Phil’s Diary - [Blog @ http://www.philsdiary.net/]
The register has recently covered some bizarre examples of recent IT patents. One deals with User Preference files and another with things like the Recycle Bin.
Is the world mad? As I understand it the point of a patent is reasonably simple. It’s to allow (for a limited period) an inventor to profit from their invention. It’s there so that the small one-man band that invents something fancy doesn’t suddenly find it copied by everyone and his dog, and so make no money on it. The result should be to encourage invention (in our highly materialistic world, through the chance of making big bucks).
But these examples seem to have that all backwards. Firstly the things being patented aren’t new at all. They’re old old inventions/ideas that have proliferated far and wide. And secondly in these instances it seems reasonably questionable as to whether the inventor was really the person filing the patent claim.
What this really is, I think, is blatant profiteering. Spot something lots of people use, make sure it’s not patented, patent it, and then license it to everyone who’s already using it and make shed loads of money on it.
Does that really fit with the original purpose of patents? I don’t think it really does. It’s big business profiting from something that was already invented a while back and already widely used. It’s not encouraging invention at all, it’s just making a few companies a bit richer (and some lawyers too).
But how do you stop this? The simplest way that springs to mind is to put a time limit on patenting of inventions. Suppose we put an arbitrary limit on how long ago something was invented. Then it would be down to the patent office to check that there were no previous examples of the invention (already the case). This would mean one of two things, fist that most inventions would be filed at, or close to the time of invention. This would stop the problem of a company grabbing a patent for something that’s been in widespread use for years. Great. The other alternative is that the invention may be kept secret for a few years, and then patented (after all, if it’s secret the patent office will find it impossible to prove it already existed), this has the same effect, after all something can’t become widespread and stay secret.
Another alternative that sprang to mind was to only allow the inventor (as an individual) to patent an item. Straight away this will stop the larger firms from patenting items that are already in use. I guess the chances of an individual trying and or having the resources to do it are slim/none. This would also encourage a company to keep on, and pay well someone who invented something while they worked for the company. Again this would encourage invention and innovation.
These of course are just ideas, and I’m pretty sure that there are some pretty big flaws in them that I’ve not seen.
Posted by Phil on March 07, 2003 07:06 AM | Categories: Thoughts