Mark Cuban: If you want to see more jobs created -- change patent laws

All right, so we all agree that software patents are a problem. So what do we do?<p>A). Abolish software patents. Existing software patents, or parts of patents that govern software, are nullified.<p>B). ???<p>Personally, I'm fine with A, but I would like to hear a really good B. Anyone?<p>Bonus points: Provide a list of ~5 software patents that are "good" software patents. Something were granting the patent led to innovation, or where the technology would not have been developed without the existence of software patents. Actually, I would be happy with just one patent, so I know what it looks like.

I really wish he had been a little clearer on what these patent trolls are and why they're bad. I'm sure most people here on HN understand what's going on, but this article is little more than preaching to the choir without that extra clarification.<p>As it stands right now, this article has sort of a whining feel to it. "All my companies are getting sued because we're infringing patents, and I'm sick of paying for it! The only way to stop them is to similarly arm yourself with lots of patents so you can sue someone just as hard as they can sue you!"<p>I'd like to see more detail from him about how most of these patents are obvious and non-innovative, and that the idea of patent troll companies who do nothing with the patents but sue for infringement of them. I think that's what he was getting at with these lines:<p>&#62; <i>I’m not talking about a new company that had an idea that someone beat us to. No sir. I’m talking about companies that have been doing business the same way for years that are getting hit by patent trolls.</i><p>...but that could also be read as "we've been infringing these patents for years, and I'm pissed off that someone noticed." We all know that's <i>not</i> what he meant, but there's a lot to be said for clarity, and clarity wasn't a major component of this article.

According to Wikipedia, Mark Cuban has $2.5 billion.<p>If he thinks the patents are bogus (which I totally believe), why not fight a high profile, precedent setting case?<p>If he thinks the law is broken, why not lobby for patent reform? Or a loser-pays system?

From Wikipedia:<p>"The term patent usually refers to an exclusive right granted to anyone who invents any new, useful, and non-obvious process, machine, article of manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, and claims that right in a formal patent application. "<p>In my opinion, the key part is the non-obvious part of "new, useful, and non-obvious"; the invention of a new medicine is usually non-obvious, but the invention of Amazon 1-click shopping is obvious (in hindsight).<p>What is "non-obvious" ? If a single individual can come up with a similar solution (without access to the underlying research/data involved in the patent) in a short amount of time (a week, or at least in a DAY in the 1-click example) it does not represent a significant investment.<p>There should also be a requirement that the idea is <i>implemented</i> to be able to sue others. You may stop others' implementation if you have a patent, but you should not be able to charge them for anything until you have implemented a working solution yourself (to avoid patent trolls).<p>Or simply use the KISS principle and remove <i>all</i> software patents once and for all !

This is more of a thought on Google's awkward situation rather than patent laws in general:<p>What if the DOJ scrutiny around the Nortel patent bundle went well for Google and Apple/Microsoft etc were forced to put essential patents in a pool and license it to other vendors under fair conditions? As Google's CLO said, it still does not give Google the weapon to negate Oracle or Microsoft or Apple's IP lawsuits. What if DOJ smites down the same way everytime an important patent auction is happening? As long as Microsoft/Apple etc is willing to throw money at it, the best outcome will always be everybody gets its fair share. Again, Google's patent WMD remains a dream.<p>Unless a patent reform retroactively grands Google all the immunity in the world I really do not understand how this would end well for Google without sorting everything out in court just as it is.<p>* Of course theoretically Google could buy up MMI or other companies with a giant patent trove in mobile space to balance things out. Then again all public companies' board have fiduciary duty to maximize shareholder value and as long as Apple/Microsoft are willing to pay more, Google has slim chance of exclusivity.

Auction patent extensions in blocks. First, you start with a free, though much shorter than present, initial period. After that, however, you must purchase the next extension at auction. At period2, there will be X2% as many extensions as there are expiring patents. At period3, you must buy another extension out of that tranche, which has X3% as many extensions as period2. And so on.<p>Extensions could be sold to any party before their "apply on" date, they are not specific to a particular patent until it has been attached to it. Once a patent passes its expiration date, it can never be recovered and is now public domain forever.<p>I think this would work best if the sum of the extensions was less than currently available. The basic idea is that a company who felt a patent really was central to their business could pay a potentially very hefty price for the privilege, so the number of extensions for sale should be kept quite small.

At this point I would be fine with starting with the baby set of killing any patent that implements a business process. It would be a good start, simple to explain, and kill off a goodly chunk of the trolls.

Is the tech industry really that influential for job growth in America? Say everything Cuban says is true, wouldn't there only be a marginal difference between today and his tomorrow? Aren't the majority of unemployed non-tech specialists?<p>It isn't clear to me why money lying around necessarily entails job growth in the tech industry, especially for larger software firms but even smaller ones. But again, I feel this would only be marginal contribution to the job situation were it the case.

So he makes an excellent point, especially for the long run, but I must admit the tech sector is not currently facing serious job issues. Of course it would probably be more beneficial to the economy and to society to have Google hiring employees instead of buying patents, but that's not going to save Detroit.

I think that just having requirement that a patent actually has to be in "real production/read product" by the holder is the only modification to the law we need. (there is challenge here how to ensure that production in not fake, but it could be possible to ensure that)

good points raised by cuban, but i have to say, he's offered zero solutions to the problem, just gripes. i don't think anyone's come up with a good solution yet for patents probably because there are an over-abundance of them (millions, possibly billions pending), you can't just do away with the system suddenly, hell i think i have 1 or 2 myself.<p>but let's just play devil's advocate and say that the government refused to grant anymore new patents and grandfathered all the current patents, you would still need something else to take its place, perhaps say the latest trend of open source licenses, though some of the issues with some of these licenses seem to be on similar bad footing of corporate abuse.<p>i don't have any solutions myself, but i think china's ip laws are relatively lax and a good example of what would happen if there weren't patents or at least very poor enforcement. basically you'd have a bunch of companies competing against each other possibly reverse engineering or out right stealing things, at the end of the day, you, the consumer, would possibly have a better set of choices and these companies would be innovating to compete, not necessarily strangling you financially with patent litigations.<p>my major gripe with patents are the same as cuban, these big corporations are using it as a new line of business/revenue stream and are throwing their weight around with the protection of another big corporation (a.k.a. the government), this a major loophole in the system, what was meant to quite possibly protect the little guy, the small company, has now backfired and become a major liability. e.g. nobody in their right mind would file a suit against ibm, they would surely find some infringement in their arsenal of patents and make you hurt for a good long time. you're suing ibm for using your algorithm, they'd turn right around and sue you for something along the lines of using the bathroom on an airplane (<a href="http://news.cnet.com/2100-1017-961803.html" rel="nofollow">http://news.cnet.com/2100-1017-961803.html</a>).<p>the problem is truly systemic. when governments/companies/countries become too powerful, it really becomes easy to abuse/manipulate the system, absolute power corrupts absolutely. that's why there needs to be more refinement of government to handle these things, to make sure that the system works.

Many standards bodies require reasonable and non-discriminatory licensing. One reform would be to require all patent holders to offer reasonable and non-discriminatory licensing.

Think of all the jobs required to fight these patents in court.

I'm sorry, but this is completely absurd and startlingly naive as a solution to the unemployment problem.<p>The limiting factor on the number of people with programming jobs is the number of people capable of filling those roles. There simply are not competent developers who are having trouble finding work right now.<p>If you want to talk about creating high-paying jobs that will allow the US to be more competitive and prosperous in the future, that's fine, but then you still have to address the greater problem of creating a qualified work force.

"Another words"... Really, Cuban? At least we know this is really him speaking, because that's pretty damn embarrassing to put out to the whole world. It's a great post though. I agree 100%.

I'd say US should try doubling their exports to $2.5 trillions.

Yes, the patent syste is broken, but here is what I think is at the crux of it. What happens is that the patent office is completely overwhelmed by, not only the volume but the complexity of the patents being filed. So what they do is basically punt it to the courts. They take a cursory look at a filing and if it is not too obviously a bad patent they grant it and then let the interested parties fight it out in court. So that is what is driving the patent troll problem.<p>To do it right you really need the patent office to a real in depth analysis so that when the patent is finally granted it can really mean something.<p>Politically, that is simply not possible because it would require an expansion of the Federal Government which we all know now is somehow a horrifying thought.

the really insidious effect of this patent trolling is that it robs capital from true inovation. Instead of companies like Google and Apple spending money on hiring people to inovate and create new products, they are spending billions on defending what they already have. Very sad.

For one, patents are not only serving technology companies. Drug companies live ad die by their patents. A new drug cost that much to develop if without a patent protecting it, it would have not make any business sense to even develop new drugs.

While we are patenting every line of every software program ever written, we should also patent colors, smells, tastes, sounds, sensations, thoughts, individual words, photographs, individual syllables, and visual/body language gestures.<p>How come lines of code fall under the category of 'invention', But English sayings, phrases and quotes do not?

Perhaps these patent deals that are putting a price on inventions (particularly at the billion dollar valuation level) will encourage companies to spend _more_ on R&#38;D - hiring more highly skilled workers - because they can create relevant patents more cheaply than they can buy them.<p>The suggestion that abolishing patents will cause companies to spend that money hiring people instead is not intuitively obvious to me. It sounds a lot like trickle-down economics, which may be intellectually appealing but doesn't seem to have worked out as originally expected.