LeadSongDog writes
"A piece in yesterday's Forbes offers arguments on why not all 'Non-Practicing Entities' are 'Patent Trolls.' Comments here on such businesses are often critical. Is there a right way to trade in patents for profit without abusing the process?" From the article: "The Founders’ decision to foster non-practicing entities and patent licensing proved crucial to America’s rapid technological progress and economic growth. Patent records from the nineteenth century reveal that more than two-thirds of all the great inventors of the Industrial Revolution, including Thomas Edison and Elias Howe, were non-practicing entities who focused on invention and licensed some or all of their patents to others to develop into new products."
Re:Pretty much never ...
By tgd
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2013-Sep-18 14:29
• Score: 4, Informative
• Thread
I would go without the "if you didn't create it." I've yet to find a single patent case that wasn't trolling.
If you get your "news" from stories on Slashdot, that would make sense. All you see on here is the fringe ridiculous cases, and the high profile games played between multinational corporations using patent portfolios as pawns. The vast majority of patents do exactly what they're supposed to do, and the vast majority of patents are licensed fairly and appropriately.
Re:Thomas Edison
By ShanghaiBill
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2013-Sep-18 14:41
• Score: 5, Insightful
• Thread
Yeah, Edison profited off the research of his students, and everyone around him......a bad example to be used if they want to prove patents are useful.
And an even worse example if you want to show that NPEs are useful today. That fact that independent inventors were useful a century ago is irrelevant. They play very little role in modern innovation. Many companies refuse to even talk to independent inventors, because knowledge of their patents can expose the company to liability. What most NPEs do is sit on the patent and wait for someone to independently come up with the same innovation, and then demand payment. They are just parasites.
Re:Oh wow Forbes defends trolls what a surprise
By ShanghaiBill
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2013-Sep-18 14:47
• Score: 5, Insightful
• Thread
they just license the patents.
You make it sound like they hire a salesperson to go around and market their patent to potential customers. Or maybe you think the customers search for useful patents to license and then contact the inventor. Neither of these scenarios is common. What is common, is for the NPE to just sit on the patent, wait for someone to independently come up with the same innovation, and then demand payment. This is not contributing anything positive to the process.
Historical example of patents blocking competition
By amaurea
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2013-Sep-18 15:57
• Score: 3
• Thread
Patents slowing down progress by discouraging use and hindering competitors is not new, but has been going on since the beginning of the patent system. The beginning chapter of Against Intellectual Monopoly details the case of the steam engine, where progress in efficiency and adoption of the steam engine was effectively halted for the duration of Watt's patents, only to take off right after they expired.
Once Watt’s patents were secured and production started, a substantial portion of his energy was devoted to fending off rival inventors. In 1782, Watt secured an additional patent, made “necessary in consequence of ... having been so unfairly anticipated, by [Matthew] Wasborough in the crank motion.” More dramatically, in the 1790s, when the superior Hornblower engine was put into production, Boulton and Watt went after him with the full force of the legal system. During the period of Watt’s patents the U.K. added about 750 horsepower of steam engines per year. In the thirty years following Watt’s patents, additional horsepower was added at a rate of more than 4,000 per year. Moreover, the fuel efficiency of steam engines changed little during the period of Watt’s patent; while between 1810 and 1835 it is estimated to have increased by a factor of five. After the expiration of Watt’s patents, not only was there an explosion in the production and efficiency of engines, but steam power came into its own as the driving force of the industrial revolution. Over a thirty year period steam engines were modified and improved as crucial innovations such as the steam train, the steamboat and the steam jenny came into wide usage. The key innovation was the high-pressure steam engine – development of which had been blocked by Watt’s strategic use of his patent.
The above is just a short section, they go through the case very thoroughly (with references), and it is worth a read. Interestingly, the steam engine is often quoted by patent proponents as an example of patents working like they are supposed to.
After fixing bad patents
By Beryllium Sphere(tm)
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2013-Sep-18 16:00
• Score: 5, Interesting
• Thread
The next step to turning a "licensing organization" into a legitimate business is to have it advertise its portfolio, in a market analogous to Programmer's Paradise, rather than remain silent until ambushing real businesses with threatened litigation.
Imagine if you got ads instead of C&D letters! "We hear you're working on nails for building houses in hurricane-prone areas. We can save you tons of expensive R&D and get you to market quicker if you license our patent that documents the measurements and manufacturing process for Hurriquake® nails."