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Three laws for a fair patent system, would help a lot: 1. Acquiring a patent must cost $0. -- There should be no distinction between applications, such as expe

Three laws for a fair patent system, would help a lot: 1. Acquiring a patent must cost $0. -- There should be no distinction between applications, such as expedited service (which we have now). The USPTO is not a business! 2. A refundable sincerity bond is used to ensure the system is not abused. --The bond is 100% refundable, regardless of outcome. It can only be confiscated if willful negligence or fraud can be proven. 3. There should be no distinction in time frames. All patents are good for a fixed period of time and no longer. They is no renewal period or fee for such.

Kliment 13y ago
No way! This will result in orders of magnitude more bullshit patent applications, and even more rubberstamping rather than careful review. I'd much rather have patent acquisition cost $inf and none be issued at all.
cheald 13y ago
> Acquiring a patent must cost $0. Can you elaborate on this? Granting a patent doesn't cost $0. (I do like the bond idea, but even today's bad patents are generally invalidated on prior art, not on willful negligence or fraud -- I'm not sure a bond would necessarily change anything)
- dllthomas 13y ago
  The bond could perhaps let you offload some part of the work of locating prior art to the applicants. I think actual fraud should be punished as actual fraud, but "I attest that I am confident there is no relevant prior art" coupled with a quick google search turning up mountains of prior art should cost them the bond, and that might help reduce the number of junk patent applications, allowing us to process non-junk applications better and faster.
roc 13y ago
1. A patent office costs non-trivial money to run. Particularly if you want it to run well and be staffed by examiners competent in their technology domains. Why should the non-patentable industries subsidize this cost (ostensibly via taxes) to the benefit of patentable industries? Why, when the cost is very closely related to quantity of work, should that cost be borne by anyone but the industries that hope to benefit from the work they're creating? 2. Negligence and fraud aren't problems in the patent system. What's the point of a bond against them? 3. Shorter terms are something that just about everyone supports in theory and then disagrees on in the specific discussion of: how short?

Kliment 13y ago

No way! This will result in orders of magnitude more bullshit patent applications, and even more rubberstamping rather than careful review. I'd much rather have patent acquisition cost $inf and none be issued at all.

cheald 13y ago

> Acquiring a patent must cost $0. Can you elaborate on this? Granting a patent doesn't cost $0. (I do like the bond idea, but even today's bad patents are generally invalidated on prior art, not on willful negligence or fraud -- I'm not sure a bond would necessarily change anything)

dllthomas 13y ago
The bond could perhaps let you offload some part of the work of locating prior art to the applicants. I think actual fraud should be punished as actual fraud, but "I attest that I am confident there is no relevant prior art" coupled with a quick google search turning up mountains of prior art should cost them the bond, and that might help reduce the number of junk patent applications, allowing us to process non-junk applications better and faster.

roc 13y ago

1. A patent office costs non-trivial money to run. Particularly if you want it to run well and be staffed by examiners competent in their technology domains. Why should the non-patentable industries subsidize this cost (ostensibly via taxes) to the benefit of patentable industries? Why, when the cost is very closely related to quantity of work, should that cost be borne by anyone but the industries that hope to benefit from the work they're creating? 2. Negligence and fraud aren't problems in the patent system. What's the point of a bond against them? 3. Shorter terms are something that just about everyone supports in theory and then disagrees on in the specific discussion of: how short?