THERE is plenty of evidence to support the allegation that the USPTO is a defender of monopolists rather than a catalyst of innovation it pretends to be. Monopolists lack an incentive to innovate since this may disrupt their dominance or production pipeline. The New York Times is currently presenting this sob story from billionaires who profit from patents suits in life-or-death situations. It conveniently omits the real consequences of granting and encouraging drug patent monopolies. "$10 drug now $1500 after FDA grants monopoly" says this headline about a new observation that we covered in TechBytes a week ago.
David Kappos, director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office, says the United States needs new ways to measure innovation and also to give fast-track status to green technologies.
First, Kappos says his office is looking at new ways of measuring innovation. After all, open-source software, which explicitly rejects traditional intellectual property rights, powers large parts of the technology industry, such as the Android mobile operating system. Additionally, corporations often take out huge pre-emptive patents to prevent competition from forming.
"For the next 45 days, Webvention is willing to license the '294 patent for a one-time, fully paid-up licensing fee of $80,000.00 for a non-exclusive, company-wide right to use Webvention technology," the company wrote to one of its targets.
The Federal Trade Commission has a new report titled "The Evolving IP Marketplace," that ponders how to deal with these troublesome entities, based on a series of patent conferences that the agency held. And the vague language often associated with patents (like the above) is identified as a big part of the problem.
Yeah, we really need Draconian copyright laws to protect (dead) artists from this kind of evil infringement.