Re:USPTO likely to adopt 'peer-to-patent' (Feb 2010)
by SkyMarshal on Tuesday October 12, 2010 @08:22PM
(#1785532)
Yeah, Amazon 1-click was the public start of the insanity. Peer-to-Patent formalization just can't come fast enough, it's a great idea.
And under this framework, difficult to derive implies a need for patent protection, in order to prevent one entity from piggybacking off the derivation work and investment of another. But difficult to implement implies a lack of need for patent protection due to an implementation moat/barrier. Combine the two, and it gets into gray areas.
I used the LHC as an extreme example, but I can imagine other less extreme examples of #4 where the patentability is not so clear. Say, quantum processors - lots of time and research is going into deriving them, and they certainly won't be easy or cheap to produce, but the payoff may mitigate the implementation/production cost and be particularly attractive to some company looking to piggyback off the derivation work/expense of another.
And under this framework, difficult to derive implies a need for patent protection, in order to prevent one entity from piggybacking off the derivation work and investment of another. But difficult to implement implies a lack of need for patent protection due to an implementation moat/barrier. Combine the two, and it gets into gray areas.
I used the LHC as an extreme example, but I can imagine other less extreme examples of #4 where the patentability is not so clear. Say, quantum processors - lots of time and research is going into deriving them, and they certainly won't be easy or cheap to produce, but the payoff may mitigate the implementation/production cost and be particularly attractive to some company looking to piggyback off the derivation work/expense of another.