Last Chance To Help With Some Research On The Impact Of Patent Trolls

from the go-for-it dept

A few weeks ago, we wrote about some research being done by Colleen Chien, a law professor, concerning the impact of patent trolls on startups and tech companies. If you represent a tech company which has had to deal with patent trolls, please take a few minutes to answer these survey questions. The research results that come out of this should be quite helpful in understanding the impact of trolls on innovative startups.
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Filed Under: companies, innovation, patent trolls, patents, research


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  • icon
    Forest_GS (profile), 13 Aug 2012 @ 5:45pm

    The Smash Bros games are great, imagine if it would be possible to have any character from any game, book, movie, etc.

    There was one game similar to Smash Bros released only in Japan for the DS. It had characters that would be impossible to license in the USA, just for the fact that the game had some other characters.
    I think it was called Jump Superstars...

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Jim B., 13 Aug 2012 @ 5:54pm

    Why so little time?

    This should be a year long evaluation with submissions not some week long effort that is akin more to pandering to the crowd.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Donnicton, 13 Aug 2012 @ 6:32pm

    I hope she touches on why Patents are even transferable. I don't recall the purchaser having anything to do with the invention or innovation of that particular product, why should they suddenly be able to adopt monopoly status just pulling out their wallet?

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 13 Aug 2012 @ 8:19pm

      Re:

      That is one of the standard defences of the patent system. The theory is that if inventors can sell their patents, then that is the only way for inventors, who do not have deep enough pockets to engage in patent litigation, to profit from their inventions, thereby helping those inventors to keep on inventing. That argument is actually sound. However, it does not address the biggest problem of the patent system, the low quality of nearly all patents, that is, the junk patent problem.

      The patent system cannot be defeated by focusing on bits of it which are not broken, such as the ability to buy and sell patents. Pay attention to the real problems.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

      • identicon
        Donnicton, 13 Aug 2012 @ 8:26pm

        Re: Re:

        That's why I said "touches on", not "makes central to the entire discussion", as you seem to have read out of it.

        link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 14 Aug 2012 @ 2:57am

    understanding the impact isn't going to make things any different, let alone any better. the only way to improve the situation is to get the duly elected politicians to act in the proper manner, to curb the practice and rewrite the law completely, along with the copyright and patent laws, so they do what they are supposed to do, not what they do at the moment!

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    shawnhcorey (profile), 14 Aug 2012 @ 6:19am

    Why do they need a poll? All patent laws should be nullified. No more patents; it's that simple.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    staff, 14 Aug 2012 @ 7:21am

    more dissembling by Masnick

    Masnick and his monkeys have an unreported conflict of interest-
    https://www.insightcommunity.com/cases.php?n=10&pg=1

    They sell blog filler and "insights" to major corporations including MS, HP, IBM etc. who just happen to be some of the world’s most frequent patent suit defendants. Obviously, he has failed to report his conflicts as any reputable reporter would. But then Masnick and his monkeys are not reporters. They are patent system saboteurs receiving funding from huge corporate infringers. They cannot be trusted and have no credibility. All they know about patents is they don’t have any.

    “Patent troll”

    Call it what you will...patent hoarder, patent troll, non-practicing entity, shell company, etc. It all means one thing: “we’re using your invention and we’re not going to pay or stop”. This is just dissembling by large invention thieves and their paid puppets to kill any inventor support system. It is purely about legalizing theft. The fact is, many of the large multinationals and their puppets who defame inventors in this way themselves make no products in the US or create any American jobs and it is their continued blatant theft which makes it impossible for the true creators to do so.

    It’s about property rights. They should not only be for the rich and powerful. Show me a country with weak or ineffective property rights and I’ll show you a weak economy and high unemployment.

    Prior to eBay v Mercexchange, small entities had a viable chance at commercializing their inventions. If the defendant was found guilty, an injunction was most always issued. Then the inventor small entity could enjoy the exclusive use of his invention in commercializing it. Unfortunately, injunctions are often no longer available to small entity inventors because of the Supreme Court decision so we have no fair chance to compete with much larger entities who are now free to use our inventions. Essentially, large infringers now have your gun and all the bullets. Worse yet, inability to commercialize means those same small entities will not be hiring new employees to roll out their products and services. And now some of those same parties who killed injunctions for small entities and thus blocked their chance at commercializing now complain that small entity inventors are not commercializing. They created the problem and now they want to blame small entities for it. What dissembling! If you don’t like this state of affairs (your unemployment is running out), tell your Congress member. Then maybe we can get some sense back in the patent system with injunctions fully enforceable on all infringers by all inventors, large and small.

    Those wishing to help fight big business giveaways should contact us as below and join the fight as we are building a network of inventors and other stakeholders to lobby Congress to restore property rights for all patent owners -large and small.

    For the truth about trolls, please see http://truereform.piausa.org/default.html#pt.

    link to this | view in chronology ]


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