Patents Hinder Innovation
The patent system was established in 1790 as a way to protect inventors and their inventions. The idea of the patent system was more or less simple, you surrender your idea to the public (basically letting everyone know) and in return you own rights that protect your idea from being used by otherwise without your permission. Sounds like a pretty good idea right?
Unfortunately, that system no longer works as well as it used it. Today, technology grows, innovates, and improves on so many existing inventions that makes it hard to tell whether or not the original patent holder of something fundamental in technology can sue everyone who uses it. Furthermore, some patents in technology are so broad and ambiguous that it makes arguing certain ideas and innovations even more difficult. And to make things even worse, there are now plenty of firms whose businesses are to buy up patents, then sue people who they think are possibly infringing on them. Otherwise known as "patent trolls," these companies are truly abusing the patent system.
I think that the patent system now hinders innovation rather than protecting or helping it because of those flaws. Patents aren't cheap either, an inventor looking to patent his or her idea may find themselves deep in patent and layer fees; which ultimately detracts from the innovation (i.e. money being spent on issuing patents could be used to develop the innovation). Even worse are new innovations that are destroyed because a patent troll decides to sue over some idea they believe they own. Not only is money being misused, innovators are intimidated and hesitant when coming up with a new idea because the possibility of infringing on someone's ideas can result in huge and, more often than not, unreasonable costs.
What are your thoughts on the patent system? Do you think that the patent system should be remodeled? Do patent trolls really have the ethical rights to do sue just for the purpose of money?
Image and article source: www.eff.org
You've clearly outlined a case against current patent policies and practices, but imagine a world without patent and potentially copyright protection. If a company or individual can't claim ownership of a product or idea and can't get protection for that "intellectual property" (IP), then what is the incentive to come up with new IP? Why would any company spend millions of dollars on research and development, when it wouldn't be able to profit from its efforts? Without the incentive of guaranteed exclusive rights, how would companies offset the huge expenses they incurred in developing groundbreaking innovations in the first place?
ReplyDeleteIf there was no patent protection and IP still became part of the public domain immediately, rival companies to the one that developed the IP would always be able to sell that IP at a lower price than the original innovator; without research and development costs to offset, rival suppliers would almost always be able to sell at a lower price and profit at the expense of the original innovator. In such a world, there would be no tangible incentive, there would be no economic sense to launching expensive research and development projects. We would have no technological innovation or iteration.
You still provide legitimate criticisms of the the way in which patents are handled and misused today, but patents exist for a reason, and perhaps the solution lies in reforming the patent system, rather than in abolishing it.
- Daniel Kilimnik
I wrote a post arguing against something, then I realized that it was more deserving of merit than I first thought. So here I go again.
ReplyDeleteFirst, I just want to say that the flowchart depicts patent trolls as the primary issue with the patent system, but I actually believe it has to do with the government allowing patents that don't truly deserve to exist. For example, Apple owns the patent to basically a rectangle with rounded corners and circle in the middle. As well as swipe to unlock. These patents are ridiculous, and while they wouldn't matter if they weren't employed, Apple decided to start a patent nuclear war. It'd be interesting to see statistics to see how patent trolls affect the system though.
Anyways, to fix the issue of patent trolls I propose that patents become non-transferable. This ensures two things. First that a company can't buy a patent just to sue for a violation. Second that if the patent can't be developed because lack of funds then, ideally, other companies will be able innovate off that patent and the owner will not be able to sue. Of course, law firms could still offer some deal to the holders to sue patent infringers, but I believe forbidding the sale makes patent trolling more difficult. In addition, one could make a law dictating that if a patent is not actively used by a company, it enters public domain. That seems to solve the problem as well, since a patent troll isn't really a patent troll if its actively develops the patent.
Finally I just want to address something implied by the flow chart, namely that it focuses on the individual. Today's biggest innovations are not something engineered by a lone wolf, but frequently collaborations among scientists in corporate R&D or universities. The big money innovation seems to me to be material sciences (nanotubes, solar panels, etc), pharmaceuticals, computers, and the like. So patents are less about the little guy and more about the big companies, who can probably handle large legal fees and can always come to some sort of understanding regarding patents behind closed doors. Of course, Apple and Google took their fight public, but the full extent of this battle has yet to occur. Hopefully we aren't sent back to the stone age.
I definitely do think we should still have patents. People deserve to secure their ideas and make the profit from those ideas that they deserve. And of course patent trolls have the right to sue “just for the purpose of money”. We don’t live in some jolly utopia; much today is done “just for the purpose of money.” The whole idea of the patent, not just its consequential suing and lawsuits, is money: to secure it, and to maintain as much of it as one can.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I think there should be much more “monitoring” of patent issuing. As we have seen in the Apple vs. Samsung lawsuit, the patents being argued today are simply foolish. As I explained in a previous comment, Apple was arguing about some of their patents including the iPhone’s ability to scroll through documents with one finger and to tap-to-zoom. If we continue to argue such relatively “small” ideas, there really will be zero innovation. Furthermore, as you pointed out, innovators will be hesitant to create products in fear that they will later be sued for doing so.
If possible, it seems legitimate to say that we could use sort of a “judging panel” to determine whether one deserves a patent or not.
I agree that our patent system in the U.S. is slow and can hinder innovation. However, the government has taken note of this problem, especially in recent years. Most notably, the America Invents Act was enacted last September (it was actually signed into law by President Obama when he visited my high school). One of the big impacts the law will have is that it changes our patent system from a "first to invent" system to a "first inventor to file" system. The U.S. was one of the last three countries in the world to have a "first to invent" patent system. When I attended the signing of the bill, I remember the President talking about how our patent system is broken down and overloaded. He praised the bill because it would help speed up the process for inventors to get their patents. It also was the first change to our patent system since 1952. So even if this bill doesn't change much in the coming years, at least we know that the government knows it's an issue. It's a step in the right direction, but I still believe more needs to be done about these patent trolls you talked about. A complete overhaul of the system, however, seems out of reach.
ReplyDeleteYou talk about patents in technology. What do you mean by "technology" -- are you just referring to software patents or also things like chemical and biotech patents?
ReplyDeleteTechnology in every field have seen similar affects from patents, and yes, certainly including biotechnology companies. When I wrote this post, however, I did have the intention of talking about consumer electronics.
DeleteYou pick up on one of the key issues here, and it would be good to look at the issues from multiple perspectives, rather than stating a very over-general slogan and using a graphic that is clearly designed as propaganda on one side (you don’t tell us where it is from), and then stating your opinions about it. As Daniel points out and you respond to, there are a variety of arguments in both directions for both patents in general and for particular aspects of the patent system. It isn’t a question of “are patents bad” (too simple) or “are there problems with the current US patent system” (there clearly are). So it is important to go beyond impressions and opinions and look into the history of how it got here, the arguments for various policy alternatives, and the proposals for new policies and procedures that would reduce some of the negative effects while preserving the important values.
ReplyDeleteAreila mentions the possibility of a “judging panel” to review and approve patents. There have been projects like peer-to-patent http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peer-to-Patent which bring larger populations into certain aspects of patent decisions, such as prior art. Who is making the decisions now? How are they trained, and what are realistic means to replace them. This is a topic on which there has been lots of analysis and discussion, and I hope your blog will draw on this to go beyond the general opinions of you and the others who comment on it.
I liked the dialog between you and Daniel. One of the key advantages of a blog is that you can have this kind of back and forth. I’ll look forward to more.