Patents and Jobs

Mark Cuban is right: patents hurt companies and hiring. I suspect patents currently negatively impact our economy much more than 20% plus of our GDP going to taxes. Patents are supposed to be about creating incentive for research and development thereby making the world a better place for everyone and publicly documenting the invention so it's available for anyone to produce once the government granted monopoly runs out. Too often that is not what they do anymore...

"Patent trolls" are companies whose sole purpose is to acquire ownership of patents and "monitize" them either via licensing agreement or lawsuit. Legitimate companies that actually produce useful things are spending tons on lawyer hours and payoffs to defend themselves against these vampires. Money that could go toward hiring people, producing more stuff, inventing better stuff or just paying out bigger profits.

Even normal companies that do actually invent, create, and/or sell stuff use patents patents as weapons. These weapons are used for both aggressive and defensive business strategies. For example, technology in Google's Android phone platform is under attack by both Google and Microsoft right now. Google just bid on a bunch of patents from Nortel for 900 million dollars.

Monsanto is totally abusive in using the courts to crush farmers who don't want to pay for waht they don't want.. Others are doing the same evil but not on as large a scale. Monsanto has successfully prosecuted a farmer because the farmer's corn was cross pollinated by wind/bees/whatever carrying genetic information from neighboring fields. That's right, he didn't plant monsanto corn but the next generation included monsanto genes when he planted his own seeds. Pretty absurd.

A few general observations from my perspective:

* The processes software defines are also expressible in mathematics. They, like any process, shouldn't be patentable.

* Software is a work of art. We already have a protection for that, it's called copyright.

* Living things should not be patentable. Seriously. Congratulations on your discovery. However, it was already there. It was invented by evolutionary pressure and/or God. Think this isn't a big deal? Just wait until the first court case where someone can't sell puppies or cows or bees. And what happens when someone isn't allowed to have children or has to pay royalties on their children because they were treated with a patented gene replacement therapy?

* Someone who holds a patent has a monopoly they can choose not to use. They are used to continue business models that should go out of business. Think about the oil companies allegedly buying fuel efficiency patents to make sure they don't get used.

* They are used and abused limiting supply in order to raise prices. Think about pharma selling new life-saving medications at high high prices and low volume. That's the most controversial example but there are others.

* Patents and the general class of laws called "intellectual property" are one place where the developed world is allowing laws and law enforcement to act across international boundaries. It weakens the sovereignty of all countries to join these treaties.


A few theoretical solutions:

* Make process patenting out of bounds. Invalidate all prior process patents.

* Add abandonment to patent law. If the product the patent covers isn't available at market for two years after initially offered or within five years of the patent grant date then terminate the patent allowing anyone to produce the covered invention.

* Patents should cover inventions not discoveries. Or, at least, if your patented item self propagates, your patent rights only cover the first generation.

* Pick a protection class. A patented thing shouldn't be copyrightable and vice-versa.

Perhaps if congress would take up reforming this broken system we could get some people back to work in this country. Sure, there would be severe disruptions in the patent troll business model as well as businesses who use patents as weapons. You know what? I'm OK with that. If done right the abusers who are the drag on the economy would cease to exist and companies producing invented items covered by patents would chug along unimpacted. Patents should make the world a better place in the now and in the future as was originally intended.