On Fri, 24 Feb 2012 14:17:28 -0600, Jon Elson
wrote:

Existential Angst wrote:

Case against patents:
http://www.tinaja.com/glib/casagpat.pdf
Lots more of this, as Lancaster is prolific, to say the least.

Whaddaya think? Certainly an original inneresting take, that I can find
nowhere else on the web.
Most of the search retrievals involved the ethics, constitutionality,
economic-growth-type implications, but not pure CYA effectivenss of the
patenting process.

Here or elsewhere, he does peg a kind of "break-even point" for a patent,
as $12 mil is sales -- if you expect to sell $12 mil worth of your
product,
then mebbe patent it. This was in 1993, tho.
Sure, it is from 1990, and if anything, he may be more right now
than when he wrote it. The patent system has been massively perverted
from its original intent by big corporations.

I did have one guy who had an interesting take on it, he used patent
applications so he could put "patent pending" on his company's
products. While the application was pending, there was a veil of secrecy
on it, and competitors had no idea WHAT in the design was being asked
for. So, if it was an electronic instrument, he'd apply for a patent
on an "innovative" bracket to hold a component, and then obfuscate and
appeal anything that came back from the PTO, to try to draw out the
process for as long as possible. Competitors might think the entire
instrument was the thing covered by the patent application, or so he
hoped.

Well that may have worked 20 years ago when patents were on paper and
someone had to go to the patent office, search though paper
records/index's and pay for copies. It doesn't anymore. They were
paying for the time and materials making the copy, a patent
application is public domain from the time it arrives at the patent
office. All patent applications whether published or not are available
free on line so the competitor just has to search for all patents by
that maker.

There's nothing stopping anyone putting a list of applicable but
expired patents on something. If the competitor isn't clever enough to
read the date on the patent it's their problem.
--
Peter Hill
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