THINGS have been changing for the better since 35 U.S.C. ۤ 101 incorporated Alice/Mayo (SCOTUS). Sites of patent maximalists, however, speak about a different 101 (like this latest from Gene Quinn, who asked in his headline: "Does the Supreme Court even appreciate the patent eligibility chaos they created?")
"Watchtroll speaks for patent trolls and law firms."How about yesterday's nonsense titled "Protecting an Idea: Can Ideas Be Patented or Protected?"
What Quinn meant to ask is, "Monopolising a thought: can thoughts be monopolies and similar thoughts be made thoughtcrime?"
It would be wrong to suggest that a society can be better off as a function of the number of granted patents. That would be patently wrong. Just turning something into a patent (monopoly) does not imply innovation or progress, only a form of sanction. 4 days ago USA TODAY used the number of granted patents (or patents per capita) as a measure of "innovation". It may sound like a decent approximation, but a patent is a monopoly really, and it's not so cheap either. Patents were one among other factors like university a.k.a "college" degrees (proportion). When one measures the number of patents (expensive) and university a.k.a "college" degrees (in a country like the US the good colleges are notoriously expensive) it doesn't say much about innovation but more about wealth; like Switzerland in Europe. Unless we assert that innovation only "happens" when it's filed as a patent we basically fall for that mental trap or mindset wherein only rich people are allowed to innovate or receive public recognition for their work. The European Patent Office (EPO) never gets it; it keeps mentioning Switzerland all the time (patents per capita).
"It would be wrong to suggest that a society can be better off as a function of the number of granted patents."What needs to improve is the quality of patents or the accept/reject ratio (to the point where fewer people even bother applying); when it comes to patents, the more isn't the merrier (unless you're a lawyer). It is crystal clear that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) continues to grant fake patents on software (or software patents). We'll give or share some new examples.
For reasons that are privacy-centric, this surveillance patent application ("Facebook seeks to patent software to figure out profiles of households") received a lot of media attention and coverage. Neurala has also just issued a press release [1, 2] to note that it has been awarded a fake patent; it's quite clearly a software patent disguised using buzzwords like "AI" (good enough for examiners, but courts would beg to differ).
"When one measures the number of patents (expensive) and university a.k.a "college" degrees (in a country like the US the good colleges are notoriously expensive) it doesn't say much about innovation but more about wealth; like Switzerland in Europe."Blockchains, which are pure software, also made some headlines a few days ago; any "blockchain patent" is a software patent that courts would likely invalidate over and over again. Amazon and Xerox got mentioned aplenty [1, 2, 3, 4, 5] for newly-granted "blockchain patents" and speaking of Amazon, Marathon Patent Group (it is a patent troll that preys on real companies) celebrated its shakedown ("Patent Litigation with Amazon.com") that it has bet the farm on. ⬆