Thursday 15 March 2012

Reform patents for the modern world

I've blogged about this before I know, but this article outlining how a patent troll is now exhorting taxpayers' money from US transit authorities really shows how broken the patent system is, especially in the USA but also elsewhere.

So, here are my three proposals to make it better. I'm sure no one will act on any of them, but it makes me feel better to post them online!

1. Exclude Patent Trolls
This is the most important, and will stop people buying up patents cheaply (from liquidations for example) and then making money off them without contributing anything to the wider economy. The way to do it is that if you create a new patent, you have 3 years to bring a product to market before the patent lapses. If you buy a patent from someone else, you have 18 months. If you bought the patent then you cannot claim compensation for patent infringement until you have brought a product to market.

This would still protect innovators by giving them ample time to bring a product to market to validate their patent, but immediately shut out those who only have patents for the purposes of extracting money from others.

2. Narrow the scope of what can be patented
You should not be able to patent an idea, only a way of implementing it. Or to put it another way, you should only be able to patent algorithms or mechanical/technical solutions, not the way they might look. So Amazon would not be able to patent one-click purchases per se, only the way of implementing them. But Dyson would be able to patent its cyclone technology. It would also prevent the ridiculous situation like where one of the biggest beneficiaries of the success of Android smartphones is Microsoft, due to patent claims, despite their historical hostility to and attempts to undermine its Linux/open source foundations.

3. Put a limit on the revenue you can generate from a patent before it becomes unenforceable
This is probably more controversial and difficult to implement, but my argument is that a company of the size of Apple or Samsung should be competing on its ability to innovate and produce designs that consumers want quicker then it's competitors, and that it should not be able to lock others out because it has a patent for a rectangular computing device based on touch input. The patent wars these companies fight mean higher prices for consumers and they make it much harder for smaller companies to enter the market.

Anyone really have any objections to this? I think the only people who stand to lose are intellectual property lawyers and patent trolls.

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