US Patent Office proposes rule to make it much harder to kill bad patents

Re:US Patent Office proposes rule to make it much harder to ... by amelius on Monday June 12, 2023 @06:18PM (#36302080)

It's not the same because a patent is a time-limited monopoly on a technology. This means that patents can be used to block the progress of other companies.

E.g. if A patents X and some large company B wants to use X and A refuses, then B cannot use X even if they offer millions.

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Re:US Patent Office proposes rule to make it much harder to ... by hodgesrm on Monday June 12, 2023 @09:21PM (#36303882)

You are also right. I was responding to this. (Italics mine)

> Like, if the government (or anybody, really) wants an invention to be open,

The government literally does want inventions to be open. It's in Article 1, Section 8, Clause 8 of the constitution. [0]

  [The Congress shall have Power . . . ] To promote the Progress of Science and 
  useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the 
  exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.

[0] https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/artI-S8-C8-1/...

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Re:US Patent Office proposes rule to make it much harder to ... by sirclueless on Monday June 12, 2023 @10:21PM (#36304332)

> E.g. if A patents X and some large company B wants to use X and A refuses, then B cannot use X even if they offer millions.

How does this situation improve in any way if X is a trade secret? Under what circumstance would company A be willing to accept payment to make X open, but not willing to license X as a protected patent?

It sounds like you'd be in exactly the same situation except that there would be a massive collective action problem trying to figure out how much the world should pay A to make the invention open and who should pay it, and also A and B would have multi-million-dollar incentives to engage in corporate espionage and counter-espionage that achieves no progress.

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