Supreme Court Ruling Supports Apple's Long-Running Fight Against Patent Trolls

[MBadagliacco]

The Patent Trolls should be forced to "take action" on implementing the patent into product within a 2 year period with technology related patents due to the rapid pace of innovation...

 

[CFreymarc]

Provide patent trolls or companies a set period of time to productise their patents or they lose them. Problem solved.

This has been proposed over and over with no resolve. Implement a regulation like this and you'll see an entire "ashcan" industry of one or two offs with almost no market penetration to keep a patent. Also, many patents cannot be made into products at the time of issue due to legal or technical issues. To get in any more detail, consult a patent attorney.

 

[73b]

I don't think that means what you think. Patent trolls sit on a collection of [often dubious] patents and simply seek licensing fees. Apple actually makes products.

I know what it means, I just love the term. It sounds so funny in a news headline.

 

[CFreymarc]

The Patent Trolls should be forced to "take action" on implementing the patent into product within a 2 year period with technology related patents due to the rapid pace of innovation...

That is the equivalent of saying if you make a stake on a land claim, you must build on or cultivate it. All land is not useful nor profitable. This is IP and not Homesteading.

 

[TEG]

It would be helpful that if your patented technology is integrated into a standard, the patent should be invalidated in favor of the standard. That would cut down on a lot of current lawsuits.

 

[Sedulous]

It would be helpful that if your patented technology is integrated into a standard, the patent should be invalidated in favor of the standard. That would cut down on a lot of current lawsuits.

No, that would definitely lead to stagnation or severe fragmentation.

 

[theluggage]

No, that would definitely lead to stagnation or severe fragmentation.

...yet somehow the entire modern "personal computing" industry grew from a few kids making systems in garages or moonlighting using college computers, and shook the plate glass palaces of the big incumbents to the core (IBM has changed beyond recognition, Digital Equipment corp is no more...) without any help from patents. Even the "look and feel" copyright suits died down somewhat when standard desktop GUIs took over from "Visicalc-style/Lotus-style/Wordstar-style" UIs.

It was only when those garages had, themselves, grown into plate glass palaces, and the new incumbents started worrying about the new kids-in-garages that they suddenly became big fans of the patent system.

Also, look at what must be the biggest, most successful interoperability project of them all: the Internet. All done with completely open standards (the RFCs) and no patents in sight - until it was up, running and successful, then everybody is suddenly taking out "doing something obvious on the Internet" patents.

Nope - apart from the occasional David & Goliath aberration, what patents mainly do is allow the big successes to pull the ladder up after themselves.

 

[Sedulous]

...yet somehow the entire modern "personal computing" industry grew from a few kids making systems in garages or moonlighting using college computers, and shook the plate glass palaces of the big incumbents to the core (IBM has changed beyond recognition, Digital Equipment corp is no more...) without any help from patents. Even the "look and feel" copyright suits died down somewhat when standard desktop GUIs took over from "Visicalc-style/Lotus-style/Wordstar-style" UIs.

It was only when those garages had, themselves, grown into plate glass palaces, and the new incumbents started worrying about the new kids-in-garages that they suddenly became big fans of the patent system.

Also, look at what must be the biggest, most successful interoperability project of them all: the Internet. All done with completely open standards (the RFCs) and no patents in sight - until it was up, running and successful, then everybody is suddenly taking out "doing something obvious on the Internet" patents.

Nope - apart from the occasional David & Goliath aberration, what patents mainly do is allow the big successes to pull the ladder up after themselves.

I think you missed the point I was making. If a group makes something that becomes a "standard", it is unfair to the group to give up their intellectual property rights. That's all I was saying. Nobody would bother to invest in R&D, and certainly not invest in something that would be useful enough to be a "standard". This is in part how Chinese companies are undercutting many businesses. Stolen IP is a big deal and does hurt innovation. The problem is that the patent office grants protection to obvious ideas and/or what amounts to prior art.