Patent reform: Who's on first?

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Sophistry

Some of your logic needs work.

For example,
Open source programmers don't have big money in the bank. So the only companies likely to try a patent attack against open source are Microsoft and its proxies.

A licensor doesn't have to require a substantial outlay of cash from the licensee, as you assume. The payment could be based on a per user fee, for instance.

By the way, I think Microsoft is unlikely to sue open source. The company has enough court experience to know how arduous the process is, and how small the reward. A suit also would change the situation from market competition to ... uhm mutual urination, which is unhelpful.

No, the patent attack on open source will come from IP shops, etc. which can see how to profit in a specific circumstance. Think of patents afflicting open source like the Furies, a constant, inescapable goad and irritant.

Microsoft needs its patents for IP exchanges and protection against some of the frivolous suits.


Or, quoting again:
If you can't determine prior art independantly, then how can you determine whether the prior art is real or fake to kill a competitors patent!

If I'm following, you're saying that if the PTO cannot itself determine prior art when the patent is issued, it is incapable of verifying the alleged prior art used in a court case.

There's a difference between finding prior art and confirming assertions about past events from a participant in a court case.


Your listed items also include some illogic:

1. Patents are for real inventions, so the onus should be on the inventor to prove its new and novel, something the US PTO isn't doing.

When has the applicant for a patent made a sufficient good faith effort to find prior art?
And when you answer that question, why shouldn't the PTO be capable of making the same effort?


2. Patents require the ability to determine prior art, so art unsuitable for things where it can't be determined, like closed source software algos.

Gee, if something is secret and might be relevant to a patent application, then the patent application must be denied.
To refuse to issue any patent, the PTO must find only a possibly relevant secret.
That should close down the patent office.


3. That you are undermining your own capital advantage. If it costs $500 million to make a new 'foobar' the only large rich countries can do it. If it only costs $5000 to patent a 'foobar' then any country can do it, so quit the idea that more patents are somehow helping the USA compete!

If someone can obtain a valid patent on the foobar then he is the inventor of the foobar. Even if the development of the idea did not cost him $500 million.
You're describing the entire patent sytem, including its protection of the individual inventor, as I read your comment.

Posted by: Anton Philidor   Posted on: 09/13/05 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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