Patent system protectionism or property?

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By kings for kings.

This is the ruse.

Pharma shouldn't be the only consideration.

R&D in the toy industry can't be compared to R&D in medicine.

The main obstacle often, is the patent system itself and the main cost.

That doesn't change the fact that companies will under-invest in R&D if other companies (and even worse, their competitors) can reap the benefits of the investment without paying for them...

And you haven't actually provided any real alternative to patents and intellectual property rights in order to ensure that public goods are produced. How do you specifically envision that this would be achieved?

The whole investment model is based on the protection being there. So it is inflating itself, it is never enough.

If one company is able to secure a really good level of protection, then they an others are going to hold out investing except when they get something as good as that. This is relative. Limiting the overall protection, leveling the field through cost and simplifying the process there will be less of this effect.

The patent process is creating risk.

If it really is about return on investment then tie it to that. However in many cases return on investment is met very early on. If they haven't managed to return on their investment whist they have protection, then perhaps it is not a good idea or someone else can do it better.

I actually checked so figures, it looks like litigation success in defending patents is down. This could be due to the increased number of patents being granted and lack of quality, and over saturation.

There is more use of judges vs. arbitration.

Do you have any evidence of this?

Because all you have produced so far is a plethora of unproven assertions.

My alternative to traditional patents is to allow companies to copy, but provide a percentage of the sale to the innovator (who will be in contract with any investors).

They won't recover 100% of profits however it will be quicker, becuase the competitor hasn't they haven't registered and immediate action could be taken. Quick arbitration, injunction if necessary. Perhaps it the percentage could be set to encourage negotiated licensing deals as an alternative.

It is a bit like licensing but they have more freedom, is arbitrated and would provide a steady stream of income for the innovator until they make a return on investment.

The idea is not to prevent other player in the market, whilst rewarding the the innovator. Therefore when they are home free the competition with be there, or more likely so.

There is an assumption that all companies are just in the business of copying others' idea or wholly innovators, when actually innovators may need the use of of another's innovation.

If public good is innovation, getting that innovation to market should be the objective. The public goo is not in restricting the scope of innovation, by limiting its delivery.

I also reiterate what I said before: It has to be demonstrable and implementable.

So you are implying the average return of investment is 18+ years? What investor is going to go for that?

Investors are looking for a quicker return, generally.

Something like aerospace 18 years is not that long but toys 18 years way too long.

Definitely agree for software; at a bare minimum, software patents should expire by the time their technology is obsolete.

yes and yes.

Maybe. For complicated or power-intensive projects, it might be difficult to get the funding to make a prototype without first having a patent for the concept.

I don't know enough about the protections granted to have an opinion on that one.

This one I disagree with, based on what I have heard about patents with serious duplications and/or overlaps leading to lawsuits: patent clerks are sloppy about researching possibly overlapping or duplicated prior patents already, leading to multiple patents being granted for similar or the same innovations, or for 'common knowledge' technologies like indigenous pharmaceutical uses of plants or plant extracts.

abso-frickin-lutely yes.

http://www.foxnews.com/health/2014/10/1 ... -pill.html
http://ark-invest.com/genomic-revolution/sovaldi

Gilead almost made back its entire investment in the first year. Don't get me wrong: this is a *very good* drug that has incredible potential to help lots of people... but if the profit rate continues, Gilead won't need 5 years to recoup its investment costs. Even 2 years of protections would put it well into the 'obscenely profitable' category.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/ ... nators-say
http://www.alternet.org/economy/pill-cu ... a-its-1000
^the interesting part of that one is where Gilead is accused of plagiarizing the sovaldi molecular structure.

Software patents don't go obsolete.

They are written so that are applicable to all future devices, operating systems, technologies, means of transmissions, means of executions ...

However, perhaps what you mean, inventors (start-up companies) have complained that it takes so long to acquire a software patent that their customers have moved on to some newer method, and the patent is not as useful. This is likely coming from start-ups that want a patent to show to investors.

In my experience, the PHD researchers at Google, Apple, Microsoft ... that are getting the bulk of these patents -- file 2-4 years before product release, and there is no chance the product is going obsolete.

The idea would be to make this part of the process, part for the use or loose idea. So investor could have confidence with confirmation, if they were serious about bringing it to market. It is only if they have no intention of trying would they have to worry.

ATM companies with enough cash will take out many alternative patent in order to limit the pool of ideas to competitors, even though they only intend to use one or two. Classic example is Apple and their interface patents. These should be released when they don't get used.



Well litigation is getting less successful statistically becuase there is less arbitration more judges involved, however it is mainly becuase the protection is so pointless and it is really just a game in order to not compete. Just starting the proceedings can kill a company.

I call it "board room in the court room", as a style of doing business.



I can't disagree with you but what are we actually talkign about? Patents that shouldn't really exist in the first place. There is lot of "context" patents that don't really constitute something new at all. There isn't really any great innovation involved. The process has been complicated by the "deep magic" of what constitutes a valid application. A lot of the time it is about having a good patent lawyer and knowing which aspect of your design to pursue, to get the effective protection you need.

The investor argument is often made, but quite a lot of this has little to do with those seeking investment. Those that are a competing with those trying to keep them out through the courts.

We can be stricter about what amounts to patents, AND/OR we could develop the process do to encourages more arbitration, faster turnaround and wasting less time in the court room, as like I said this is just a game they play.

I don't know if this was actually patented or not; I'm using it as an illustrative sample:
If somebody filed a patent on morse code, that patent became obsolete when people started using telephones instead of telegraphs. That's the type of thing I mean. The hypothetical Morse code patent (assuming that it was recent enough to still be in applicable) shouldn't be dredged up and used by some telephone company to sue another with the claim that 'a representation of letters using dots, dashes, and spaces, transmitted over a wire,' was actually applicable to telephone communications as well as telegraph communications because they're both 'communication transmitted over a wire.'