Empirical Evidence Of Just How Much Patent Trolling Hinders Innovation
from the the-evidence-keeps-rolling-in dept
Over at Slate, Ray Fisman has an excellent article discussing some recent research on how patent trolling hinders innovation. Much of the story focuses on the research of Catherine Tucker at MIT, which looked specifically at patent trolling in medical imaging, and presents incredibly compelling evidence of just how massively innovation is hindered in that space, thanks mainly to patent trolling by famed patent trolling giant, Acacia. To account for other possibilities, she compared both medical imaging storage and medical text storage systems. Both types of software are similarly complex, and many of the first sued produce both kinds of software -- but the patent lawsuit here only impacted the imaging side of the business. But the results were clear:So why the sharp drop? Basically, the companies that were sued stopped innovating. As Fisman summarizes:
Why the slowdown in sales? Imagine what would happen to iPhone sales if Apple’s last product was its 3G phone introduced in 2009: Android-based devices would be running away with the market. Tucker claims that at least part of the reason imaging software sales were slowed by the Acacia suit is that R&D at the affected companies went into a deep freeze. In the two years following the suit, none of the defendants came out with a single new version of their products, while improvements continued in their text-based systems and at smaller competitors not subject to the suit.One of the most difficult things about discussing how the pace of innovation is held back is the difficult of showing what doesn't happen. We get this all the time, where people who can't understand the difference between absolute changes and the rate of change, insist that because there is still innovation in a market, that innovation hasn't been hindered. Of course, that's ridiculous. No one is saying that all innovation ceases. The concern is merely with the rate of change: the pace of innovation, and how it may be slower than would otherwise be seen. The difficulty, of course is in how do you show what would have been? That's the most challenging part. But this study does a really nice job of showing how innovation in the space slowed down massively just after the lawsuits, when there's almost no other explanation for how that might have happened. It's an incredibly damning report against patent trolls and how they hinder innovation.
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Filed Under: innovation, medical imaging, patent troll, software
Companies: acacia
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You definitely want to extrapolate that as much as your faith will allow, and then spin three times while chanting: "The sky is falling!" It's the TD Mantra!
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That's the MPAA and RIAA's mantra.
Do you want to get sued for copyright infringement?!
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The article points out how the R&D(Research and Development, or people who make stuff, think Santa's elves) was pretty much forced to stopped because some one decided that working was to hard and it was just easier to force the Government to give them money for their incompetence.
Sorry for all the big words. Hopefully once you get to Elementary School a nice and patient teacher will explain them to you.
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Patents are, by definition, a limit on progress.
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Re: You definitely want to extrapolate that as much as your faith will allow, and then spin three times while chanting: "The sky is falling!" It's the TD Mantra!
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How can companies that didn't invent something, don't make it, and don't sell it but can stop those who because they have a piece of paper help innovation?
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Government established monopolies cause known economic harm. They reduce aggregate output and increase prices. Consumers are harmed. No one is entitled to a government established monopoly. As such, they need to be justified with empirical evidence. Your faith in their justification is not sufficient. Their current lack of justification warrants their abolition.
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Response to: Mobile Phones on Apr 11th, 2012 @ 3:02pm
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They wouldn't, only the selfish bastards that can see past their noses believe granted monopolies are a good thing and that is because they are so stupid they don't see that it also harms them in the long run, without employment there is no market with no market or economic activity economic leverage against other countries also is reduced.
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This is not Movies, et al, What are other possibilities?
I do think patents are not fulfilling their promise, as in benefiting the general public, so I am not denying the results of the study. I wonder if it tells the whole story.
I remember one of the arguments for rising health care costs was the move for every hospital to buy MRI machines and etc. in order to remain competitive. Then it was realized that there were not only more MRI machines than there was demand, but they were poorly disbursed.
There is also the argument that the medical/caide methodology is fee for service, rather than getting paid for actual results. This increases, artificially, the demand for images that don't actually help, but do drive up the costs, and the demand for machines.
So, I wonder how much of the decline in demand for such devices is actually due to saturation, and not just patents? Or, is the medical industry realizing that gouging fees from the government is not such a great idea?
We need to know more about this market, like we know more about movies and music and books.
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Re: This is not Movies, et al, What are other possibilities?
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Re: This is not Movies, et al, What are other possibilities?
As stated in the post, she controlled for that by looking at the number of RFPs, and showed that demand increased. So, no, it does not appear that it had anything to do with a decline in demand.
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Patent's were supposed to encourage R&D.....
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Re: Patent's were supposed to encourage R&D.....
Nope that is not a legitimate reason, if it was lawyers would get protection, food chefs would get protections, carpenters would get protections.
Copying is part of what the human race is all about, we see, we copy and we adapt, it doesn't matter that you expend your whole life doing something, it doesn't matter how much you expend on it or how much emotionally invested you are in that thing, nobody should be able to tell others what, when or where to use something or ideas just out of commercial interests it has to have a negative impact on others somehow, some health, safety concerns involved to justify the exclusion of everybody else from that, else it is just wrong to ask everybody else to involuntarily surrender their own rights so another person would benefit or ask that society create less opportunities to others so one person or entity could benefit from it and not the rest.
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Re: "Nope that is not a legitimate reason,"
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Re: Re: "Nope that is not a legitimate reason,"
There'd still be problems with the number of patents and stuff, but that one problem would be solved.
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Corporate innovation
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