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Look. The 'problem' with patent trolls is two fold: (1) The legal system permits them to shake down companies in ridiculous ways, and (2) The patent system gran

Look. The 'problem' with patent trolls is two fold: (1) The legal system permits them to shake down companies in ridiculous ways, and (2) The patent system grants obscene patents. The solution is to attack those two problems. Not to attack the concept of patents themselves nor NPEs. If the anti-patent-troll efforts were focused upon those two points specifically, meaningful reform would be much easier to achieve; fewer special interests would be aligned against the changes.

interstitial 13y ago
You have my vote for next patent commissioner.
tolmasky 13y ago
It's not realistic to expect patents to be granted more intelligently. We are by definition, in the hypothetical best case (all honest actors), talking about the absolute bleeding edge of technology, where you are going to need real experts to be able to discern what is "real innovation" and what isn't. I don't even consider myself capable of analyzing patents except for in an incredibly narrow slice of computer science where I've worked for 10 years, so I'm not sure where you expect to find these generalists who will one day be looking at AI algorithms and the next day be judging graphics code. The only alternative would be to literally have an expert from every subfield. Even if you had infinite funds to fill this magical patent office, why would such experts take this boring job (unless their goal is to work on physics on the side ;) )? As it stand today btw, most patent clerks being hired are engineers straight out of college, and I imagine they aren't exactly the top of their class. No one dreams of being a patent clerk. This is all exacerbated by the fact that the patent agency is a government agency, where there really isn't anything incentivizing them to get better. And yet on the other side you have lawyers who are 100% incentivized to create the most convoluted patents to actively confuse (the already ill-equipped) patent clerks and juries. I also agree with the statement "if we could just grant the right patents then this wouldn't be a problem". I just don't see any reasonable way to increase the fidelity of patent grants, nor a reasonable fallback system for when a bad patent DOES inevitably get granted (trial by jury for discerning innovation is probably the worst method). 1000 years ago you could be a mathematician, poet, and biologist. Today, you have to go to school for 5 years to get a PhD in an incredibly focused subfield. 100 years ago the patents you were dealing with were "machine that makes light". Now its methods of improving graphics performance when running on this super specific kind of computer architecture. It might have been reasonable for an outsider to make a judgement call before, but I seriously don't think it is anymore.
- ScottBurson 13y ago
  These are interesting comments. But it's not my impression that the patents that have been causing a lot of trouble are largely of this extremely specialized kind. A lot of them seem to have to do with implementations or applications of networking -- like the one Newegg is currently defending against, which is claimed to cover SSL/TLS key negotiation. There was another a while back that purportedly covered podcasting. I don't think it takes years of study to understand what these things are.
- rlpb 13y ago
  > Even if you had infinite funds to fill this magical patent office As an aside, I think that the funds should come from the patent applicants themselves, and should cover the level of examination required. If examination is insufficiently deep, then the depth should be increased and the fees increased to cover the cost for this. IME, patent office fees are tiny compared to the amount that applicants generally spend on their patent attorneys, so there should be no hardship there.
  - hamax 13y ago
    With your suggestion only the largest companies would be able to apply for patents. For Apple, Google or MS a couple of million dollars means nothing for a patent. But it infeasible for a startup or smaller research groups.
    - Kliment 13y ago
      This is already the case. While with low fees you can get a patent issued as a smaller institution, in practice only institutions with in-house legal teams can afford to defend them. Those include, unsurprisingly, patent trolls and megacorps. The cost of patent litigation is in the millions regardless which side you're on.
    - rlpb 13y ago
      Instead, only the largest companies can defend patents, which is just as bad, or worse. Patent application fees should reflect the real cost of processing the application. If improving patent quality requires an increased processing cost, then this should happen, since not doing so unreasonably increases future litigation costs for everyone. Subsidizing small companies' applications might then be reasonable if we want to promote startups and smaller research groups, but there's no reason to subsidize the largest companies' applications.
wissler 13y ago
Patents are morally reprehensible in principle, the result in practice is therefore inevitable. There is no middle road or way around this: patents must be abolished.
- girvo 13y ago
  I think software patents should be abolished. I'm undecided on patents in general.
  - wissler 13y ago
    It comes down to whether you think it's moral that one person filing paperwork with a bureaucrat grants him the right to haul other people who independently think the same thing he did into court, trying to take their property. Patents are tantamount to the creation of thought crimes, on a vast scale. Furthermore, if you aren't against patents in general, there is no principled argument that can be made against software patents in particular. Software is just as inventive as other realms.

interstitial 13y ago

You have my vote for next patent commissioner.

tolmasky 13y ago

It's not realistic to expect patents to be granted more intelligently. We are by definition, in the hypothetical best case (all honest actors), talking about the absolute bleeding edge of technology, where you are going to need real experts to be able to discern what is "real innovation" and what isn't. I don't even consider myself capable of analyzing patents except for in an incredibly narrow slice of computer science where I've worked for 10 years, so I'm not sure where you expect to find these generalists who will one day be looking at AI algorithms and the next day be judging graphics code. The only alternative would be to literally have an expert from every subfield. Even if you had infinite funds to fill this magical patent office, why would such experts take this boring job (unless their goal is to work on physics on the side ;) )? As it stand today btw, most patent clerks being hired are engineers straight out of college, and I imagine they aren't exactly the top of their class. No one dreams of being a patent clerk. This is all exacerbated by the fact that the patent agency is a government agency, where there really isn't anything incentivizing them to get better. And yet on the other side you have lawyers who are 100% incentivized to create the most convoluted patents to actively confuse (the already ill-equipped) patent clerks and juries. I also agree with the statement "if we could just grant the right patents then this wouldn't be a problem". I just don't see any reasonable way to increase the fidelity of patent grants, nor a reasonable fallback system for when a bad patent DOES inevitably get granted (trial by jury for discerning innovation is probably the worst method). 1000 years ago you could be a mathematician, poet, and biologist. Today, you have to go to school for 5 years to get a PhD in an incredibly focused subfield. 100 years ago the patents you were dealing with were "machine that makes light". Now its methods of improving graphics performance when running on this super specific kind of computer architecture. It might have been reasonable for an outsider to make a judgement call before, but I seriously don't think it is anymore.

ScottBurson 13y ago
These are interesting comments. But it's not my impression that the patents that have been causing a lot of trouble are largely of this extremely specialized kind. A lot of them seem to have to do with implementations or applications of networking -- like the one Newegg is currently defending against, which is claimed to cover SSL/TLS key negotiation. There was another a while back that purportedly covered podcasting. I don't think it takes years of study to understand what these things are.
rlpb 13y ago
> Even if you had infinite funds to fill this magical patent office As an aside, I think that the funds should come from the patent applicants themselves, and should cover the level of examination required. If examination is insufficiently deep, then the depth should be increased and the fees increased to cover the cost for this. IME, patent office fees are tiny compared to the amount that applicants generally spend on their patent attorneys, so there should be no hardship there.
- hamax 13y ago
  With your suggestion only the largest companies would be able to apply for patents. For Apple, Google or MS a couple of million dollars means nothing for a patent. But it infeasible for a startup or smaller research groups.
  - Kliment 13y ago
    This is already the case. While with low fees you can get a patent issued as a smaller institution, in practice only institutions with in-house legal teams can afford to defend them. Those include, unsurprisingly, patent trolls and megacorps. The cost of patent litigation is in the millions regardless which side you're on.
  - rlpb 13y ago
    Instead, only the largest companies can defend patents, which is just as bad, or worse. Patent application fees should reflect the real cost of processing the application. If improving patent quality requires an increased processing cost, then this should happen, since not doing so unreasonably increases future litigation costs for everyone. Subsidizing small companies' applications might then be reasonable if we want to promote startups and smaller research groups, but there's no reason to subsidize the largest companies' applications.

wissler 13y ago

Patents are morally reprehensible in principle, the result in practice is therefore inevitable. There is no middle road or way around this: patents must be abolished.

girvo 13y ago
I think software patents should be abolished. I'm undecided on patents in general.
- wissler 13y ago
  It comes down to whether you think it's moral that one person filing paperwork with a bureaucrat grants him the right to haul other people who independently think the same thing he did into court, trying to take their property. Patents are tantamount to the creation of thought crimes, on a vast scale. Furthermore, if you aren't against patents in general, there is no principled argument that can be made against software patents in particular. Software is just as inventive as other realms.