Bonum Certa Men Certa

Patent Maximalists' Utopia: INPI-Like Patent Systems Where Every Application is Blessed and WIPO-Inspired Assumption That the More, the Merrier

What would the world look like with billions of computer-generated patents (as some people have suggested)?

Information overload Reference: Information overload



Summary: The distortion of the patent system at the hands of the patent 'industry', which leads to granting of millions of patents that oughtn't be granted due to duplication, prior art, and/or lack of merit

THE PATENTLY FALSE assumption that maximisation of the number of patents is both essential and desirable is a real problem. We see it everywhere in the patent microcosm, i.e. the 'industry' associated with patenting (rather than doing things on which patents get granted). The EPO is all about maximisation right now; the USPTO always had this problem, more so after the Reagan years. China too is moving in this direction, as we shall explain later this weekend.



Let's go back to the basics. What are patents anyway? Patents are an exchange. A person gets granted a temporary monopoly in exchange for publishing his or her (or their) method, typically demonstrated using some physical device. Examiners used to be shown the claimed inventions (in real life, in person). The motivation is sharing of knowledge or contrariwise, avoiding the loss of technical advancement due to someone's death (taking one's trade/technical secrets into one's grave). Patents are not bad per se; it just depends on how we view them and their original (intended) purpose. The same goes for copyrights and trademarks.

A few days ago someone wrote that the "USPTO trademark filing record shattered again in 2017, with more than 437,000 new applications, an increase of at least 12% in filings over 2016."

It's rather odd that trademarks and patents are both being dealt with by the same US-based office. Regardless, patents too are on the increase; the pace of granting increases, not necessarily because innovation is picking up pace (no empirical evidence of that). We wrote about this many times over the years; it's a commonly-explored area in scholarly literature, too.

The other day CCIA noted that while courts eliminate many software patents, there's no evidence that it affects the patent office all that much and it certainly has not slowed down granting. As the author put it, "the impacts of the Alice cases on patent examination have been relatively insignificant," which is true. He cites WIPO data:

Third, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) released their annual Global IP Indicators report. There’s a lot of data in here on IP and patents worldwide. One interesting observation in the report—despite the “sky is falling” rhetoric about Alice and IPR, filings in the U.S. continue to increase. What’s more, grant rates were actually higher in 2014-2016, after Alice, than in 2010-2012. As I pointed out last year, the impacts of the Alice cases on patent examination have been relatively insignificant compared to the rhetoric surrounding them.


The WIPO figures alluded to above came out not too long ago. In fact, WIPO published this nonsense about "Innovation Hotspots"; what WIPO neglects to say us tgar one has to be rich to pursue patents worldwide; it's not about innovation at all but mostly about protectionism, which some nations are better able to afford.

"These are the world’s top 10 invention hotspots, based on the number of international #patent applications filed," it said in Twitter. Well, "international patent applications" are extremely expensive.

The same sort of flawed logic could be seen here at Kettering University just a few days ago. Kettering promotes the utterly baseless theory that inventorship doesn't exist until/unless there's a patent . "The study," it says, "by economists from Harvard University, MIT, the London School of Economics, Stanford University and the U.S. Treasury, analyzes the backgrounds of patent-holders nationwide to determine shared characteristics of inventors. In a portion of the study looking at the education of patent-holders, Kettering University was fourth in producing alumni who hold patents – trailing only MIT, CalTech and Harvey Mudd."

But does that not miss the point? Are people "inventors" only if they have patents? What about places like India, where most people are not wealthy enough to pursue patents (never mind India's renowned limit on patent scope)? IAM and Spicy IP wrote a few days ago [1, 2] about IPAB. The outline from Spicy IP says "Justice Manmohan Singh Appointed as IPAB Chairperson under Potentially Illegal Tribunal Rules – Continues to Hold the Post of Chairperson of Appellate Tribunal for Forfeited Property" (IPAB was covered here before).

Remember that patents are only worth as much as quality control or the effort required to come up with them and assess them. Otherwise it's just fool's gold. Recently, Brazil nearly committed reputational suicide (damage to all granted patents) by 'pulling an INPI', i.e. just granting a patent for every outstanding application. Thankfully, plans have changed since then and it seems as though it's not under consideration anymore. To quote the one single report we saw about it:

A potential procedure to fast-track the approval of more than 230,000 pending patent applications in Brazil, which some expected before the end of 2017, has not yet been published

A potential procedure to fast-track the approval of more than 230,000 pending patent applications in Brazil has not yet been published.


By "fast-track", based on a prior report, they just mean approve. They apparently used words like "emergency" to justify such an extreme measure. It's not only shady but also dangerous; we have only begun seeing just how broad a damage similar managerial approach has caused at the EPO.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Brett Wilson LLP Sent Over 5 Kilograms (or Over 12 Pounds) of Legal Papers! Because Writing About Microsoft Abuses is 'Illegal'.
How do you guys sleep at night? On a big pile of Microsoft money?
Extremism as a Weapon Against GNU/Linux (Microsoft Lunduke)
He ought to know the Halloween Documents. Wasn't he a Microsoft employee when these came out?
 
Microsoft-Sponsored Propaganda Site Has Removed False 'Hit Piece' About Dr. Stallman (With Fake and Misrepresented Imagery) But Only After 4 Years
So they only removed that page some time around 2025, i.e. about 4 years after it had been published
Always Check Your Inputs
Garbage in, garbage out. Or wrong assumptions, wrong corollary.
Dan Neidle Said That Tax Evasion Facilitator Mr Zahawi (Working to Silence Bloggers Through Brett Wilson LLP) Targeted Not Only Him (But The Others Kept Quiet)
"Mr Neidle said after repelling Mr Zahawi he was contacted by bloggers and tweeters who had received similar threats. They deleted their work “and in most cases never commented publicly on anything again”."
SLAPP Funding Transparency Urgently Needed in the UK and Elsewhere (in Practice, Not Just in Theory)
Writing about crime - including Microsoft crime - is not a crime
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, July 09, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, July 09, 2025
Elodie Bergot Still Doing Illegal Things at the EPO, Based on the Local Staff Committee Munich
They keep taking away from the staff while compelling the staff to do illegal things
Gemini Links 09/07/2025: Extreme Testing and Golang Documentation in Geminispace
Links for the day
Vice President of the European Patent Office (EPO) Complains That Techrights Gives Visibility to Legal and Technical Issues at the EPO
"Follow-up on enquiries relating to Dir. 1218 and 1001"
Slopwatch: linuxsecurity.com and Various Slopfarms That Lie About "Linux" and Are Promoted by Google News
Google does not seem interested in tackling this problem
Links 09/07/2025: War Updates and Microsoft Moving to India to Cut Costs
Links for the day
GNU/Linux Was Always a 'Movement' of Inclusion of Tolerance
Even the licences themselves remove access barriers
Links 09/07/2025: "Subprime AI Crisis" and "OpenAI May Be in Major Trouble Financially"
Links for the day
Huge Piles of Legal Papers ('Paper DDoS') Do Not Impress Judges and Regulators
they just make judges and regulators even more suspicious of the eagerness to resort to 'paper DDoS'
Lunduke Isn't Even Hiding His Anti-Linux Agenda (From "Linux Sucks" to "Linux is Pedophiles")
just trying to make a lot of trouble
Some People Use Computers to Get Actual Work Done
Tolerance and inclusion must extend to acceptance that some people don't agree with you, might never agree with you, and imposing what allegedly works for you on them is unreasonable
Example of "Old" Things That Still Work
The notion that something being "old" implies it must be discarded is typically advanced by those looking to sell more of something
Some Scheduled Maintenance Later Today
Typically the most vulnerable service during short interruptions is IRC
Computers Are Just a Tool
People don't get married because they love weddings, folks don't join the army because they love war, and most drivers don't drive to work because they love cars
Apple Way Past Its Prime
Apple deserves a decline
The FSF's SysOps Team Recovered From Serious Hardware Issue Within Hours
About half a day ago I noticed that all/most GNU/FSF sites were not reachable and thus reached out to a contact for any details
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, July 08, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, July 08, 2025
Slopwatch: Turning Bugs Into FUD About "Linux", Getting Basic Facts Wrong
all the screenshots are of fake articles; we don't want to link to any
Technical Reasons, Not Politics: With Wayland "it feels a lot like Linux from 20-25 years ago, which is horrendously frustrating, because it feels like we wasted one or two decades of progress and stability"
Lately, quite a few benchmarks were published to show Wayland compares poorly compared to what we had
PCLinuxOS Recovering From Fire
It looks like a nightmare scenario, where even backups onsite get destroyed
Links 09/07/2025: More Heatwaves, Officials Culled in Russia
Links for the day
Gemini Links 09/07/2025: XScreensaver and Resurrection
Links for the day
Links 08/07/2025: "Cyberattack Deals Blow to Russian Firmware" and "Cash Remains King"
Links for the day
FSF40 T-shirt message
by Alex Oliva
Gemini Links 08/07/2025: Creativity, Gotify with NUT Server, and Sudo Bugs
Links for the day
More on "Lunduke is Actually Sending His Audience to Attack People"
"pepe the frogs"
Links 08/07/2025: Sabotage of Networking Infrastructure, Microsoft XBox Game Pass Deemed “Unsustainable”
Links for the day
Dalai Lama Succession as Evidence That Determined, Motivated People Can Reach Their Nineties
And we need to quit talking about their death all the time
Many Lawyers (for Microsoft) and 1,316 Pages to Pick on a Litigant in Person Who Exposed Serious Microsoft Abuses
Answers must be given
Gemini Links 08/07/2025: Ancillary Justice and Small Web July
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, July 07, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, July 07, 2025