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Brit inventor wants prison for patent crims

10 points by monkeygrinder 17y ago

ionfish 17y ago
This is clearly absurd. While revisions of patent law are certainly needed, and while Trevor Baylis may have a point that the current legal system is, due to the cost of litigation, unfairly skewed towards large companies, criminal law is a thoroughly inappropriate way to pursue patent violators. The BBC [1] ran a similar article yesterday and included some responses from members of the Chartered Institute of Patent Attorneys, which I have excerpted below. But the defenders of the present system say changing the law may not be the right answer. Patents can be extremely complex things and the criminal law is simply too blunt an instrument to use when disputes arise. Peter Jackson is a fellow of the Chartered Institute of Patent Attorneys. "First of all you've got to decide whether the patent covers the thing properly", he says. "And having done that you've got to decide whether what the alleged infringer is up to falls within that strict wording. "That can take days and weeks and months of deliberation by highly skilled lawyers, and I'm not sure the criminal system is well-suited to that kind of action." Other members of the institute are more forthright. One calls the idea of criminalising patent infringement "barking mad". ... "Honest, decent people running reputable businesses infringe patents. They might not know the patent exists, or their patent attorney might have told them it was invalid or not infringed." [1] http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8232130.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8232130.stm
jhancock 17y ago
In U.S. patent law, it already is a crime to file a patent whereby you know you are not the inventor or know there is prior art. I have not heard of a case where such a violation was punished. Any legal experts on here no of one? Probably for good reason. Its a nice gesture that we ask the inventors to be honest. But I don't see how well it could be enforced.
ynniv 17y ago
"One member of the Chartered Institute of Patent Attorneys described Baylis’s comments about criminalising patent violations as 'barking mad'". Luckily someone was available to put this in perspective.
- gaius 17y ago
  I knew that as soon as I saw the Lib Dems were on-board.
quant18 17y ago
Earlier discussion on same news item from the BBC here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=799725 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=799725
reedlaw 17y ago
"If I was to nick your car, which is worth £10,000, say, I could go to jail," Baylis told the BBC. "But if I were to nick your patent, which is worth a million pounds, you'd have to sue me." This is nonsense. A patent is just an idea, and as such, isn't worth anything. Someone has to develop and market an idea before it's worth one dime. The protection of "intellectual property rights" leads to violation of simple property rights which say I can do anything I want with whatever I own. See today's previous article: http://gcn1.posterous.com/i-bought-a-cd-not-a-licensing-agreement http://gcn1.posterous.com/i-bought-a-cd-not-a-licensing-agre...
- travisp 17y ago
  For an alternate view, see this paper: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1457848 http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1457848 The paper argues that patents recognizing the inventions of vulcanized rubber, sewing machines, and incandescent lightbulbs, for example, were all valuable ideas. Violating these patents would have destroyed the ability of the inventor to profit from the years of work necessary to invent them. The paper further argues that IP rights are a part of basic property rights, perhaps even more essentially so than physical property. Property rights, at least classically, don't say that you can do anything you want with whatever you own. For example, you cannot shoot a random person with a gun and bullet you own because it would violate their rights. The protection of the other person's right to their life is not leading to a violation of your simple property rights. Similarly, this is the reason that traditional analysis of the protection of intellectual property did not view it as a violation of anyone's property rights.
- gaius 17y ago
  A patent is just an idea, and as such, isn't worth anything. That is factually incorrect. A patent is a detailed description of the implementation of an idea.
zandorg 17y ago
Well when I was at Uni in 2005, Trevor (the inventor) came to give a talk. A professional swimmer, he made his money from water tricks in a circus (eg, like Houdini) and bought a house, and lived in it for plenty years, and invented his radio only much later. So his wealth was NOT from radios. Not only that - he was at our Uni basically to plug Baylis Brands, which if you pay them some money will help you with marketing your invention. Yuck!

10 points by monkeygrinder 17y ago

This is clearly absurd. While revisions of patent law are certainly needed, and while Trevor Baylis may have a point that the current legal system is, due to the cost of litigation, unfairly skewed towards large companies, criminal law is a thoroughly inappropriate way to pursue patent violators. The BBC [1] ran a similar article yesterday and included some responses from members of the Chartered Institute of Patent Attorneys, which I have excerpted below. But the defenders of the present system say changing the law may not be the right answer. Patents can be extremely complex things and the criminal law is simply too blunt an instrument to use when disputes arise. Peter Jackson is a fellow of the Chartered Institute of Patent Attorneys. "First of all you've got to decide whether the patent covers the thing properly", he says. "And having done that you've got to decide whether what the alleged infringer is up to falls within that strict wording. "That can take days and weeks and months of deliberation by highly skilled lawyers, and I'm not sure the criminal system is well-suited to that kind of action." Other members of the institute are more forthright. One calls the idea of criminalising patent infringement "barking mad". ... "Honest, decent people running reputable businesses infringe patents. They might not know the patent exists, or their patent attorney might have told them it was invalid or not infringed." [1] http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8232130.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8232130.stm

jhancock 17y ago

In U.S. patent law, it already is a crime to file a patent whereby you know you are not the inventor or know there is prior art. I have not heard of a case where such a violation was punished. Any legal experts on here no of one? Probably for good reason. Its a nice gesture that we ask the inventors to be honest. But I don't see how well it could be enforced.

ynniv 17y ago

"One member of the Chartered Institute of Patent Attorneys described Baylis’s comments about criminalising patent violations as 'barking mad'". Luckily someone was available to put this in perspective.

gaius 17y ago
I knew that as soon as I saw the Lib Dems were on-board.

quant18 17y ago

Earlier discussion on same news item from the BBC here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=799725 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=799725

reedlaw 17y ago

"If I was to nick your car, which is worth £10,000, say, I could go to jail," Baylis told the BBC. "But if I were to nick your patent, which is worth a million pounds, you'd have to sue me." This is nonsense. A patent is just an idea, and as such, isn't worth anything. Someone has to develop and market an idea before it's worth one dime. The protection of "intellectual property rights" leads to violation of simple property rights which say I can do anything I want with whatever I own. See today's previous article: http://gcn1.posterous.com/i-bought-a-cd-not-a-licensing-agreement http://gcn1.posterous.com/i-bought-a-cd-not-a-licensing-agre...

travisp 17y ago
For an alternate view, see this paper: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1457848 http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1457848 The paper argues that patents recognizing the inventions of vulcanized rubber, sewing machines, and incandescent lightbulbs, for example, were all valuable ideas. Violating these patents would have destroyed the ability of the inventor to profit from the years of work necessary to invent them. The paper further argues that IP rights are a part of basic property rights, perhaps even more essentially so than physical property. Property rights, at least classically, don't say that you can do anything you want with whatever you own. For example, you cannot shoot a random person with a gun and bullet you own because it would violate their rights. The protection of the other person's right to their life is not leading to a violation of your simple property rights. Similarly, this is the reason that traditional analysis of the protection of intellectual property did not view it as a violation of anyone's property rights.
gaius 17y ago
A patent is just an idea, and as such, isn't worth anything. That is factually incorrect. A patent is a detailed description of the implementation of an idea.

zandorg 17y ago

Well when I was at Uni in 2005, Trevor (the inventor) came to give a talk. A professional swimmer, he made his money from water tricks in a circus (eg, like Houdini) and bought a house, and lived in it for plenty years, and invented his radio only much later. So his wealth was NOT from radios. Not only that - he was at our Uni basically to plug Baylis Brands, which if you pay them some money will help you with marketing your invention. Yuck!