Twitter’s Surprising Solution to the Patent Problem: Let Employees Control Them

Re:Twitter’s Surprising Solution to the Patent Problem: Let ... by mcfunley on Thursday February 21, 2013 @02:30PM (#5259578)

What stops the employee and the inventors from just agreeing to use the patent offensively? And if they can do that then what stops the company from just compelling the employee to agree?

I know the IPA says they have to obtain the permission "without additional consideration or threat," but I don't get how that's practical when companies can fire employees for any damn reason they like in practice.

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Re:Twitter’s Surprising Solution to the Patent Problem: Let ... by tkellogg on Thursday February 21, 2013 @02:42PM (#5259698)

It creates barriers to use patents offensively. I'd guess that relatively few offensive patent litigations are initiated by the company that created them. Of those, very few of the inventors would agree to offensive usage. The only way that I can see to convince inventors to use patents offensively would be if they got a significant cut from the litigation proceeds. This cuts down on the appeal of an offensive litigation.

So no, it's not perfect. It uses incentives to control abuses. Even though it's not perfect, I still like it's simplicity.

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Re:Twitter’s Surprising Solution to the Patent Problem: Let ... by ZeroGravitas on Thursday February 21, 2013 @05:13PM (#5260861)

Couldn't the defendant offer to pay off the employee at, presumably, a lower amount than the company is asking (particularly if they pull the import embargo stunt).

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