I work for EFF and wrote the text of this blog post and action. On here I speak only for myself, but a couple points I want to add.<p>1) EFF has only filed one IPR ever, (linked in the post), against Personal Audio, to invalidate a patent asserted against podcasting. This was crowd-funded by hundreds of people. It required years of litigation beyond the IPR process itself.<p>2) Patent challenges should be open to all. There's nothing wrong with a "for profit" org challenging a government monopoly - it's a public benefit. A good patent will often hold up (many do), a wrongly granted one will usually go down.<p>Please read the examples in the post of (very) small businesses, individuals, and nonprofits (Wikimedia) who were protected because <i>another</i> organization, often a for-profit, filed a successful IPR.<p>It's truly upside down world when USPTO is concerned its very limited monopoly-challenging services are being overused by "for-profits" that file "serial" petitions. In my career I have analyzed hundreds of shell companies that have (each!) sent out dozens or hundreds of threat letters and lawsuits demanding patent royalty payments (patent trolls). Guess what? They're ALL for-profit. They ALL file serial petitions with the hopes of a fast payout.<p>We have limited means to challenge this extortionate business model, and now USPTO is trying to drastically limit one of the best options. I hope they reconsider, and we ask for your support.<p>Thanks to all and I appreciate the discussion here.
Why Software Patents are Bad, Period.<p><a href="https://caseymuratori.com/blog_0027" rel="nofollow">https://caseymuratori.com/blog_0027</a><p>Patents are out of control, and they’re hurting innovation<p><a href="https://www.learnliberty.org/blog/patents-are-out-of-control-and-theyre-hurting-innovation/" rel="nofollow">https://www.learnliberty.org/blog/patents-are-out-of-control...</a><p>Economic and Game Theory Against Intellectual Monopoly<p><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20120121014753/https://levine.sscnet.ucla.edu/general/intellectual/againstfinal.htm" rel="nofollow">https://web.archive.org/web/20120121014753/https://levine.ss...</a><p>PATENTS AND INNOVATION IN ECONOMIC HISTORY<p><a href="https://gwern.net/doc/economics/2016-moser.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://gwern.net/doc/economics/2016-moser.pdf</a><p>Historical record shows how intellectual property systematically slowed down innovation<p><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20140306012646/http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/historical-record-shows-how-intellectual-property-systematically-slowed-down-innovation/2012/03/27" rel="nofollow">https://web.archive.org/web/20140306012646/http://blog.p2pfo...</a><p>Criticism of patents<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_patents" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_patents</a>
I have a challenge out to all my friends: "Show me one, just one, software patent that is not obvious to someone skilled the field, and I will stop my annoying diatribes about how bad software patents are."<p>To this day I have yet to see to a useful software patent.
Intellectual property demonstrably stifles innovation. It is the ultimate rent-seeking behaviour. It's not limited to software patents either. Hell, it's not even limited to patents.<p>The Wright brothers had a patent on the flight control mechanism that they used to stifle innovation [1]. This problem was so bad that when the US entered the First World War, they were completely unable to produce any aircraft and had to buy them from the French. This ultimately led to Congress intervening to form a patent pool for aircraft patents, a system that persists til now.<p>In the early days of the Internet (ie Napster and Limewire era) there was a lot of hand-wringing about "stealing" music and how it hurt artists. Almost no artist makes sufficient income from music royalties. Only the very top do. The rest make a living from perfrmances and music IP doesn't impact that. But it does help record companies to explit artists, which is the main point.<p>The pharmaceutical industry claims patents are necessary for drugs. Thing is, most drug research is undertaken by government funding and then basically just handed over to Big Pharma, who spend most of their money on marketing not R&D. What R&D they do is largely to game the patent system to extend patents without minor but irrelevant changes.<p>Copyright law is repeatedly extended (in the US) largely to stop Mickey Mouse entering the public domain. At this point I'd be happier with a carve-out specifically for the stupid mouse and let everything else fall into public domain<p>We do not need intellectual property. For atistic works, 10 years. Max.<p>[1]: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wright_brothers_patent_war" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wright_brothers_patent_war</a>
If I where a US citicens I would want whoever is resposible for it to be fired and investigated for corruption.<p>Because you need to either be severely incompetent to a point of by far not being qualified to do your job or corrupt to come up with that.<p>If you do a bit research into the patent system it becomes clear that if anything challenging being to difficult and expensive is a problem not the other way around.
The effect of the anti-patent push has been to pivot the VC and startup industry from technology to buying market share. When patents were strong, you came up with an idea, got it working, got a patent, and then went to a VC for funding to deploy. Now, you come up with an idea, hype it, and go to a VC for funding to hype it more.
The most useful thing about software patents IMO is what you uncover during the patent writing process. When you’re sitting there writing the equivalent of a 10-20 page college essay on the problem background, operating environment, then all the present and future uses of something novel (the provisional stage), it forces you to think in a way that no typical product management process does. There are few (any?) other forcing mechanisms I’ve seen that produce the same results.
I assume this change is related to the patent office wanting to reduce its workload? Funding probably should be increased. Patent nonsense ends up costing everyone a LOT more in the long run.
Please go to US Inventor, <a href="https://www.usinventor.org" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.usinventor.org</a> & learn about Josh Malone (Bunch of Balloons) and what the PTAB is doing to legitimate inventors who's hard fought and paid for patents are getting 'nullified' by companies who just don't want to pay a reasonable licensing fee to use their invention. This is a very legitimate organization doing a lot on Capital Hill to help. They have a lot of info and encourage people to reach out to your Congressmen and Senators; loud voices everywhere sometimes break through.
Let me play devils advocate here.<p>Although there are examples in this article of clearly scam patents being thrown out, please remember that there are likely examples of the opposite where clearly valid patents get thrown out without a court case, and more where it was unclear which way the patent office should go.<p>Overall, this alternative system to challenge patents weakens patents as it is indented to. Especially in software patents this is may be a good thing to many, but it is clear to see that this system has probably resulted in some valid patents not being filed as their inventors lack faith that a patent will prevent uncompensated ip theft, and it gets hidden instead.
Patents are supposedly granted to inventors, yet the preamble of each patent independently lists 'inventor' and 'assignee'.
So what part exactly does the assignee play other than to represent capital? And clearly capital is valued over innovation, as it is the assignee that actually 'owns' the patent, not the inventor.
This seems to be an evergreen topic on HN. Everyone likes to rant, and nothing changes.<p>Besides @myshpa's references below, I've published several things myself, and one of them made the front page of HN:<p><a href="https://albertcory50.substack.com/p/lets-vote-on-it" rel="nofollow">https://albertcory50.substack.com/p/lets-vote-on-it</a><p><a href="https://albertcory50.substack.com/p/no-source-code-no-patent" rel="nofollow">https://albertcory50.substack.com/p/no-source-code-no-patent</a> (front page)<p>It's not inconceivable that Congress, even one as dysfunctional as this one, could eventually agree that software is not patentable subject matter. That's Ripley's "nuke it from orbit" solution.<p>Democrats: because software patents are a tool of rich tech companies to maintain their dominance.<p>Republicans: because they hate the trial lawyers, and some R's are libertarian-leaning as well. And because they hate the tech giants, too.<p>Write your congressman & senators. Or pick some other <i>active</i> form of political participation.
so which is it? "patents" being used by trolls? or American Corporations protecting their investments?<p>I remember when I realized why software patents are not going away any time soon; it was the same thought that I had when I tried to consider the quantity (amount) of dollars represented as 'valuable assets' in IBM's finances; assets which are just software patents.
patent are necessary, but they must be only granted for 5 years of time span. 5 years of leverage to patent holder is more than enough for them to cover up there research cost