So your legal argument for outlawing "patent trolls" is what? You do that like it?
That's how most things that are illegal get outlawed. There was no legal argument for patents until the law was introduced.
Apple have THOUSANDS of patents they don’t use........
But Apple is sitting on a ton of patents for products that will probably never see the light of day. Apple isn't shy of the courts when it comes to IP, either. Should Apple lose its patents, too?
...and who is saying that they
shouldn't lose some of those if patent law were reformed?
Patent trolls will let you use their tech if you license it.
That's not what a patent troll really is. A patent troll:
- Probably didn't invent the tech, but acquired the patents in a bankruptcy sale or suchlike
- Collects vague, poor-quality, over-broad patents that probably shouldn't have been issued
- Doesn't say to the world "Hey, look at this cool tech we've developed - who wants to licence it?" - instead, they keep quiet until they see someone who they think has inadvertently violated one of their hand-wavy patents, wait till they've built up a business around it then "jump out from under the bridge" (hence the name 'troll') and hit them with an extortionate "licence fee" demand.
If that's not what is going on then we're not talking about "patent trolls". Nobody ever called ARM a patent troll, for example, despite them not actually making any chips - they are actively developing and marketing their IP.
There's
another downside in that large corporations like Apple, Microsoft, IBM can amass so many patents that any competing product will invariably violate some of them, helping them to maintain unhealthy monopolies. Giving these portfolios a haircut as a side effect of dealing with patent trolls would be no bad thing, but it is why the big corps won't throw their weight behind patent reform.
You are essentially saying only large well funded companies should be able to patent something. A startup probably would find funding harder to get as well for similar reasons.
Just for the sake of argument let’s say I invent a better wireless transfer protocol than we have today but I don’t have the capital to make any physical products. Are you saying I don’t have the right to get paid for my hard work?
Well, first, lets say I
independently develop a better wireless transfer protocol that - unknown to me - violates your patent (which is highly likely if we're trying to solve the same problem). Remember - patents aren't copyright - you don't have to prove that I've copied your work (although you may get extra points for 'wilful infringement') - Why should
you get paid for
my work?
...or lets say you get your patent and you find a company willing to manufacture it, get started up, then - wallop - you find that your product apparently violates 17 patents held by Microsoft, 14 patents held by Apple, 18 by Google, 37 by IBM
because they basically have hot-and-cold running lawyers who patent every single doodle that their engineers draw on a napkin - plus someone you've never heard of in Texas who claims to have patent on making stuff happen without wires.
Anyway - it shouldn't be a dichotomy between putting up with patent abuse and scrapping them altogether.
First, the patent issuing offices need to be fined whenever a patent is invalidated so that they have a financial incentive to properly examine the things in the first place and not award patents to obfuscated descriptions of the bleeding obvious. Also, re-discover the principle that the information disclosed in the patent should advance the field, which is supposed to be part of the
quid pro quo in being granted a payment: you can protect your invention with either copyright, a patent,
or a trade secret - you shouldn't get to enjoy all three by writing a vague patent.
Second - limit the damages that a court can award to a
reasonable retrospective licensing fee, and require a much higher burden of proof for claims of 'wilful infringement' (like: you actually showed them your prototype when yu were looking for funding, not 'we wrote and told you that your product violated some of our patents').
Third - make it harder to transfer and extend patents - they should be there to let genuine inventors get a head start over the cloners, not a meal ticket for your successors-in-interest.
Or, how about a substantial annual fee to maintain a patent (paid into a legal aid fund for small businesses and inventors, of course, certainly not to the patent office) - enough to focus people on protecting their genuine innovations while making 'patent thickets' uneconomical.
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No. If you have a patent you’re not using you’re a troll.
No - you can find what passes for the "definition" of Patent Troll on Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patent_troll
...and while the exact definition is contentious there's
definitely more to it than simply holding a patent that you don't use.
The real 'troll' problem is entities who's
primary business model is patent litigation.
