Patents as a tool that protects the 'small inventor' may be a Big Myth. They only protect monopolies and feed patent trolls that are not the 'small inventor' but are rather the 'vicious lawyer'. It's about the investor, not the inventor, but that's not what many people were led to believe. Investors further monetary agenda, whereas inventors create new work and thus further science.
Patent attorneys charge between US $7000 and $15 000 to prepare and file a €patent application. If only there were a cheaper way, a kind of poor man’s patent. But it just doesn’t exist.
Some people think they can protect their €invention by writing a €patentlike description of it and €mailing the €document to €themselves, but this is no substitute for patent €pending. At best, the letter shows that you €conceived an €invention by a certain date, but you’ll €probably be able to prove that with €engineering notebooks, eââ¬âmails, dated PowerPoint presentations, and the like. Moreover, €evidence of an €invention’s conception date is €useful only in a limited set of €circumstances, most of which involve actually €filing for a patent at some point in time. So save yourself the paper and the postage stamp.
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Patents are expensive, no doubt about it, and the requirements are fairly strict. But as my grandmother used to say, you get what you pay for.
Earlier this year, Avistar Communications Corp. was in talks to license some patents to Microsoft Corp. when Microsoft threw it a curveball. The software giant asked the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to re-examine all 29 of Avistar's patents.
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Indeed, about a month after it disclosed Microsoft's challenge, Avistar, a San Mateo, Calif., maker of videoconferencing and collaboration software, cited the potential impact on its financial outlook as it announced plans to cut 25% of its work force, or 27 employees.
The two new patents cover systems and methods for login-based routing of real-time communications (such as text instant messaging, VoIP and two-way video conferencing) between users employing a quick-dial panel (such as a buddy list) or a screen-displayed list or rolodex. Users can flexibly login at any number of devices or locations and can choose from a number of real-time communications options, including text-based real-time messaging.
RIM Pays Off Wi-LAN To Get Rid Of Another Patent Suit
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Wi-LAN is a Canadian company that did some early work in the wireless field, but was unable to actually make much of a business out of its work, so it took the loser's route: it started suing lots of companies for patent infringement. It's the same old story: winners innovate, losers litigate -- and litigate seems to be about all that Wi-LAN does these days.
Wi-Lan filed the suit in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, Marshall Division — a court that is favored by patent-license companies seeking big judgments.
Wi-LAN, founded in 1992, is a leading technology innovation and licensing company.
Patent Weakness #1: The patent office is filled with lawyers not scientists/engineers.
The patent office has, for the past decade or so, been giving out patents for genes and software like Amazon’s One Click.
Pharma companies didn’t invent DNA or genes. They simply discovered the gene for a disease and thereby a possible path to cure. Why should anyone have to pay royalties for studying said gene or discovering a cure independent of the pharma that identified the gene.
In my opinion Amazon’s One Click patent was the epitomy of the stupidity of the patent office. The patent clerks kept arguing for prior artwork deomonstrating that someone else had already developed a One Click feature. This is ludicrous. The point of software is automate mundane tasks with a minimal amount of information and work by the user. So what does One Click do fundamentally different than any other button on any other piece of software?
We've pointed out in the past why it doesn't make much sense to treat "intellectual property" as "regular property," since it ignores some very important differences between the two. James Bessen and Michael Meurer, who wrote the recent book Patent Failure have always taken a slightly different approach.
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The powerful paradigm of open and collaborative innovation is no longer limited to the area of software development but has found proponents in other technical fields such as consumer goods, pharmaceuticals and automotive. Are traditional forms of intellectual property protection such as patents, copyrights or design rights still appropriate in a world where knowledge is increasingly shared and innovation becomes a collaborative process? What role will IP rights play in the future and what challenges will they face?
Basically, it is an attempt to bring in yet more punitive measures against alleged infringements of intellectual monopolies, with less judicial oversight and no pesky European privacy protection.
But the trouble with these kinds of crude instruments, cooked up in haste without much deep consideration of their knock-on effects, is that they can backfire.
Here, for example, is a letter to the US Trade Representative from a bunch of big names, including Amazon, eBay and Yahoo. They have noticed a few tiny probs with ACTA:
We appreciate your objective of protecting the intellectual property of American rightsholders from infringement overseas. However, in light of these European decisions, there is a very real possibility that an agreement that would require signatories to increase penalties for “counterfeiting” and “piracy” could be used to challenge American companies engaging in online practices that are entirely legal in the U.S., that bring enormous benefit to U.S. consumers, and that increase U.S. Exports.
Is this rich, or what? Here we have a trade agreement that is essentially trying to export the insanely aggressive US system for dealing with alleged infringements to the rest off the world, but when it works the other way – with European norms exported to the US – suddenly, that's a problem.
Comments
twitter
2008-08-13 14:37:45
goomboom
2008-08-13 14:58:45
A gplv3 program which uses a Gplv2 trapped framework
http://smuxi.meebey.net
Thanks
Roy Schestowitz
2008-08-13 15:13:47
goomboom
2008-08-13 15:20:05
http://lwn.net/Articles/290425/
Icaza discuss about gnome.
Mono hell in the way?
Roy Schestowitz
2008-08-13 15:38:14