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Business ripping off inventors
Posted on Wednesday, April 21, 2004 @ 20:37:49 UTC by vlad
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Vencislav Bujic writes (free_energy yahoo group): This is a way of allowing big business ripping off the original inventor by stealing his idea and patenting it first. Since businesses have huge amounts of money, they can get a patent faster than an individual inventor. It's just another case of big business figuring out a way to literally steal from the little guy:
"Panel Urges Changes in U.S. Patent Process
Mon Apr 19, 3:05 PM
WASHINGTON - The United States should grant patents to the first person to file to protect an invention, not necessarily the first to invent it, a research panel said Monday.
The National Research Council (news - web sites) also urged that some research use of patented inventions be permitted without fear of patent infringement lawsuits.
The council said the government should move to improve the flexibility and openness of the Patent and Trademark Office..."
Read the whole article here:
http://story.news.yahoo.com
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Re: Business ripping off inventors (Score: 1)
by vlad on Thursday, April 22, 2004 @ 11:11:01 UTC
(User Info | Send a Message) http://www.zpenergy.com | Comments from the yahoo free-energy list:
Message:
Date: Wed, 21 Apr 2004 11:41:03 -0000
From: "Bob Lerwill"
Subject: Business working with inventors to produce useful products
The first patent law in Europe was made in 1474 in Venice. It is clear from the wording of the law that it was the person who made the invention public who should get the rights, not the inventor. The purpose of all early patent laws was to encourage people to make public inventions they had seen in other countries. Patents were always intended to benefit the publisher, not the inventor. The USA has been on its own in having patent law (dating from as late as 1790) that tries to benefit the inventor.
It is a fundamental principle of patent law that ideas cannot be patented.
Now I am not saying that this is the way things ought to be, but there is a good case for saying that the inventor should not benefit as much as the developer. True that there is mental effort involved in coming up with the idea, but there is often much greater effort required to turn the idea into a practical and saleable product. You need to establish the need, design the product and most importantly of all, make sure it is safe. One area where patent law has greatly encouraged invention is in the area of pharmaceutics, but finding the cure for baldness, for example, is not nearly so troublesome as demonstrating it is safe to use. It is the development that needs protection more than the invention.
I am a professional inventor. In my work, I see some use for patents, but not a lot. In the real world, a lone inventor patenting an invention is usually wasting his money. If the invention is really good, it will get copied by a big company and the small inventor will not be able to afford to pursue the matter through the courts. If the invention offers little advantage, he is better off just going ahead and building it without patent protection. That way he gets to keep it secret. I have several inventions: some are patented, some are not. All my royalty income comes from the unpatented inventions. I do my best to keep the mechanisms secret. Even if you got hold of the finished product, you would be hard put to find out how it works.
Of course none of this applies to perpetual motion machines, should they ever be invented, for various reasons. But it would be unrealistic to expect that patent law just happened to serve the needs of the inventor in this special case.
Bob Lerwill
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For some more information about why patents usually don't work for most "inventors" try www.tinaja.com Don Lancaster has written some technical articles about electronics, energy, and patents. Avoid any of those "patent development" companies that promise to promote your patent for a fee. The name "inventor" is almost like "sucker" to them.
VCRepair
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Patent Litigation: The Sport of Kings (Score: 1)
by vlad on Friday, April 30, 2004 @ 15:51:11 UTC
(User Info | Send a Message) http://www.zpenergy.com | Patent litigation is a growth industry. During the twelve-month period ending September 9, 2003, U.S. patent owners filed 2,788 patent infringement lawsuits, a 13 percent increase over the same period five years earlier. Similarly, in 2003 the United States issued 187,487 patents, a 22 percent increase over 1999. Indeed, patent litigation has become the sport of kings. Sure, there are staggering legal fees and the risk of a company imploding. But Douglas J. Kline, a leading patent litigator, says that patent lawsuits are not as bad as you think.
www.technologyreview.com
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