Are We Going To Have Patents For Every Application Of RFID Technology?
from the this-is-non-obvious? dept
One of the problems with the patent system is that everyone seems to be getting patents these days for taking something out of one realm and simply moving it to a new one. That's why NTP was allowed to get a patent on making email wireless. Or Priceline was able to get a patent on reverse auctions online. Or MercExchange was able to get a patent on regular online auctions. The ideas are nothing special, but because you take a very common idea and move it to a new arena, suddenly the patent office has no problem saying that's innovative. This wouldn't be a problem if the USPTO had a real test for "obviousness" that wasn't just "prior art." The problem, though, is that now that everyone realizes this is how the USPTO functions (and the fact that getting these types of patents can be quite lucrative), it's only going to get worse. Take the RFID space for example. There are already plenty of patent battles over the core technology -- but now we're going to get patents for every possible application on RFIDs, basically making the technology too expensive to be useful. Look at consumer packaged goods company Kimberly Clark. That company has now been granted a patent on using RFIDs to determine how "fresh" a product is or if it's past its expiration date. This product is clearly a no brainer to just about anyone -- just read the patent. It's an obvious application that fits with exactly what RFIDs are designed for. So why is it patentable? If this keeps up, no one will actually be able to use RFIDs because it'll be too expensive to license each patent. It'll choke off the technology before it even gets started.
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Hey if it slows RFID usage that's a win
There was an article just today that in some cases pharmacies are or will be sending customers out the door with enabled radio-tagged medicine bottles. Great, just what people need: A way for someone to wirelessly, silently detect people passing by who have prescription narcotics or other controlled substances that would be an attractive target for theft, nevermind the invasion of privacy.
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Re: Hey if it slows RFID usage that's a win
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I disagree
I disagree that simply because there are a lot of patents on a given area of technology makes them "too expensive to be useful." As mentioned in previous posts, I used to be an Examiner at the PTO. The art that I examined was magnetic recording media, namely CD's, DVD's hard disk technology etc. There are literally thousands upon thousands of patents on various aspects of magnetic recording technology. Yet are CD's and DVD's "too expensive to be useful?" NO! The cost of magnetic storage is cents per gigabyte!
I predict that if RFID is as big a deal as everyone is making it out to be, the technology will follow a similar path as magentic media. Indeed, if there is profit to be made in an industry, it would be silly (and, lets not forget, stupid business practice) for the owners of these patents to whittle away all profitable aspects of the technology simply in a turf wart over who owns what rights to the technology.
In magnetic madia, the major manufacturers (and patent owners) actually crosslicense their patents to one another, thus enabling them to turn a tidy profit while providing consumers with a cheap high quality product. A blank statement that because a given technology is covered by a lot of patents it will be "too expensive to be useful" is, quite simply, a misnomer in many instances. Certainly, without presenting any evidentiary data, this statement is nothing more than conjecture.
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my patent
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Re: my patent
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Re: I disagree
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Re: I disagree
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Re: I disagree
There's a huge difference between RFID costs and CD/DVD costs that you discuss. For RFIDs to work, the scale is tremendous, because they need incredible economies of scale to bring the costs into line. Anything that adds to the cost could kill it. It's a huge part of the reason why RFIDs are not catching on right now. Adding more fees will make it worse.
Meanwhile, it's laughable to hear you say that owners of patents don't get involved in turf wars that destroy profitable ventures. Too many patent owners get greedy, and they often play for a "winner takes all" position, rather than one that gives the best overall result and guarantees a return. Take a look at UWB. Or 802.20. Or the OMA's DRM patent pool. Or any number of standards battles that were turf wars and only turf wars -- which completely destroyed any reasonable use of a technology. That's what happens when you're handing out gov't backed monopolies.
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Re: I disagree
Recordable CD's and DVD's are. Do your homework.
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Re: I disagree
I did not say that patent owners do not get into these types of turf wars, I said, "Indeed, if there is profit to be made in an industry, it would be silly (and, lets not forget, stupid business practice) for the owners of these patents to whittle away all profitable aspects of the technology simply in a turf war over who owns what rights to the technology."
In other words, good businessmen in any area of technology should realize that there is more benefit to cooperation in certain instances where all parties can reap a profit then to burn up all of the potentially profitable aspects of a given technology. As I have illustrated, this has occurred in at least one area of technology, namely recording media.
"For RFIDs to work, the scale is tremendous, because they need incredible economies of scale to bring the costs into line."
And CDs/DVDs did not require tremendous economies of scale to bring them to market? Hah! How many CD's and DVD's are in existence now? Hundreds of millions? Billions? They certainly were not all made 1x1 by some guy in his garage. They had to be mass produced to be profitable.
"It's a huge part of the reason why RFIDs are not catching on right now. Adding more fees will make it worse."
I don't agree with you here. I think that a large part of the reason RFID's have not taken off is because a large number of consumers, and in particular American consumers, do not want every aspect of their life to be trackable and/or recordable. RFID, while having the potential to gice the public a huge benefit, is also perceived by many as simply another "big brother" device that the government or a corporation may use to intrude on the privacy of their everyday lives.
"Or any number of standards battles that were turf wars and only turf wars -- which completely destroyed any reasonable use of a technology."
In some ways I agree with you here, especially in terms of recording standards etc... But recording standards are, in my mind, a speciallized circumstance where uniformity of technology is better then diversity because it unifies the market as to a given product. Few people want to be concerned with whether their DVD player will play a certain DVD they just bought because of format concerns (Remember the late 90's when this actually was a concern?). Turf wars over these types of standards actually are economically beneficial to society in many ways. The major cost is not really to society, but to the firms seeking to promote their given standard. OK, sure, some legit uses of technology (i.e. Betamax) get sent to the wayside, but its not as though the alternatives are necessarily worse or a failure in the market.
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Re: I disagree
Recordable CD's and DVD's are. Do your homework.
My GOD! If the USPTO hired someone who actually believes that then it's no wonder our patent system is so screwed up!
Recordable CDs and DVDs consist of a dye layer that is burned with a laser! There is no magnetic media involved. The closest you'll come is magneto-optical media which hardly anyone uses and would be hard to confuse with traditional recordable CDs and DVDs.
Patentman - do yourself a favor, fact check yourself before you make yourself look like a bigger fool.
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Re: I disagree
Um, NO, they're not. Recordable CD-R's use a dye layer that is vaporized by the recording laser, creating pits similar to the pits pressed by manufactured CD's. CD-RW's use a state-shifting material that changes refectivity by the recording laser, simulating pits though none exist. Do your homework.
Hey, fellas, I think we may have found exactly what the freaking problem with the USPTO is. If this is patent reviewer is the standard model on what gets passed and what doesn't, no wonder the whole system is buggered.
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Re: I disagree
Addendum: recordable DVD's work largely the same way, so NO, they're not magnetic, either.
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Re: I disagree
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I've Patented Blogs
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Re: I've Patented Blogs
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Re: I've Patented Blogs
Don't think I don't have people not watching what you aren't doing just to not tell me about it. (I also have a patent on penta-negatives.)
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Re: I disagree
This is flat-out incorrect. I can say this with certainty, because it's one of the areas where we have many customers and are constantly researching. A lot of what we've been doing, actually, is telling these firms about the privacy fears, because that's THE LAST THING on their minds. The real issue is the cost of implementing RFIDs, which are cheap, but when every company needs them in everything (and, yes, the scale goes WAY beyond recordable media) it adds up. It's almost entirely a cost/benefit equation right now, and the privacy issue isn't just secondary, it's barely making a blip (something we've been trying to change, because we do think it will present an unforeseen cost -- but, most companies who are considering RFIDs honestly have no clue about the privacy stuff).
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