It seems to mostly persuade developers with the clout of a large corporation behind them to publish. It doesn't much persuade me, yeah there's a few things I might be able to patent and possibly make a few more bucks off of than I would have if I did not have exclusivity. But sole ownership of a license to get sued isn't particularly enticing, and getting a patent done properly isn't particularly cheap for a one-person operation.
I think the (late? haven't seen in a while) Don Lancaster wrote about this topic and I tend to agree with him.
If there were some clearing house that paid even four figures to publish useful and novel circuits developed by small-timers it would probably do more for "hoarding knowledge" than the patent system if that's the intent, and more profitable for the inventors too. Chinese companies or US companies for that matter are not paying you any damn royalties for that stuff in the modern era, they're just going to use it, f*ck you, where are your corporate IP lawyers don't have any? OK.
Unfortunately that doesn't seem like a particularly profitable business model for the hypothetical publisher, either.
OTOH could be argued that small-timers don't have the economic clout to develop much useful on their own, anyway, I don't really know. Lots of circuits get published in academic journals and often useful ones too, but readership seems low, particularly as about four companies own the publishing rights to like 80% of that stuff and tend to paywall the shit out of them going back a hundred years!
University libraries tend to have mass access. Talk to a friendly academic if you need a copy of a particular paper. Authors tend to be willing to pass out copies - strictly for private study, of course.
The John Doe troll stated the following in message-id <sdhn7c$pkp$ snipped-for-privacy@dont-email.me:
And the John Doe troll stated the following in message-id <sg3kr7$qt5$ snipped-for-privacy@dont-email.me:
And yet, the clueless John Doe troll has itself posted yet another incorrectly formatted USENET posting on Fri, 29 Oct 2021 09:14:10 -0000 (UTC) in message-id <slge11$hr5$ snipped-for-privacy@dont-email.me.
That's far less true today than in the past. Nowadays there are non-practicing entities (NPEs) that enforce their own and (for a cut) other people's too, so small inventors can sell them all or part ownership of an obviously valuable patent.
Even the more enterprising law firms will often do patent litigation on a contingent-fee basis.
You'd have to pay some pretty high-level people to choose, edit, and document the contributions, and do something to prevent the best ones from being patented by others in the mean time.
Doing the documentation at an adequate level is about as much work as filing a patent, so why not do that instead?
Yep, I got a contact like that but I have to limit my number of pro bono requests if I want to keep them, and they appreciate fine dining somewhat in proportion to the requests :)
One side effect is that startups churn dozens of goofy patents, going for sheer quantity. The US patent office charges annual fees now, so is happy to grant the patents and figure that the legal system can spend the money to examine them.
Oh, that is interesting I wasn't quite aware of that. Worth looking into.
I used to have a close contact in a law firm. I also have an academic contact. Used to have a number of "contacts" in some fields but my current "contact" likes to limit me to the number of "contacts" I have, y'know. That's understandable, "Kramerica" is really only practicable in fantasy.
formatting link
Right, right.
I have to pay them up front! Attorneys and patent office don't pay me up front :( I guess I'm not good at delayed gratification. Millennial-problems
Writing a patent isn't all that hard once you get the hang of it. A whole lot of US patent prosecution work is done for cheeeep overseas, especially in India. Sort of like one of those hire-an-overseas-freelancer web sites.
I guess I'm not good at delayed gratification. Millennial-problems
I've made some money on those myself, matter-of-fact. There are clients from Eastern Europe who will prefer to pay a more-or-less American wage to an American to work on a project. Sometimes Americans looking for Americans on freelance sites tend to be too micro-managey for the funds they have on offer while say the Lithuanians tend to have a more realistic assessment of what their money will buy, they don't want to do "quick calls" on the regular and the time difference makes that difficult anyway.
The dividing-line between these generations isn't well-defined, particularly for people born fairly late in Gen X like I was. Sort of who you identify with more. The oldest Gen X are in their late 50s they have different problems than I do.
Yes strictly speaking I'm Gen X as my parents weren't boomers, they were born before WW2. If your parents were born after WW2 you're pretty solidly at least a "millennial."
Gen X was a small generation population-wise and is underrepresented just about everywhere from industry to politics.
On a sunny day (Fri, 29 Oct 2021 11:20:09 -0400) it happened Phil Hobbs snipped-for-privacy@electrooptical.net wrote in snipped-for-privacy@electrooptical.net:
It is an interesting thing After WW2 where Germany had invented V1 and V2, Von Braun was taken prisoner and brought to the US. US then used him to beat Russia (who did the same thing with other German scientists to make Sputnik) and bring humans to the moon. So by the right of the strongest, or robbery if you will :-) Darwin.... So let's say any rights were ignored. US is spying on traffic from European companies to stay ahead, at the same time obstructing Chinese companies (Huawei comes to mind) by accusing them of spying... Such forbidden games we play. Patent play only for the ??? masses??? Lawyers are suckers for your purse.. an artificial system that is stepped on and ignored if bigger issues are at hand. Julian Assange plays now in an UK court I think. Like a puppet show. Big brothel may have its way anyways, So what's it all worth? Legal system, if overruled by politics.
On a sunny day (Fri, 29 Oct 2021 15:29:50 +0100) it happened Tom Gardner snipped-for-privacy@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote in <slh0gu$uk4$ snipped-for-privacy@dont-email.me:
Sure, things I put on the web usualy have a GPL message included. But hard to tell if somebody copied, or much better not copied the code but the idea, that happend to me and I am happy to have contributed something useful.
I suppose I am distrustful to anything involving any authority outside of my control because historically in East Europe (where I live) these have proven they are not worth a penny of trust. Not sure how it is with the Dutch, by the way you sound it must be very similar... :) It appears that the English (and their former colonies) are ahead of the rest of the world in terms of trust in their legal system (or taught to not even thinking to distrust it, I just don't know) which is why the patent system has worked there and people still seem to trust it. Which is somewhat puzzling to me, I have a friend in/from Boston who was through a difficult divorce and says the court system is not just suboptimal but simply a joke... (He is both honest and intelligent so I don't question his experiences). Judging by the posts in this thread though, those who see the patent system as useful are English or American or Australian etc. How did it go, "England is the most civilized place in the world" :-).
Unpatentable means that no valid patent can apply.
And that is big problem: existing knowledge is quite large and deciding if something is "known" is huge effort. Patent office has no means to properly do this.
It is not only me that thinks that US patent system is fundamentally flaved. Feynmann gives nice example: once you know that nuclear reaction produces energy and can be controlled ideas like nuclear power plant or ship powerd by nuclear energy are obvious. Yet both were granted patents.
I am not talking about patent spec, but about argument what Waymo considers equivalent circuit. Are minutes of the process publicaly available?
Lawyers are not idiots. They love to make idiots form other folks.
For the most part, the examiners in the USPTO are just average joes. It's not like some "specialist" in the field of your application reviews your application and decides its merit.
Many years ago, I met a guy who worked there. As I'd been through the process, I asked him what it was like "from the inside".
"Well, the first thing I do with a patent application is reject it"
"Huh??? WTF..."
"I get a 'point' for doing that. The filing attorney will undoubtedly resubmit it with an explanation as to why my rejection is not valid. Fine. I already KNEW that. Now I'll start actually looking at the patent. And, I'll get more 'points' for each of those activities..."
"What qualifications do you have for any of that?"
"None. I'm just a clerk. I barely understand the things that I'm reading. But, I can verify the diagrams are drawn in the proper (legacy) style, look up the patents referenced in the submitter's request, distribute the application to companies holding similar patents to see if THEY can raise any objections, etc. My job is to whittle down the claims made -- to narrow the focus of the patent as much as possible. The filer's job is to broaden them."
So, you spend money on lawyers instead of spending money on developing new ideas.
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