Should there be legal restrictions against patent hoarders?
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In many countries, patent holders must periodically prove that they're actually using the patent. Not so in the US.
This means that it's difficult to innovate without a high risk of ending up in court being sued for patent infringement of patents that were filed with zero intention of actually materializing onto the market. Instead, it's used as a money trap for future innovators who might invent something even tangentially related.
Do you think this squelches human progress and that the government should stop backing patent hoarders?
Get rid of patents all together. Someone files 5 minutes before another is what counts? How did stopping the automobile from being manufactured work, good or bad? Luckily for Americans that absurd notion was squelched. Not soon enough.
One of the poster childs for abuse was Amazon's one click patent. If someone was logged into site and had their information on file they can order something with one click. This is not something unique, it's like adding 1 + 1 but they were able to patent it. They solved an issue with a common sense solution, they just happened to be the first to need to do that.
The best innovations are the obvious 'Why didn't I think of that' innovations. One click is an example.
If the solution was so common sense, and obvious, then why were they the first to do it? Looking back historically can give a wrong impression, everything seems easy when you know the result.
You also need to be careful with how patents are used, a lot are filled just to prove that the inventors actually invented it, with little intent of enforcing their IP, its defensive to avoid someone else preventing them from using their IP, simply because they didn't file some paperwork. I know several Apple patents that are post facto, and based on proprietary development from direct competitors who never filed the paperwork, ultimately that was shortsighted by them, since Apple ultimately enforced those patents and received licensing fees for tech they never created from competitors who were stupid. Had those competitors filed patents but not enforced them, they would not have had to give Apple a piece of their pie.
The best innovations are the obvious 'Why didn't I think of that' innovations. One click is an example.
But that's just it is obvious. Building a site is like building a house. You are going to use a lot common construction throughout the house, you may have unique idea from customer and if presented to 50 different contractors they are going to come up with 50 similar or the same solutions. Just because they are first doesn't mean it deserves a patent. Web designers are coming up with unique and interesting things all the time to solve problems as they come up.
See the "new posts" link above? AFAIK that was first implemented by phpBB in 2007 along with "yours', "unanswered" and "active". The implementation for VB appears to be the same as "active" on phpBB. "New Posts" on phpBB only appears for logged in users and is based on the sessions, it displays posts since your last visit. In any event there is certainly no patent on it.
But that's just it is obvious. Building a site is like building a house. You are going to use a lot common construction throughout the house, you may have unique idea from customer and if presented to 50 different contractors they are going to come up with 50 similar or the same solutions. Just because they are first doesn't mean it deserves a patent. Web designers are coming up with unique and interesting things all the time to solve problems as they come up.
See the "new posts" link above? AFAIK that was first implemented by phpBB in 2007 along with "yours', "unanswered" and "active". The implementation for VB appears to be the same as "active" on phpBB. "New Posts" on phpBB only appears for logged in users and is based on the sessions, it displays posts since your last visit. In any event there is certainly no patent on it.
Calling Amazon a website is like calling the USS Ronald Reagan a boat.
And yeah, one click ordering is completely obvious 20 years after the patent. The patent was filed in 1999, at which time one click was anything but obvious. You're taking 20 years of familiarity and over simplifying what it did.
By the same token, a nuclear bomb is pretty damn obvious. So obvious it should be in the annals of the bleeding obvious. But in 1942 it was anything but obvious.
That's part of the issue with patents, you read them and think that's pretty obvious, because you know the answer, that's what a patent gives you. The rights to the patent gives you the just compensation for coming to that answer. Of my 79 patents, they all seem pretty obvious once you read them, but, none of them were obvious before that concept was developed.
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