[Opensim-dev] personal plea on patents

Thu Feb 4 07:53:11 UTC 2010

The whole patent process is screwed up, and it's only getting worse.  The
proposed changes (in 2009 Patent Reform) would turn the United States into a
Patent legal nightmare.

At least as a current "first to invent" country, we don't have to deal with
as much of the silly nonsense from large corporations.

If we switch to a "first to file" country, then this whole country will fall
into the toilet as engineers spend their life (and time) writing
documentation, diagrams, and silly patent paperwork for every single thing
they do, instead of actually spending their time doing engineering!

I'd rather engineer than do patent paperwork.  In America we're allowed to
currently do that.  We can engineer, develop and don't have to worry about
filing patent paperwork.  If some clown attempts to file a patent, you can
always dispute the validity of their patent, or show previous works (to
refute their claims to any patent).

Now by switching to a "first to file" country, it turns into a "rat race" to
the USPTO's office.  It will cause a nuclear "arms race" for filing patents
and a nightmare for engineers, small businesses, independent engineers and
even large corporations.  By switching to a "first to file" country,
innovation and engineering go right out the window, and it turns into who
has the deepest financial pockets, who can afford the biggest legal teams,
and who can afford the $20,000 in attorney's fees to file a patent, who has
the largest legal team to litigate and enforce the patent, and it wipes 95%
of the engineers in America off the map simply because they are engineers
and developers, NOT lawyers.  This will turn into a liability nightmare,
even much worse than the malpractice issues that medical professionals face.

I believe the BEST solution is to put terms on patents.  I hate patents, but
if we're going to have patents in America then do the following:

1) The patent must be a NEW and ORIGINAL invention, and it must be tangible
(something you can hold, touch and feel, not some silly idea or thought
process, or lame brain nonsense).

2) There must be a reasonable term limit on patents, and I believe a patent
should ONLY be valid for 5 years.  (A maximum of 5 years).  I believe that
an extension could possibly be filed (after 5 years) if there was some crazy
and insane reason why the patent should be extended, but even so there
should be a limit of only ONE extension for an additional 5 year extension
(for a MAXIMUM of 10 years total).  After 5 years (without an extension) it
goes back to "public domain".  (Similar to copyright).  Then anyone can do
anything with it.  It's public domain, and free for anyone to use.

These never-ending patents and 20+ year patents are just silly and insane.
 Someone draws up a diagram for a box, with 2 antennas on it, and 20 years
later nobody else can design a radio or TV because it could be a patent
violation.  The whole system just snowballs out of control.

Also all the patent litigation in American needs to stop.  If you sue (and
lose) you should have to pay ALL the attorney's fees (plus be liable for
expenses and counter-suit damages).  I believe patents should remain a
"first to invent" system, this way engineers and developers don't have to
worry about a "rat race" to the USPTO's office, and instead can just design,
develop and invent without worrying about someone copying or racing to the
USPTO's office with their ideas.

If someone later comes along and copies (or runs to the USPTO's office to
play the silly patent game) then at least you can dispute the validity of
the silly patent during any lawsuit they may file against you (and it would
deter these silly individuals from filing lawsuits, because they could end
up losing their silly little patent by filing a lawsuit).  If the system
changes, then it would open the floodgates for lawsuits by large
corporations against individuals, or small companies, just to stifle
competition, and kill off the small guys.

The biggest thing is the TERM limits on patents.  Maximum of 5 years, and
then it goes to public domain.

I believe COMPETITION is what makes America great.  Without competition, you
have nothing.

Imagine if you only had ONE car to drive.  One brand of television.  One
brand of clothes.  Without competition, you have nothing.  You have crappy
products, that are way overpriced.  Competition drives down prices, and
makes better products.

If you know that a competitor is working on designing a car that is better
than yours (and cheaper than yours) then you are forced to innovate and
develop a better car, and make it more affordable (due to increased
competition in the marketplace).  If you can just file a silly patent on the
concept of a car, then drag your feet for 10 or 20+ years just making a
living by suing anyone that even tries to build or develop a car (claiming
that you were the first-to-file your "idea") and then corporations just make
a living by suing people instead of developing, engineering, or innovating
their products.

These corporations just send out cease and desist letters to anyone that is
even attempting to build or engineer a car.  So now you have the only car in
America, and no one has a choice but to buy your shoddy piece of crap car.

Then you go to Europe or China, and see cars that are much better, and at
one tenth the cost, simply because they don't have the same silly crap legal
nonsense that we have in America with all these insane copyright & patent
attorney issues.

The DMCA is the biggest piece of crap.  Without "fair use" clauses, and
clauses to protect research, engineering, education, and even the USERS (and
consumers).

Give people a 5 year maximum on patents (from the date of filing), and who
will waste 2-3 years dealing with all the nonsense that goes along with
filing a patent, just to get 5 years of "protection"?  By that time, the
competition will already have comparable products, and companies will be
forced to actually INNOVATE, and DEVELOP and ENGINEER instead of having
their engineers spending all their time working on silly patent paperwork,
and legal documentation.  Competition is what drives innovation in America.

Patents should be good for 5 years only, and then it's back to public
domain. Sure you'll have a "monopoly" for 5 years, but it will give your
competition 5 years to develop a competing product that will probably be
better than yours, so you'll be FORCED to continue to develop your product,
and you'll be FORCED to have the best possible product (or the market demand
will simply move towards whatever the best product is, and the price will be
based on what the markets demand).  With increased competition, you have
lower costs, and consumers win.

When you have large monopolies, and no competition, then prices remain high,
and innovation comes to a standstill.  Why make a great product, when you
control 100% of the market?  You have no incentive to improve your product,
because you control the market, and you have no incentive to lower your
price or make products more affordable because you control the market and
consumers are forced to pay whatever you demand.

Look at pharmaceuticals or any other market, and you'll see how increased
competition lowers prices, and creates better (and safer) products.  You
need to produce a high quality product, at the best possible price in open
markets.  In a market that is bogged down with patents, and crazy litigation
then it brings innovation to a standstill.

It turns the country into an idle "battleground" where only the lawyers get
rich.  Just streamline the whole patent process.  Make it cost no more than
$50 to file a patent application, and make it simple and easy to do, so that
it's affordable for ANYONE to do, and make it a maximum of 5 years, and then
the idea/concept goes to the public domain after 5 years.

That will make things more fair in America, and also push others to make
competing products, and increase competition and innovation in America.

Right now if this silly 2009 Patent Reform crap gets passed, we'll be in a
lot of trouble as America would switch to a "first to file" country, and
then every employer will be kneeling on our heads to spend all our time
working on documentation, and patent paperwork instead of developing or
engineering.

I'd rather be an engineer, and wait till the lawsuit happens (and have the
ability to refute any silly patent claims in court) with proof of prior
works, instead of having to worry about lawsuits simply because someone else
took someone else's idea and just ran to the USPTO's office first, so they
could be the "first to file", and play the silly patent game.

This gives an unfair advantage to large corporations, and these proposed
changes hinder inventors, developers and engineers and actually favor large
monopoly corporations (with deep pocket lawyers) who can spend their days
just chasing down small corporations, and sole proprietors, and
inventors/developers with threats of litigation (and most small individuals
can't afford the costs of litigation, so all it takes is one simple "cease
and desist" letter and most developers back down).

So the large corporations win, and open source communities fall apart and
get crushed by large corporations like IBM, Microsoft, and the "top 50"
corporations in America just spend their days signing agreements with one
another (I won't sue you, if you don't sue me) and then everyone else in
America is forced to be idle, and do nothing because you can't fight off the
legal teams from the large monopolies at the top of the food chain.

I believe in streamline the patent system so that it costs less than $50 and
takes less than 2 hours to complete a patent, and make a patent only valid
for 5 years.  Also reduce patent litigation, allow for a "good will" clause,
and also allow for a education/research/academia clause, and reduce the
liability costs of infringement (by having an "I didn't know about it" good
faith clause) and reduce the incentive for silly patent lawsuits and
expensive patent litigation in America.

Reduce the award payments of patent violators, force plaintiff's to file the
lawsuit in the jurisdiction in which the defendant lives or operates.  This
will reduce the incentive for investors to fund silly patents, and reduce
the incentives for silly "patent troll" lawyers to turn engineering in
America into a legal battleground that is much worse than the battleground
that even doctors must face with malpractice, or even the "ambulance chaser"
personally injury lawyers.

America needs more (and better engineers) not more (or better) lawyers.
 Reduce award payments, and make patents only valid for a maximum of 5
years, and bring the number of patent disputes down to a minimum.

The current Patent system only has about 93 major pending trial patent cases
per year (on 1.8 million active patents) and patent lawsuits remain around
1.5% of all patents.

I believe if we move towards a "first to file" system, every engineer in
America will be forced to file a patent and all this silly nonsense will
only get even worse, the U.S. will skyrocket from less than 1.5% to at least
double digits in just a few years from now.

We need less patent litigation, not more.  5 years maximum for a patent.  We
need "good will" clauses, "fair use" clauses, we need better innovation,
competition, and reduce patent litigation if we want to remain competitive
globally.  Patents are bad for America.

                    Mark

On Thu, Feb 4, 2010 at 12:31 AM, Mark Malewski <mark.malewski at gmail.com>wrote:

> > The best thing that IBM can do is "donate" the patents they hold to
> >the Community to that those patents "off the table" unless somebody
> >decides to get skunky.
>
> Yeah, I agree.  Donate the patents to a non-profit organization (third
> party alliance) and then take the whole "patent game" out of this.
>
> That way the community can continue to develop without being in fear of
> "deep pocket" companies coming along and cracking researchers, developers,
> or anyone else that wants to develop, that doesn't have the "deep pockets"
> (or time and money) to be hanging out in a lawyer's office and spending more
> time doing patent paperwork instead of engineering.
>
> We need ALLIANCES not patent battles.

> Patent paperwork is worse than documentation, and it's hard to even get a
> developer to write documentation.  The only people that file patents are
> "patent troll" lawyers, and large corporations with deep pockets that use
> these silly patents to battle others, and kill off anyone else that tries to
> compete.
>
> Patents are a bad thing.  It all boils down to human greed.  We've seen
> enough of that on Wall Street, looks like Wall Street is now getting into
> screwing with engineering/development in America.
>
> Why even write code, or work on a project if someone else can just come
> along and file a patent for what you're working on?  So much for Open Source
> communities and open standards.
>
>
> On Wed, Feb 3, 2010 at 8:10 PM, Robert Martin <robertltux at gmail.com>wrote:
>
>> On Wed, Feb 3, 2010 at 7:38 PM, Mark Malewski <mark.malewski at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>> ...
>> > I'm extremely disappointed that IBM would stoop to such a low level.
>>  Large
>> > corporations seem to do a good job using teams of lawyers to just create
>> > these silly "blanket" patents, and "shot gun" approach to patents.
>> > IBM's patent application is NOT for an ORIGINAL or NEW idea or
>> "invention".
>> >  It's just a weapon to try and stifle innovation and competition in
>> science
>> > & technology.  It would be similar to Netscape attempting to "patent" a
>> web
>> > browser, or "patent" the internet.  It might sound absurd, but that is
>> what
>> > these corporations (like IBM) try to do with these silly blanket patent
>> > applications.
>> ..
>> actually the sad thing is inside the fortune 50 crowd having a
>> "DeathStar grade" patent portfolio is part of the rules of the game
>>
>> If Company A approaches Company B with 5 patents being infringed the
>> standard approach is for Company B to go digging and find 5 patents
>> that Company A is infringing on so they can do a cross license.
>>
>> The best thing that IBM can do is "donate" the patents they hold to
>> the Community to that those patents "off the table" unless somebody
>> decides to get skunky.
>>
>>
>> --
>> Robert L Martin
>> _______________________________________________
>> Opensim-dev mailing list
>> Opensim-dev at lists.berlios.de
>> https://lists.berlios.de/mailman/listinfo/opensim-dev
>>
>
>
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