> According to the law, a person isn’t entitled to a patent if the claimed invention already existed when the application was filed or would have been obvious to someone skilled in the relevant technology area.
This usually is completely overlook in patents. So, patents are ridiculous, they overlap and create a legal minefield for any small developer. Patent trolls exist because the patent system is so easily exploitable.
I am not against the concept of patents, I see the value of allowing some corporation to regain invested money. But, it needs to be for real inventions that took time and effort to develop thru costly processes. Meanwhile things like "one-click buying, is the technique of allowing customers to make purchases with the payment information needed to complete the purchase having been entered by the user previously" are accepted. Patents are a useless joke, at least in the software industry. And its only goal is to increase the power of already monopolistic corporations.
> But, it needs to be for real inventions that took time and effort to develop thru costly processes
Be careful with this. I have a friend who has a patent (might be expired by now) that basically came to be because I asked him a question about a battery charging design he wanted me to write some code for. It didn't make sense to me but in the process of explaining it, a lightbulb went off in his head and that was the basis of the idea. It's actually funny remembering the sudden excitement crossing his face as he realized he was on to something no one had thought of before (he had years of experience in the field).
At the time I was already an experienced EE and I can assure you that the idea was definitely "not obvious to a skilled practitioner in the field" but yet it didn't take much development (we had it working about a week later).
A bounty system for patent invalidation might be nice. An idea could be:
* When you get a patent, you put up a bond.
* If someone invalidates your patent, they get the bond.
* Otherwise, you get it back when your patent expires
An extra, funny, probably impractical idea is that when filing for the patent, you decide on the value of the bond. But, the value of the bond is the maximum payout you can be awarded for a given instance of infringement. So, you have to essentially 'price' the value of your patent yourself.
If they are throwing money at patenting actually novel ideas, then they are using the patent system as intended.
If they are throwing money at the sort of ridiculous obvious patents that people here are complaining about, they are essentially funding an army of private investigators to go out and invalidate bad patents.
> According to the law, a person isn’t entitled to a patent if the claimed invention already existed when the application was filed or would have been obvious to someone skilled in the relevant technology area.
This usually is completely overlook in patents. So, patents are ridiculous, they overlap and create a legal minefield for any small developer. Patent trolls exist because the patent system is so easily exploitable.
I am not against the concept of patents, I see the value of allowing some corporation to regain invested money. But, it needs to be for real inventions that took time and effort to develop thru costly processes. Meanwhile things like "one-click buying, is the technique of allowing customers to make purchases with the payment information needed to complete the purchase having been entered by the user previously" are accepted. Patents are a useless joke, at least in the software industry. And its only goal is to increase the power of already monopolistic corporations.