Subject: Re: A thought about patents

From: Vernon Schryver <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 1 Apr 2000 15:41:50 -0700 (MST)

> From: Jon Crowcroft <[email-masked]>

> ...
> perhaps the length of patent protection should be directly related to
> the cost of developing an idea - in pharmaceutical industry, long
> patents make sense because of the large investment in testing a new
> drug safely - similar i nthe automotive and aero industries
>
> in software, its pretty obvious that this is silly - one-klik took
> someone about 6 nanoseconds to think up, and 3 to test...

Why should it a priori take decades to check an idea in the automotive
industry but seconds in the computer industry?  What about overlapping
areas, such as computer networks in cars?
Would you have the same people checking the claims of how much it cost
to develop an idea that now check the technical claims, including those
who checked http://patent.womplex.ibm.com/details?&pn=US05446889__ and
http://www.patents.ibm.com/details?&pn=US06025810__&s_all=1#23
(The main purpose of "6025810: Hyper-light-speed antenna" is "to allow
signals to travel great distances at many times the speed of light.")

Patents have been a dire mess for more than 100 years.  Look at the
patent games played with firearms 125 years ago.  Consider the "defensive
patents" in the ink jet printer business in the last 20 years.

> ...
> the ietf has a very good protection in principle against people who
> think that a patent is power to "own" a standard 

"Protection in principle" is right, as plenty of experience in the
IETF demonstrates.  I care a lot more about protections in practice.

>                                                    it would be nice
> to try to identify the mistaken "stakeholders" who belive that 
> patents are a weapon...

The only mistake I see is the idea that patents are other
than very effective weapons.  It sounds like an insane idea to
anyone who reads a newspaper.

Vernon Schryver    [email-masked]

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From: "Dave Miller" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 2 Apr 2000 21:48:09 -0700

> to develop an idea that now check the technical claims...?

Excellent point.  The problem, as usual, is in the execution.

So could self-regulation be the answer?

(I'm not a lawyer, but...) Consider a voluntary public invention-protection
forum operating on principles very similar to those of the USPTO, but run by
a board comprised of elected members.

- Members submit ideas in confidence for evaluations by engineering types
"skilled in the art".  The process is very simple, and versatile in it's use
of communications such as e-mail, personal interview, etc.

- The board's responsibility is to ensure competent and fair evaluation.

- Ideas considered to bare the essential attributes of a true invention are
declared such.

- Ideas not considered to be true inventions are released into the public
domain  :-!

- Members agree to honor the evaluation, which means not suing anyone who
implements a non-invention and not using anyone's true invention without
negotiating compensation.

- Anyone who's not a member gets a raspberry.

- I wonder how much of government we can get rid of if we keep chipping away
at it?

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From: "David L. Nicol" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 05 Apr 2000 23:05:27 +0000

> - I wonder how much of government we can get rid of if we keep chipping away

I see this a lot in discussions of government reform: Imagine your
reform happens, and bureaucratic rot sets in.  After a hundred years
or so, you will have something very similar to the present system you
are complaining about.

After publishing your idea somewhere, for public critique, you have
a year to file your patent application.  After that it becomes a
public prior art.

Am I wrong?

Getting a patent costs money -- maybe not enough to hire good patent
clerks,
but enough to keep today's garage tinkerers from doing it -- with some
obvious exceptions

____________________________________________________________________
                            David Nicol 816.235.1187 [email-masked]

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From: Doug Royer <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 05 Apr 2000 15:55:26 -0700

> a year to file your patent application.  After that it becomes a

Or if it is a little past a year, and you can show that you
have done your best - you can also get the patent. It's not
a hard set time limit.

-Doug

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From: Stewart Bryant <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 06 Apr 2000 10:57:18 +0100

Check with the lawyers, but I think that you will find that this 
is strictly a US view of patents. In every other country any public 
disclosure anywhere immediately voids the right to patent. Even 
NDA disclosure can be tricky, because an offer for sale counts 
as a disclosure.

Stewart