Good article on the broken patent system

[MoonRise]

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/burnette/w...39?tag=nl.e539

[GreyGeek]

Re: Good article on the broken patent system

Software patents are pathetic, immoral and unethical. Just what CEOs like Ellison want. It gives the boys with the deepest pockets a blank check to STEAL anything they want, and replaces the Microsoft Cherry-picking-gambit.

And, as long as money from those deep pockets continues to BRIBE Congressmen in a quid quo pro for special legislation you won't see any patent reform anytime soon, unless it is to RAISE the cost of filing a patent so that the big boys can go after the technology created by the small and medium size outfits.

That Ag friend of mine who created a new kind of tractor spent $250,000 of his own money building a prototype, which he has used in the field for the last three years. He filed for a patent six years ago and the patent was granted a year ago. It cost him over $10,000 in lawyer fees and USPTO fees just to get the patent. He's paid almost $5K in initial marketing, but then the depression hit.

If a big ag tractor company were to use his technology in building their own tractors, they'd also file patents. In fact, they probably have submarine tractor patents with language so general it could be used to patent any tractor idea. (See Paul Graham - The Submarine). They'd stuff his ideas in a submarine patent that has been setting on the USTPO shelf for years before he started building his tractor and get it approved -- the USTPO rubber stamps any patent with the view that the courts will straighten things out, which is EXACTLY what the Ellisons and Gates of the world want. Then they sue him for using "their" IP, and do it with a straight face because most of these type have no soul.


BTW, for those of you who are not old enough to remember: Say you create a hardware-software application which has never been seen before. It is a pen-based user interface, with pen. It was neat. You called it "Go". You got your patents. It attracted lots of buzz. You lined up software development partners but struggled to deliver hardware and software on their intended schedule.

Bill Gates calls and talks about forming a "partnership" with you, but first he wants to be sure that your product is on the up and up. You agree, with visions of dollar signs sparkling in your eyes. Bill sends over his software engineers, who sign your NDAs and pour over your code with a fine-toothed comb and ... go back to their campus. Expecting to hear from Bill you set by your phone just anticipating the day the checks start rolling in. The call never comes. Flipping through the channels one evening you see the new Microsoft ad for "Pen Services"? Before your eyes is your "Go" technology, wearing Microsoft's branding. You've just had your Cherry picked.

Enraged, you sue Microsoft. After lots of legal filings, discovery and such it comes to nothing.
AFTER the fact the FTC "investigates" the affair but it also comes to nothing.

Microsoft picked so many cherries in the late 1980s and 1990 that individual software developers became afraid to develop new ideas in their market place for fear of them being stolen.

Microsoft isn't the only one. Apple is cherry-picking iStore apps that 3rd party developers are putting up for sale at the store AND FILING PATENTS on them! Google, the "Do No Evil" company, is apparently doing a little evil of its own with its patents and "neutral internet" under-the-table work.

[MoonRise]

Re: Good article on the broken patent system

Yep! Sad, sad, sad is what it is. I do agree that it does stifles innovation, not helps. People are afraid of getting sued by the big boys. Who could stand up to that? No one and the big boys know it. BROOOOOOKEN! That is what it is.