses for patent B and patent A to do that.
- Retric 13y agoYour thinking of a Compulsory license. However that's not the general case, for example the vast majority of drug patents have no such restrictions. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compulsory_license http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compulsory_license PS: The only real exception in the USA is the US Government get's to ignore patents at it's digression.