[geeks] patents suck.....

[Greg A. Woods]

[ On Wednesday, July 17, 2002 at 14:03:38 (-0400), Michael Schiller wrote: ]
> Subject: Re: [geeks] LaBrea
>
> Joshua D Boyd wrote:
> > 
> > Well, patents were made for the little people.  And as such, the
> > process is supposed to be fairly easy. 

So you'd think, but you'd be WRONG.  They were made for the big guys,
and they are still for the big guys.  Read the history if you doubt
this.

What patents do is let the little guy potentially get access to
technology that would otherwise be kept totally secret by the big guys.

Look at which companies file the largest number of patent applications.
Even over time the majority have probably been filed by large (and often
publicly traded) corporations

Unfortunately reading patents to discover useful technology is a pretty
pointless way to go about things.

> Well, in theory it's easy. In practice it's hard, and a patent attorney
> is needed for ALL patents. The US Patent office takes an adversarial
> position, and this makes it harder than it should be to patent things. I
> know this because I've gone thru the process a few times :)

Well known inventors will usually admit that in this day and age you'll
never break even on patenting an invention unless you can be sure of at
least $40 million or more in gross sales of the product.  I.e. they
pretty much all agree that patenting a $1 million idea is a quick way to
the poor-house.  This is of course because you need a patent attorney,
and they just don't come for free.  :-)

If you really do invent something wonderous that everyone will want, and
it's unobvious enough that you can both get a really strong patent
claim, _and_ you can convince a big enough manufacturer and distributor
to take it on, then you possibly get rich before the patent expires.

Typically patents granted to the little guys are either bought lock
stock and barrel for a fraction of their total value, or they're ignored
by the big guys until they expire.  Even really cool stuff like X10
ended up essentially being ignored until it was free, despite attempts
to manufacture and distribute it on a wide scale.

-- 
								Greg A. Woods

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