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Do you honestly think that it even possible that examiners spend years examining cases? I can tell you with 100% certainty they do no, and the cost to the tax p

by axman6 12y ago

Do you honestly think that it even possible that examiners spend years examining cases? I can tell you with 100% certainty they do no, and the cost to the tax payer of doing so would be astronomical. Most bad patents are rejected, but you never hear any news about that do you? Selection bias is clearly at play here, and only idiots would think that examples of a few poor partents are evidence the system is broken. There are definitely issues with the system, but the system is not completely broken as some who have no knowledge of the issue would have you believe.

shmerl 12y ago
> but the system is not completely broken That's demagogy. Completely or not completely is irrelevant. If it's passing through tons of patents like that and doesn't provide adequate means to prevent patent abuse - it requires a thorough reform. Those who claim that the system is not broken want to keep the status quo, because they benefit from the junk patents and patent abuse.
- zak_mc_kracken 12y ago
  > > but the system is not completely broken > That's demagogy. Uh... what? I think the claim that the system is not completely broken is very fair. If you want to prove it wrong, show that 90%+ of the patents are junk. > Completely or not completely is irrelevant. If it's passing through tons of patents It doesn't matter which patents pass, what matters is which absurd patents go to court and win. So, let's see, how many court cases have we seen this past decade where absolutely absurd patents ended up winning in court? Don't get me wrong, I think the system has problems, I just don't think it's broken and needs to be completely abolished. We need to find a way to eradicate patent trolls and there are a lot of potential solutions to this. For example, if company A acquires company B, then company B's patents become void and null unless A can prove these patents are applicable to its business. Blam. All patent trolls vanish. Once you eliminate the problem of patent trolls, you realize that the idea behind software patents is sound and actually promotes innovation, start ups and entrepreneurship.
  - SoftwareMaven 12y ago
    You are a small businessman. You get a letter demanding $5000 because you are infringing on this stupid patent. How often would you choose to spend $1M or more to fight the patent? Don't you see how ludicrous your test for correctness is?
  - AnthonyMouse 12y ago
    > Once you eliminate the problem of patent trolls, you realize that the idea behind software patents is sound and actually promotes innovation, start ups and entrepreneurship. Eliminating patent trolls would eliminate that problem for large corporations, although it would still cost them million of dollars to apply for patents solely to cancel out others' patents through cross-licensing. Start ups are even more screwed because all of the large incumbents still each have a huge arsenal of broad software patents and can bury any software start up in litigation who tries to compete with them. This also makes having a software patent essentially useless for a start up because any attempt to assert it against an incumbent would only result in counterclaims and ruinous litigation costs. The idea that a small practicing entity can realistically assert a software patent against a large tech corporation is beyond belief. And that's before you even consider the six-figure cost of paying lawyers to get a patent through the patent office, which then generally isn't even issued until the technology at issue is either obsolete and disused or so common and ingrained in the status quo that issuing an effectively retroactive patent on it without prior notice to those who have since adopted it is inherently unreasonable. Software patents are fundamentally useless and should be abolished.
    - Loughla 12y ago
      If you will excuse my directness, all of these arguments come across as 'it isn't fair that they're bigger than we are.' If large incumbents didn't have broad software patents to bury start-ups, they would use their market coverage. If they don't use that, then they can just use their connections to the government to legislate start-ups out of existence. If they don't use that, they can just buy the property the start-up physically occupies and burn it to the ground. Gigantic, established companies will always have an edge, regardless of patents. Abolishing the system and creating a wild-west scenario is ridiculous. Reform and overhaul using principles guided by rational, current, and quantifiable evaluation, with an established timeline for recurring review and reform. That's what we need (in many more systems than patents as well; education, I'm looking at you). Life isn't always binary. There are more answers than all or nothing.
georgemcbay 12y ago
"Do you honestly think that it even possible that examiners spend years examining cases?" It would be if they hadn't already broken the system by letting so many frivolous patents through. The original view of patent eligibility from those who encoded the system into the US Constitution was VERY different than that of today. See, for example: http://www.temple.edu/lawschool/dpost/mcphersonletter.html http://www.temple.edu/lawschool/dpost/mcphersonletter.html If Jefferson had any idea of what the current patent system would look like and how little it had to do with bringing to bear really novel inventions with high social value (compared to being mostly a rent seeking mechanism used to make a quick buck via iffy, vague claims on all sorts of obvious ideas), I'm absolutely certain he would never have allowed for the creation of the system on his watch.
Natsu 12y ago
> Do you honestly think that it even possible that examiners spend years examining cases? It would be silly to suppose that they spend the entire time in examination. That's why it should be obvious that I think they have ample time to correct their mistakes. You do have a point insofar as the entire "game" of patent grants is rigged, such that the examiners are graded on how many patents are processed, while the examinees are allowed to resubmit filings as many times as they like until they pass (subject to fees, of course).

by axman6 12y ago

shmerl 12y ago

> but the system is not completely broken That's demagogy. Completely or not completely is irrelevant. If it's passing through tons of patents like that and doesn't provide adequate means to prevent patent abuse - it requires a thorough reform. Those who claim that the system is not broken want to keep the status quo, because they benefit from the junk patents and patent abuse.

zak_mc_kracken 12y ago
> > but the system is not completely broken > That's demagogy. Uh... what? I think the claim that the system is not completely broken is very fair. If you want to prove it wrong, show that 90%+ of the patents are junk. > Completely or not completely is irrelevant. If it's passing through tons of patents It doesn't matter which patents pass, what matters is which absurd patents go to court and win. So, let's see, how many court cases have we seen this past decade where absolutely absurd patents ended up winning in court? Don't get me wrong, I think the system has problems, I just don't think it's broken and needs to be completely abolished. We need to find a way to eradicate patent trolls and there are a lot of potential solutions to this. For example, if company A acquires company B, then company B's patents become void and null unless A can prove these patents are applicable to its business. Blam. All patent trolls vanish. Once you eliminate the problem of patent trolls, you realize that the idea behind software patents is sound and actually promotes innovation, start ups and entrepreneurship.
- SoftwareMaven 12y ago
  You are a small businessman. You get a letter demanding $5000 because you are infringing on this stupid patent. How often would you choose to spend $1M or more to fight the patent? Don't you see how ludicrous your test for correctness is?
- AnthonyMouse 12y ago
  > Once you eliminate the problem of patent trolls, you realize that the idea behind software patents is sound and actually promotes innovation, start ups and entrepreneurship. Eliminating patent trolls would eliminate that problem for large corporations, although it would still cost them million of dollars to apply for patents solely to cancel out others' patents through cross-licensing. Start ups are even more screwed because all of the large incumbents still each have a huge arsenal of broad software patents and can bury any software start up in litigation who tries to compete with them. This also makes having a software patent essentially useless for a start up because any attempt to assert it against an incumbent would only result in counterclaims and ruinous litigation costs. The idea that a small practicing entity can realistically assert a software patent against a large tech corporation is beyond belief. And that's before you even consider the six-figure cost of paying lawyers to get a patent through the patent office, which then generally isn't even issued until the technology at issue is either obsolete and disused or so common and ingrained in the status quo that issuing an effectively retroactive patent on it without prior notice to those who have since adopted it is inherently unreasonable. Software patents are fundamentally useless and should be abolished.
  - Loughla 12y ago
    If you will excuse my directness, all of these arguments come across as 'it isn't fair that they're bigger than we are.' If large incumbents didn't have broad software patents to bury start-ups, they would use their market coverage. If they don't use that, then they can just use their connections to the government to legislate start-ups out of existence. If they don't use that, they can just buy the property the start-up physically occupies and burn it to the ground. Gigantic, established companies will always have an edge, regardless of patents. Abolishing the system and creating a wild-west scenario is ridiculous. Reform and overhaul using principles guided by rational, current, and quantifiable evaluation, with an established timeline for recurring review and reform. That's what we need (in many more systems than patents as well; education, I'm looking at you). Life isn't always binary. There are more answers than all or nothing.

georgemcbay 12y ago

"Do you honestly think that it even possible that examiners spend years examining cases?" It would be if they hadn't already broken the system by letting so many frivolous patents through. The original view of patent eligibility from those who encoded the system into the US Constitution was VERY different than that of today. See, for example: http://www.temple.edu/lawschool/dpost/mcphersonletter.html http://www.temple.edu/lawschool/dpost/mcphersonletter.html If Jefferson had any idea of what the current patent system would look like and how little it had to do with bringing to bear really novel inventions with high social value (compared to being mostly a rent seeking mechanism used to make a quick buck via iffy, vague claims on all sorts of obvious ideas), I'm absolutely certain he would never have allowed for the creation of the system on his watch.

Natsu 12y ago

> Do you honestly think that it even possible that examiners spend years examining cases? It would be silly to suppose that they spend the entire time in examination. That's why it should be obvious that I think they have ample time to correct their mistakes. You do have a point insofar as the entire "game" of patent grants is rigged, such that the examiners are graded on how many patents are processed, while the examinees are allowed to resubmit filings as many times as they like until they pass (subject to fees, of course).