Patent Nonsense
from the i-should-patent-the-combination-of-tech-and-dirt dept
A column in the SJ Merc about one of my favorite subjects: the ridiculousness of business model patents. Everyone in the valley seems to be getting these patents for no other reasons than (1) everyone else is doing it and (2) PR value of saying you have a patent. In almost all cases these patents should not be issued. They are not particularly new or novel ideas, and all they do is cause problems for other companies in the long run. They certainly don't server their purpose of encouraging new inventions. When are we going to reform our patent process?
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
a third reason for getting patents
filing for patents like there's no tomorrow
is that there's a lot of money to be made
from suing people over patent infringement.
I remember an article on a similar web site
a few weeks back discussing a company that seemed to have no other purpose other than to file patents and then wait to sue other companies
who actually implemented similar ideas...
Personally, I think this whole business of patenting mathematical formulas and algorithms (like RSA did a few years back for cryptography) and registering/copyrighting plain English words
and phrases (like AOL just tried to do with "Buddy List" and "You've Got Mail") is not only stupid, but (like you said) hurts other businesses AND THE INDUSTRY AS A WHOLE (including consumers) in the long run...
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: a third reason for getting patents
[ link to this | view in thread ]