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Re: Gates Patents Flipping a Light Switch
From: |
AES/newspost |
Subject: |
Re: Gates Patents Flipping a Light Switch |
Date: |
Tue, 29 Jun 2004 17:41:58 -0000 |
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MT-NewsWatcher/3.1 (PPC) |
In article <ca95kp$if5$1@reader2.panix.com>, NOSPAMdave@sebastian9.com
wrote:
> > Little guys might not be able to afford patents.
> > Does anyone have an idea how much it costs to get
> > a software invention patented?
>
> I attended a talk the other day on patents by the former
> corporate counsel of a software company. He mentioned
> a range of $7K-$60K to get each patent, but noted that
> it was probably going to cost at least $500K to fight or
> defend a patent in court. That's the more significant
I believe the Natl Academies are about to publish a report on needed
improvements (aka reforms) in the patent system that will cite similar
data -- from $10K to a few times $10K total costs to get a typical
patent, compared with at least $100K and normally many multiples of that
to fight or defend against a patent after issue.
I'll say once again that I find this situation really indefensible. For
on the order of $10K, and with no other real or potential downside to
you, you can get the government to issue you a license (meaning, in
effect, to write a kind of private law on your behalf) which
* gives you *no* new rights to use your own invention that you would
not already have had simply by publishing your idea;
* given the competence of the PTO, has a very substantial probability
of being an unjustified or invalid right;
* but which nonetheless, once issued, *takes away* from everyone else
the right to have or use the same idea, unless they're willing and able
to invest $100K and up -- potentially way up -- in an expensive and
highly uncertain fight just to try to get themselves back to the same
state they would have been in before your patent issued.
It's claimed this benefits society. I don't believe that as a matter of
fact it really does; the claimed "proofs" that it provides major
benefits to society are very dubious and undocumented; and even if it
does in some (a few?) cases provide some benefits, the costs and damages
to others in many other cases are highly indefensible.