6 ms·

Here is a hypothetical solution: (0). Make patent issue fee ridiculously expensive (100k+ ?). (1). Increase the salaries of every patent examiner to ridiculou

by shiven 12y ago

Here is a hypothetical solution: (0). Make patent issue fee ridiculously expensive (100k+ ?). (1). Increase the salaries of every patent examiner to ridiculously high levels, supported by the extremely high fee. (2). Make every patent examiner personally liable for approving a patent, to the extent of a lien on their personal assets. No bankruptcy allowed (as for student loans). (3). If any patent is later proved to be carelessly approved, infringing on prior art or broader than it deserved to be, the patent examiner should be held liable and pay damages for every patent they approved that was struck down. That might help cut down the indiscriminate issuance of patents that should never have been allowed in the first place.

pjc50 12y ago
(2) Make every patent examiner personally liable for approving a patent, to the extent of a lien on their personal assets. No bankruptcy allowed (as for student loans). This is never going to happen and would be an abusive illegal employment practice if it did.
- md2be 12y ago
  Make every patent applicant (and patent agent/counsel) liable for filing patent claims that are found invalid whether issues or not.
- keithpeter 12y ago
  You could make the agents self-employed on a bounty basis rather like the old Lloyd's Names http://moneyweek.com/how-to-become-a-lloyds-name-42723/ http://moneyweek.com/how-to-become-a-lloyds-name-42723/ However, the inevitable Black Swann event caused changes even in that very high risk system... "Historically, Names had unlimited liability to the risks they were underwriting. In the late 1980s/early 1990s, Lloyd’s entered the most traumatic time in its history. Unexpectedly large legal awards in US courts on asbestos, pollution and health hazard policies (APH) served up huge losses to many Names, a large number of whom lost their shirts. Names’ numbers dropped from over 30,000 to below 10,000." I think just giving patent examiners enough time and resources to actually verify the claims would probably cut down a lot of the problem. That and a specialised court like http://www.justice.gov.uk/courts/rcj-rolls-building/patents-court http://www.justice.gov.uk/courts/rcj-rolls-building/patents-... instead of a general purpose district court sitting with a lay jury
kefka 12y ago
I'd gladly take the job. I'd even buy an ergonomic "DENIED" stamp. It's the only stamp I'd use.
ww520 12y ago
Why not hold the patent filers liable and have them paid damages for their struck down patents? Why blame the examiners? Blame the source of the problem.
- Codhisattva 12y ago
  Liability is the antithesis of American business. (The act of incorporating is in part a shield against accountability and liability.)
- shiven 12y ago
  It is the examiners who allow patents through. I would go so far as to argue that just because I ask for something, from the public, via the government, I shouldn't just get it. It is the responsibity of the examiners to deny a non-deserving ask.
neurobro 12y ago
Somewhat less draconian: 1. Make patent applications free of cost, so anyone can play unless they start clogging up the system. 2. Applicants must wait 2^n days between applications, where n is the applicant's number of rejected applications within the past 1,000 years. Non-human persons must be at least 1 year old before applying. 3. Examiners are paid approximately the nation's median income, but also receive rights to 1% of license fees for patents they approve. If an approved patent is ever overturned in court, the examiner is fired and loses all future royalties for any other patents they approved. Those royalties then go to the patent office. Budget surpluses go toward scientific research or maybe education grants. 4. Patents assigned to biological human inventors expire after 20 years. Others expire after 5 years.
- Alupis 12y ago
  How about -- No Patents? Patents are ideas... if you can think of it... so can someone else. Patents were intended to protect someone's investment into an idea. Today, they just serve as cash cows. With no patents, a company would be forced to continuously innovate and stay ahead of the curve -- which would replace their patent warchest with a warchest of talented individuals and innovators instead.
  - epa 12y ago
    The idea that patents are not necessary, useful or relevant in today's society is childish. Patents still play a very key role is spurring innovation and allowing innovative players to profit off of their development and creation of new products. Clearly the system is broken to the point that people patent anything just so they can sue others who meet the general ideology of the patent. Clearly this is not what the spirit of patenting was designed for. A system overhaul is more appropriate than to rid all patents.
    - cscurmudgeon 12y ago
      > The idea that patents are not necessary, useful or relevant in today's society is childish. Also, highly impractical.
fpgeek 12y ago
I agree that changing the incentive structure would help, but I don't think targeting individual examiners is the best way to do it. I think the right target is the patent office itself. The only thing you've listed above that would change the patent office's incentives are the increased issue fees - which would only encourage them to let more bad patents through. Yes, individual examiners would push back because of their personal liability, but they're really trapped between a rock (their boss) and a hard place (getting sued in the future). On the other hand, if you made the patent office the target of all the penalties for issuing a bad patent (legal fees, damages, etc.) then they'd take care of examiners themselves (not measuring by patent-processing rate, allowing additional time for aggressive prior art searches and so on).
- shiven 12y ago
  Sure, sure. (Guess I missed the forest for the trees and all that...) But in either case, first the patent granting authority needs to be held grossly liable to prevent this rampant abuse, then and only then will subsequent measures be effective. However, targeting the examiners focuses on the personal responsibilty for their actions. If you institutionalize that responsibility (patent office vs patent examiner) you create a situation where the perpetrator (examiner/boss) hides behind the collective back of the patent office and the taxpayers are again left holding the bag of liability. A person or a discrete group of persons approved the granting of this right to the applicant (or the denial of freedom to non-applicants). Why should they be absolved of their individual responsibility, for their individual actions?
lyoNick 12y ago
How about a reform that tie patents with the R&D costs? placing the incentive where it's actually matter i.e: * for each patent filed, one should provide an 'expanse clause' of the R&D expanses * if one file a patent then those expanses became taxable (the same way warehouse stock is?) * when applying one can choose to hold the patent for a limited some of years (say 5) WITHOUT dependeing on ROI, OR hold the patent untill ROI exced 10 fold but no longer then 10 years. (number cand depend on general public priorities {medical , novelty , etc.} ) * the 'expanse clause' should be limited to what R&D that is strongly tied with the current patent, but can include failed R&D as long as they are strongly tied to the successed one. * patent must reach a working implementation within the 1st year of filing, or they are revoked. * maybe have two types of patents: - one like the above for those with working implementation, - the other for 'consept patents' that have a fix price for filing, and can be held for up to 12 months before one must file a 'regular patent' with a working implementation, and if faild to do so, it is revoked retroactivly so it can be used to sue. [*] P.S. not a native english speaker, so commetns on grammer and spelling mistakes are actually welcome.
- kvb 12y ago
  it's actually matter -> it actually matters expanse -> expense

by shiven 12y ago

pjc50 12y ago

(2) Make every patent examiner personally liable for approving a patent, to the extent of a lien on their personal assets. No bankruptcy allowed (as for student loans). This is never going to happen and would be an abusive illegal employment practice if it did.

md2be 12y ago
Make every patent applicant (and patent agent/counsel) liable for filing patent claims that are found invalid whether issues or not.
keithpeter 12y ago
You could make the agents self-employed on a bounty basis rather like the old Lloyd's Names http://moneyweek.com/how-to-become-a-lloyds-name-42723/ http://moneyweek.com/how-to-become-a-lloyds-name-42723/ However, the inevitable Black Swann event caused changes even in that very high risk system... "Historically, Names had unlimited liability to the risks they were underwriting. In the late 1980s/early 1990s, Lloyd’s entered the most traumatic time in its history. Unexpectedly large legal awards in US courts on asbestos, pollution and health hazard policies (APH) served up huge losses to many Names, a large number of whom lost their shirts. Names’ numbers dropped from over 30,000 to below 10,000." I think just giving patent examiners enough time and resources to actually verify the claims would probably cut down a lot of the problem. That and a specialised court like http://www.justice.gov.uk/courts/rcj-rolls-building/patents-court http://www.justice.gov.uk/courts/rcj-rolls-building/patents-... instead of a general purpose district court sitting with a lay jury

kefka 12y ago

I'd gladly take the job. I'd even buy an ergonomic "DENIED" stamp. It's the only stamp I'd use.

ww520 12y ago

Why not hold the patent filers liable and have them paid damages for their struck down patents? Why blame the examiners? Blame the source of the problem.

Codhisattva 12y ago
Liability is the antithesis of American business. (The act of incorporating is in part a shield against accountability and liability.)
shiven 12y ago
It is the examiners who allow patents through. I would go so far as to argue that just because I ask for something, from the public, via the government, I shouldn't just get it. It is the responsibity of the examiners to deny a non-deserving ask.

neurobro 12y ago

Somewhat less draconian: 1. Make patent applications free of cost, so anyone can play unless they start clogging up the system. 2. Applicants must wait 2^n days between applications, where n is the applicant's number of rejected applications within the past 1,000 years. Non-human persons must be at least 1 year old before applying. 3. Examiners are paid approximately the nation's median income, but also receive rights to 1% of license fees for patents they approve. If an approved patent is ever overturned in court, the examiner is fired and loses all future royalties for any other patents they approved. Those royalties then go to the patent office. Budget surpluses go toward scientific research or maybe education grants. 4. Patents assigned to biological human inventors expire after 20 years. Others expire after 5 years.

Alupis 12y ago
How about -- No Patents? Patents are ideas... if you can think of it... so can someone else. Patents were intended to protect someone's investment into an idea. Today, they just serve as cash cows. With no patents, a company would be forced to continuously innovate and stay ahead of the curve -- which would replace their patent warchest with a warchest of talented individuals and innovators instead.
- epa 12y ago
  The idea that patents are not necessary, useful or relevant in today's society is childish. Patents still play a very key role is spurring innovation and allowing innovative players to profit off of their development and creation of new products. Clearly the system is broken to the point that people patent anything just so they can sue others who meet the general ideology of the patent. Clearly this is not what the spirit of patenting was designed for. A system overhaul is more appropriate than to rid all patents.
  - cscurmudgeon 12y ago
    > The idea that patents are not necessary, useful or relevant in today's society is childish. Also, highly impractical.

fpgeek 12y ago

I agree that changing the incentive structure would help, but I don't think targeting individual examiners is the best way to do it. I think the right target is the patent office itself. The only thing you've listed above that would change the patent office's incentives are the increased issue fees - which would only encourage them to let more bad patents through. Yes, individual examiners would push back because of their personal liability, but they're really trapped between a rock (their boss) and a hard place (getting sued in the future). On the other hand, if you made the patent office the target of all the penalties for issuing a bad patent (legal fees, damages, etc.) then they'd take care of examiners themselves (not measuring by patent-processing rate, allowing additional time for aggressive prior art searches and so on).

shiven 12y ago
Sure, sure. (Guess I missed the forest for the trees and all that...) But in either case, first the patent granting authority needs to be held grossly liable to prevent this rampant abuse, then and only then will subsequent measures be effective. However, targeting the examiners focuses on the personal responsibilty for their actions. If you institutionalize that responsibility (patent office vs patent examiner) you create a situation where the perpetrator (examiner/boss) hides behind the collective back of the patent office and the taxpayers are again left holding the bag of liability. A person or a discrete group of persons approved the granting of this right to the applicant (or the denial of freedom to non-applicants). Why should they be absolved of their individual responsibility, for their individual actions?

lyoNick 12y ago

How about a reform that tie patents with the R&D costs? placing the incentive where it's actually matter i.e: * for each patent filed, one should provide an 'expanse clause' of the R&D expanses * if one file a patent then those expanses became taxable (the same way warehouse stock is?) * when applying one can choose to hold the patent for a limited some of years (say 5) WITHOUT dependeing on ROI, OR hold the patent untill ROI exced 10 fold but no longer then 10 years. (number cand depend on general public priorities {medical , novelty , etc.} ) * the 'expanse clause' should be limited to what R&D that is strongly tied with the current patent, but can include failed R&D as long as they are strongly tied to the successed one. * patent must reach a working implementation within the 1st year of filing, or they are revoked. * maybe have two types of patents: - one like the above for those with working implementation, - the other for 'consept patents' that have a fix price for filing, and can be held for up to 12 months before one must file a 'regular patent' with a working implementation, and if faild to do so, it is revoked retroactivly so it can be used to sue. [*] P.S. not a native english speaker, so commetns on grammer and spelling mistakes are actually welcome.

kvb 12y ago
it's actually matter -> it actually matters expanse -> expense