Patentable ideas - the law

Unfortunately, I find that the patent system has largely been hijacked by lawyers and large corporations and does little to protect the individual inventor and simultaneously stifles innovation. I myself am an engineer and, while I don't personally hold any patents, I am somewhat familiar with the system.

Here in the US, our patent office is terribly underfunded and overworked as the number of patent applications have skyrocketed. As a result, way too many "invalid" patent applications get approved. If a small inventor, believing that an existing patent is blatantly invalid due to prior art or any other reason, would be hard pressed to use the technology because of the legal battle that would have to be undertaken to win the case. So in this respect an invalid patent with an army of lawyers is just as useful to the patent holder as a valid one.

 

JMO, the patent lawyers don't seem to be able to apply the 'novel' concept.

 

In my line of work we gave up on patents decades ago. Intellectual Property law is pretty well broken in this country. It's come down to deep pockets. Even if you are clearly right, who has the resources to defend a patent against a large corporation? Mostly we try to defend our work with trade secrets.

Tom

 

there are a lot of attorney's out there who send threatening letters in the hopes of getting a piece of the pie. e encountered this in my business a number of years ago and they are mostly opportunists looking for easy money thru scare tactics.

 

Keep in mind - patents are *only valid* in the country(s) the patent was granted in. A US patent is not enforceable in the UK etc etc.

 

The patent office has been going downhill ever since Einstein left.

 

It appears that most posters on this thread agree that the U.S. patent system is broken or hijacked by the legal community, making it ineffectual. Short of throwing more money, bureaucracy and time into fixing the problem, what is the solution for a better patent system? This question makes an assumption that people are entitled to product/service development protection.

 

1) More stringent requirements for issuing a patent. To be patentable, something should be truly new and unique, not just painted a different color.

2) Better challenge/defense process. At present, the owner of a patent must defend it in court or lose all protection. Generally this means that large corporations can crush small inventors. There is no way a company the size of mine can go toe to toe with Microsoft and have any chance of winning.

Part of the problem is that patent challenges are heard by juries, who are not trained in the field. This tends to make it a popularity contest, where the best dressed lawyer wins. Perhaps we need technical panels of professionals to do some sort of arbitration.

Tom

 

In an effort to think unconventionally, how about terminating patent law as we know it and allow market forces to determine who's product/service comes into use. The criteria could be Price, Quality, and Delivery. As Tom posted earlier, many corporations treat new product development as "trade secrets", choosing to by-pass the patent process. For me, the bottom line is price. Thinking of the pharmaceutical industry, all a patent does is artificially inflate prices for way too long of a time.

Hey, I'm just saying it's an effort to think outside the box.

 

The purpose of a patent system is to promote progress, not retard it. A patent is an agreement between the inventor and society. The inventor gets a limited ownership of the invention, while being required to educate the society with a full understanding of how the invention works so that others can learn and make further progress.

You all own a device that utilizes one of my patents (US # 3,714,595)

JeffD

 

I remember when those first hit the market. Nice job on that one. I did some phase locked loop work in the 70's too, as part of an active filter system.

Tom

 

You probably don't own anything using any of my patents (unless you're trying to keep profanity off the radio) but I can actually testify to their value. This US patent, issued in the late 70s, was infringed by a Canadian company. By the time we were through with the arguments, discussions, lawyers, etc., we settled with the infringer for enough money not just to pay for all of that but for the cost of that patent itself!

 

First of all, you can't patent an idea. It has to be reduced to practice. You can patent a device. One prototype would suffice, but you have to actually make it (for devices) or do it (for processes).

It has to be new/novel, not already out there in the public, not published by someone else, not already offered for sale, etc.

It has to be useful...no square wheels, etc. The usefulness requirement is why they do not allow patents for physically impossible machines, e.g. perpetual motion machines and momentum engines. Though the occasional one might slip through.

It has to be non-obvious to someone skilled in the art. If you see a plastic tool, you can't patent the same thing made of wood.

Having said all that, in practice, the patent office allows all kinds of patents because they're very backed up. It's up to the patent holder to sue the infringer, and the infringer to defend himself. Basically, they let the courts make the decisions if they're any tougher than blatantly-obvious.

BTW, it's hard to defend an infringement suit. They'll ask for a jury trial, and the patent holder will say..."see it's patented and they stole it!" Then the defense will have to go into all this boring nerdy technical detail why it was obvious or the same as something already out there. The jury won't understand any of it, get bored, and side with the guy with the least objectionable / most attractive lawyer.

Obviousness is very hard to prove too. Obvious to whom? It's completely a matter of opinion, so always err on the side of patenting everything.

"already out there" is more straightforward to prove, so that's what's usually done.

And since everyone else is citing their patents, I have 22 (in the US).
Patent Database Search Results: in/loescher and is/TX in US Patent Collection

and the applications (some granted, some not yet).
PreGrant Publication Database Search Results: in/loescher and is/(TX or OK) in AppFT Database

 

Actually the description in the patent is a presumptive "Reduction to Practice" as long as someone "Skilled in the Art" can make it work using the description. So you don't ever have had to actually build it to get a patent.

JeffD

 

There is no requirement to actually build a prototype, with one special exception: perpetual motion machines. Other than that, the patent office does not require a working example.

Tom

 

What might work better in practice would be preventing big corporations or organizations from owning patents at all.....the situation is that bad.

 

It might work like that in the UK, but here in The States it's no longer like that. People patent bizarre nonsense all the time (no insult intended to my fellow P-chatters, who presumably came up with actual original ideas) We had one fellow who patented yellow colored beans. There have been yellow colored beans in Central America since before The Conquest, however he got somehow got a patent for it. For years every yellow colored bean that went in or out of the country had to give him a cut, in return for nothing.

I personally ran into a fellow on eBay who claimed to be selling a patented LED grow light. I thought that was odd, since he did not invent LEDs, and we've been aiming lights at plants since we first invented lights. I followed it up, and sure enough, he has a patent for shining lights on plants. I tried to ask the patent office about how they came to issue a patent now for something that has been going on since the 1800's, but just got a form letter brush off.