You are currently viewing SemiWiki as a guest which gives you limited access to the site. To view blog comments and experience other SemiWiki features you must be a registered member. Registration is fast, simple, and absolutely free so please, join our community today!
Restricting patents only to few is first of all not logical, but if done, it will bring higher monopoly in the system. Wider ambit of patents is fine, but it must be holistic and should not be misused for legal trade.
In today's world, open source initiative is a process that can unleash larger innovation potential. We have seen several open source initiatives in software already and there are new ones opening up in hardware as well.
This wouldn't limit patents to the few, just eliminate obvious patents that only real purpose is to block free progress for others. The patent office needs to be expanded to have the professionals needed to meet the non obvious to professionals in the field as the law reads. Also putting obvious knowledge in the public domain would block many of the worthless patents granted by a patent office that can't follow the law. This would also speed up progress by sharing obvious progression and give the patents that are granted real value.
Arthur, It's easier said than done. It would be unreasonable of actual technology professional to de-focus from they real task of inventing and come on board of the patent office to look and decide on which patent in real and which one if fake. It's more to do with integrity in the community which ultimately will prevail.
Albert Einstein received some of his most valuable skill sets working in Swiss patent office. I wouldn't call evaluating the cutting edge technology not a valuable skill set for those early in their careers. In this day and age of information a well set up patent office should carry the pay and prestige of any professor. That it doesn't is why we get into the patent messes we are in. A highly skilled and respected patent office should be one of a nations greatest assets and be of great help in an economy running smoother. This is a project Silicon Valley should put on its priority list for the benefit of everyone to create a model for not only the US but the world. This is an ideal time to reform the world's patent system.
Albert Einstein received some of his most valuable skill sets working in Swiss patent office. I wouldn't call evaluating the cutting edge technology a valuable skill set for those early in their careers. In this day and age of information a well set up patent office should carry the pay and prestige of any professor. That it doesn't is why we get into the patent messes we are in. A highly skilled and respected patent office should be one of a nations greatest assets and be of great help in an economy running smoother. This is a project Silicon Valley should put on its priority list for the benefit of everyone to create a model for not only the US but the world. This is an ideal time to reform the world's patent system.
The USPTO is run by the Department of Commerce, so it's a government-run agency, not something that the free-market Silicon Valley can really impact. If you want to pay a patent examiner more money, then you'll have to lobby Congress who sets their budget, that is how patent change happens.
The government runs Universities with highly respected scholars, even Nobel prize winners. Maybe the patents should be evaluated by Universities, just like they run research projects. This way the real innovative patents could be evaluated by the best. They wouldn't even have to change the law, just stick to innovations that aren't obvious to professionals in the field. This might be possible to have the USPTO act as a filter which would cut the work load by probably eighty percent. If our government doesn't start learning and adapting soon there won't be an economy to worry about.
This was in the context of Ericsson demanding large sums against their standards patents from smartphone companies. The court referred this case to IEEE for their recommendation. Finally IEEE came up with an approved policy for standards patents royalties.
On my investigation, I found an interesting data about the legals dealing in patents. Patent is one of the most important leaf out of Intellectual Property Right, the others being Copyright, Trademark and Trade Secret. The overall IP Rights Law is a $5 trillion industry and it is the hottest field for legal practitioners. It's spread in every industry and is not something to go away, I guess!
Agreed that stopping patent trolls will solve part of the problems.
But the other big problem I see is the cross-licenced patents between the big guys that is a roadblock for entry of newcomers. Or even more general the big guys with hundreds of patents each which can be used as a defence against each other but not for the startups only having one or a handful of patents.
