Re:Patent Troll Myths
by EGreg on Tuesday September 06, 2011 @11:15AM
(#2965856)
I think this patent law professor is an important voice, but once again my point is simple. Patents are NOT needed in the software industry to promote what is already a very fast moving environment. I prove this by showing something that is plain to everyone who is familiar with how tech companies work: they base their technology on incremental innovations, internal research, or open source. They do NOT read patent disclosures. We do not need to give out 20 year monopolies to incentivize patent disclosures by "inventors" to the public, because no one cares about these disclosures!!
The relevant numbers would be the proportion of companies that public patent disclosures have helped. For example, how many people were helped by Google publishing their PageRank algorithm (in its "best form")? Probably some were helped, but not a lot. And this is one of the BIGGEST and most HELPFUL examples of patents. How many were helped by amazon's 1-click patent disclosure? I am willing to bet maybe ZERO people were actually helped because by the time it was asserted, it was OBVIOUS to everyone who made the technology.
The relevant numbers would be the proportion of companies that public patent disclosures have helped. For example, how many people were helped by Google publishing their PageRank algorithm (in its "best form")? Probably some were helped, but not a lot. And this is one of the BIGGEST and most HELPFUL examples of patents. How many were helped by amazon's 1-click patent disclosure? I am willing to bet maybe ZERO people were actually helped because by the time it was asserted, it was OBVIOUS to everyone who made the technology.